A Strong Plan Will Help You Measure Your Impact on Sales

I recently looked online to update our company’s sales reports so that we could focus more on personal interactions besides weekly analytics. Many of the websites I visited discussed the value of weekly versus monthly reports and common key performance indicators (KPI) to measure success.

I have always told my sales staff that evaluating their results is easy. Our computer gives us their basic weekly results by measuring the number of orders, quotes, and projects successfully closed each week. With artificial intelligence (AI), I am sure that we can break this down to the smallest measures.

Our industry is a relationship-based business, and many of us have developed strong friendships with our customers that sometimes span multiple generations. Salespeople need to take advantage of these relationships. AI and computer analytics may help measure results, but communicating with your customers directly is the key to succeeding, rather than just reporting results after the fact.

Knowing your customers’ business plans for the year will also help you establish realistic plans for each customer. For instance, are they planning to enter new markets or add/reduce staff? Is their company adding any new products this year that you can plan on adding to their sales? Be sure to also ask how their backlog looks for the upcoming year, which will help you set realistic goals.

Don’t forget to discuss your goals with your customers and get their feedback. This way, they can help you develop a strategy to succeed. Once you have a detailed plan for your customers, including specific goals for exiting the business by product category or project, include things like how often you will visit them. Do they need training, product samples or input on design or value engineering ideas?  These are all important items to measure.

The more details you can identify and make part of your personal KPI, the easier it will be to measure your success. A salesperson’s greatest asset is their relationship with their customers. You need to use this asset to prepare a plan to succeed with your customers, set goals that you can use to measure your success and communicate your impact on sales to your company.