Increase Revenue with Sales Reporting & Analytics

Analyzing sales data is key to maximizing revenue and fulfilling customer needs in this increasingly competitive B2B world.

With a well-designed strategy you can deliver a dramatic increase in sales and profit by enabling your company to make quick and informed decisions based on historical information.

The following are some ways you can triumph in your field by using sales reporting and analytics.

Sell More to Existing Customers

According to the book, Marketing Metrics, there is a 60-70% chance of selling products to existing customers, while the probability of landing a new customer is only 5-20%.

If you are looking for an increase in revenue, a great place to start is by targeting current customers for up-selling and cross-selling products that you think you could also fulfill their needs. By inspecting purchasing patterns of all segments of your customer base, you can develop personalized recommendations for what your customers should buy next.

Use sales data from similar customers to identify these opportunities and grow overall business.

Forecast Sales Accurately

Reporting and analysis can give you a realistic picture of how the products you offer should perform during a certain period of time. With data-driven sales predictions, owners and sales managers can allocate the necessary resources to assist their teams more efficiently in reaching their goals.

An accurate sales forecast can play a major role in important business decisions, such as hiring, inventory management, and product launches or promotions.

Manage Your Team Efficiently

The best sales leaders understand that selling is a process. Through sales report tracking, you can discover trends in your team’s performance to find areas for improvement.

• How well are reps handling specific customers, or types of accounts?
• How much activity/interaction is there before a deal closes?
• How long are deals in the pipeline, and where do they get held up?
• What is the average deal size and conversion rate?

By having access to this type of critical information you can set and track attainable goals, assigning clear key performance indicators to review with your team.

Improve Price Points

Companies often find it challenging to decide the right price for new products and services to expand revenue. Fortunately, with the help of market data, they can test different price points to conclude what optimal prices should fit right for each product, and even for different segments of customers.

Some companies also discover that to maximize revenue, they actually need to raise prices. While an increase in price may decrease the number of potential sales, by increasing the average size of each sale the company can attain an overall increase in revenue.

Bottom Line

The numbers don’t lie, and when a company starts to make decisions according to the data, margin for error becomes smaller. Relying on guesswork will make you less effective and vulnerable in front of data-savvy competitors and startup companies… no matter what your industry is.

Make sure you have a powerful sales reporting tool in your arsenal that will allow you to scrutinize historical data easily and on demand.