Alternatively referred to as “career counseling” or “professional advising,” sales coaching is a highly effective way of helping sales reps perform at their best.
In the past, team leads or managers would primarily focus on anecdotal evidence when providing coaching to their staff members. While they would leverage some data-driven insights when creating their coaching strategy, this information was often used as an afterthought.
Fortunately, modern CRMs (customer relationship management technologies) have paved the way for true data-driven sales management. These technologies collect massive amounts of digital sales data that can be used to help individual performance, identify barriers to profitability, and drive more revenue.
Below, we examine why organizations should be tracking sales data, what metrics they should be monitoring, and how they can collect this valuable information.
Why Track Sales Data?
Tracking sales data is by far one of the most successful ways to enhance the effectiveness of coaching strategies.
By conducting a sales data analysis, coaches can identify concerning trends among individual team members or the entire department. They can use this information to identify roadblocks, improve inefficiencies, create customized professional development gaps and drive revenue. Using sales funnels can provide insight into the pipeline and the sales process.
In addition, tracking sales data for coaching purposes can have a positive impact on workplace culture and employee morale. Staff members who perform at their best will experience a higher level of job satisfaction, which will translate to less turnover. Over time, this will contribute to a stronger company culture and better brand image.
When management staff uses data-driven sales coaching strategies, everyone wins.
Which Sales Data Should I Track?
When deciding which types of sales data to track, it’s important to select metrics that are most relevant to your organization. Generally, you should start by identifying activities that are integral to your sales process. This may include common sales tasks such as meetings, calls, and visits.
You can also track the average revenue per unit (ARPU). This can tell you whether your teams are offering discounts that are overly large and can help determine profitability.
Finally, you’ll want to monitor the flow of incoming leads. Are your sales teams actively seeking new business or simply relying on their existing customer relationships?
When monitoring these activities, we recommend that you begin by tracking them weekly, as this will allow you to alter tactics throughout each sales cycle. Waiting an entire month to review each rep’s performance will diminish your ability to make meaningful changes to sales coaching strategies.
If your sales cycle is long and complex, you may want to focus more on metrics such as deals. When leveraging this approach, divide your deals up into stages so you can monitor which stage of the pipeline each lead is in. If a particular lead has been in the same stage for too long, then you know you have a problem on your hands.
During the assessment phase, determine the average number of days your leads are spending on each stage. This will allow you to locate potential points of friction. For instance, if stage 2 of the purchasing journey takes far longer to navigate than stages 1, 2, or 3, you should reevaluate the tactics your reps are implementing during that phase.
How to Track Sales Data
Now that we have recapped why you should be tracking sales data and discussed which metrics you should keep a close eye on, let’s turn our attention to the final piece of the puzzle.
The most robust way to monitor and track your sales data is to deploy a modern CRM solution. These technologies will help you empower your reps, implement highly effective data-driven sales coaching strategies, and gain a 360-degree overview of your business. The data derived from these tools can fuel the one on one sales coaching plan templates to facilitate productive and meaningful sessions with your team.
It’s vital that you choose the right solution for your unique business needs. While there are many great CRMs on the market, not all of these options will be an ideal fit for your company.
In order to help, we have provided a rundown of five of the most popular CRMs available today. We also discuss what each solution is best for and how these sales coaching software tools can help support your team’s development and growth.
1. Salesforce
Salesforce is one of the world’s most popular customer relationship management platforms. This cloud-based solution has a broad array of tools available that can meet the needs of small businesses, large organizations, and virtually everyone in between.
While Salesforce is certainly a dynamic CRM solution that can be used for a wide range of applications, it is best for teams that want many different integrations. Salesforce can seamlessly integrate with dozens of commonly used sales apps and unify the data from these solutions into a single platform.
2. HubSpot
HubSpot is another great CRM solution that includes a multitude of features and support. HubSpot’s basic plan is completely free, but it only has a limited suite of features.
To access the true power of HubSpot, you will need to sign up for one of their paid subscriptions, which start at $50 per user per month. HubSpot is best for teams that already have plenty of marketing support.
3. Copper
Copper was designed specifically for the needs of small to medium businesses. It offers some popular tools and functions that can help your sales team perform better. Like the other options on our list, it also provides some sales data. However, it’s not the ideal choice for teams with complex sales cycles or broad networks of reps.
4. Microsoft Dynamics
Due to its pricing model and architecture, the Microsoft Dynamics solution is best for enterprises. It’s not well suited for SMBs, though, as it can be cost prohibitive. Microsoft Dynamics provides comprehensive sales data insights, which are excellent for coaching purposes.
5. Map My Customers
Last up on our list is Map My Customers. Our innovative solution is best for outside sales teams and was purpose built for that application. Map My Customers is the ideal sales tool for simplifying your teams’ day-to-day processes. As an added bonus, Map My Customers can integrate with Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, and HubSpot.
Experience a hands-on product demo of Map My Customers
With the right tools to monitor your sales data, you can implement effective coaching with your teams, improving productivity, eliminating obstacles, and taking your client relationships to the next level.
