Many people seem to consider sales to be black magic.
I have been in many meetings with executive management where the words “art”, “unique”, or “special” have been used to explain why sales is different from other business units in their collection, use, or reporting of data. They cared about the results. The units sold, revenue booked, or new clients added were the focus. How they got there was the special magic uniqueness that just “couldn’t be measured.”
All of those people are missing something.
Sales is a business process like any other.
If you aren’t tracking leading indicators in your sales group as well as the outcomes like total revenue and close rates, you’re likely missing something.
Sales people are business people just like their teammates in software development, operations, and — yes— even finance. (I don’t know which group is more offended by this claim, finance or sales.) They should be asked to report their process like everyone else. Indeed, I bet that the majority of the sales team is already tracking all kinds of indicators that should be adopted by your business into a potential sales analytics process.
The sales team likely already has a tonne of metrics you just don’t see.
Sales people are professionals, they already most likely have a hold of tracking their calls, meetings, proposals, and contracts. It’s probably even in a CRM.
Getting that data into your management discussions is the next step.
