Data is the secret weapon in your arsenal of sales tools, and it can transform the conversation between sales leadership and corporate.
Here are some ways that incorporating analytics can improve the dialogue with company leadership:
Show Instead of Tell
Analytics are the difference between decisions based on intuition or evidence. And when it’s time to defend a decision or a new way of doing things, evidence tends to get the upper hand.
Your sales team may inherently understand why they made the calls they did, but it can be more difficult to convey that to someone who isn’t selling every day. Data ensures that everyone is speaking the same language.
You can facilitate a more comfortable discussion with corporate by presenting the forecasting data, rate cards, historical trends and pricing strategies that your sales team used to make decisions. And a software solution can give you all of that information in seconds.
Empower Sales Leadership
Analytics are there to enhance the skills your sales team has already.
So much of successful sales can’t be measured or boiled down to the numbers. However, if you take those numbers and pair them with the skill and experience of your sales team, it can be a powerful union.
Having data available means you can spot trends, weak points and opportunities for growth you might have missed otherwise. And having that background knowledge allows you to confidently present ideas or concerns to your corporate team.
Data also empowers your individual sales team members from the very beginning. It takes time to develop the finesse of an expert salesperson, but a data toolkit gives every member of your team an advantage.
Track Progress
Every sales team knows that a strong or weak quarter or season goes so much deeper than just the money earned during that time.
What were the factors at play? Why were people buying more, or hesitating to buy? What opportunities were missed?
Data allows you to see the big picture, and answer those questions more accurately.
It captures those small, everyday decisions and allows you to see performance over time. Your sales team works on the personal, day-to-day interactions that keep things moving. But the data fills in those missing pieces.
So when it comes time to sit down with corporate to go over sales performance, that data can summarize all the factors that were at play. Data that tells the story of your performance allows you to demonstrate confidence in your decision-making and increases transparency.