Guide to Sales Reports

Sales Analyzes are extremely important as they can help executives assess information about the company’s standing in the marketplace, customer preferences and many other things. There are many factors that make a sales report great, and it’s not just information, but how relevant the information is, as well as how you present it.

Sales managers use sales reports for strategic decision making and also to analyze performance of the sale team and the company in general. Progress towards goals both individually and as a team are important for proper management. Information can also be used by top level executives for planning new product development, forecasting for the business as well as any growth plans for the company.

Therefore, it is very important that the information presented, is relevant and measurable. Of course, specific measures depend on the industry you are operating in, what the current goals are for the company, or. the general purpose of that specific report.

Let’s discuss some key metrics that could potentially be relevant to your sales team:

Sales Reports Example: Review of sales actuals

A general metric you want to track is how close is the sales team towards the goal. What are the necessary quotas for each individual on the team, as well as the goal for the entire team? Providing the information in both dollars amounts as well as percentages would be recommended. Include any additional information that may explain the progress thus far or any issues preventing the goal from being achieved.

Sales forecast for the next period

Whether you are tracking monthly or quarterly, there should be some general forecast updating. If the company sets the forecast for the year, sometimes the previous month’s or quarter’s actual sales may urge a more precise forecast for the coming period.

Lead generated by goal

Lead generation is one of the biggest funnels for sales. Tracking with sales reports how close the team is to achieving the goal is important to identify strategies for securing leads, whether new products from current distributors/channel partners or new distributors/channel partners.

Leads generated by channel

It is important for strategic plans to assess what channel the leads are being generated from. Is the team using various online or offline channels used to create leads?

Sales management software is a great tool to assist in tracking these sales data points. Don’t spend hours trying to track all these numbers manually.

Now that you have some of the metrics for your sales report down, let’s talk about presentation! These same software tools can help present the data in visually pleasing ways that make it easy to understand and glean key information from. This often uses a lot of diagrams, charts and graphs.

However, what are some key points to the formatting of sales reports itself?

• Cover Page – all you need is something simple, attractive, relevant for the topic

• Monthly Sales Summary – having an overview is important to assess what the sales were that month and how it was achieved.

• Sales Team Performance – each rep should have some kind of evaluation as well as the overall team performance compared to its goals.

• Marketing Channel Overview – which leads drove which number of sales, this can help identify trends which can be helpful for future forecasting

• Takeaways – lessons learnt and any ideas for the future are a helpful way to sum up the report.

Now that you have some tips up your sleeve, you can do little things to improve your sales reports and make them more meaningful!

#sales #reporting #automation #SalesDatabase