Whether you’re a salesman or a CEO, one thing’s for certain: your data matters. Without knowing who to sell to, which products are the most popular, or how consumers are engaging with your company, you’d quickly flounder under the pressure of selling to random people that may or may not be interested in you. 

That’s why sales metrics are so important--they tell us if our company’s sales and marketing tactics will help it succeed.

But, wait, what are sales metrics and how can I use them efficiently? Well, let’s see:

Every metric is a data point that describes the progress of salespeople towards a company's plans and goals. Their performance may be individual, command, or company-wide. The results of such metrics help team leaders to track current achievements, find weaknesses, set new goals, award the best salespeople with bonuses, etc. 

Many managers make one mistake again and again: They believe that the sales team must sell more to increase a company's profit. As a result, individuals stay focused on abstract aspects and cannot reach success. Frankly speaking, such an approach may even ruin the whole strategy and block your perspectives. 

The reason is simple: you don't need all metrics to analyze your deals. All you need is to find relevant metrics for your business. This is a fact: sales data must describe a story of how your company interacts with your target audience. If you’ve used plenty of metrics to measure sales and don't see the forest for the trees, then you’ve done something wrong. 

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Key Performance Indicator is a value that explains the efficiency of a company's tools to reach the exact business plans. Talking about the sales team, you can define KPI as a standard that highlights the progress of salespeople towards sales goals. This indicator is important regarding company-wide performance. 

Here are several examples of elements that describe the business' KPI:

• total revenue;
• revenue by the market;
• revenue by location;
• net promoter score;
• percentage of deals that competitors snatched. 

While knowledge is power, you only need to select proper software and tools. How do you track metrics in your company now? Do you have preferred websites and apps, or are you seeking new tools? It doesn't matter. There are many options, but you should focus on the following features of good data collection platforms:

• to sort information in an easy-to-understand way;
• to describe the pipeline of your salespeople with details;
• to measure the performance of the entire team and every individual in particular;
• to provide you with the information you need at the moment. 

Thanks to modern technologies and tools, today, we have more information for analysis than ever. Badger Maps is a great example of such a tool - the app helps field salespeople by optimizing their daily routes, allowing them to visualize their account data on a map, and streamlining every aspect of their jobs. Field salespeople who use Badger Maps end up closing 20% more deals while driving 20% less.

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Before you select the proper metrics for your company, you need to clarify several questions. Which, why, and how – these are TOP-3 challenges for you now. Be ready to find out the following answers:

• which sales measures to use at the moment;
• why the exact metrics are important for your company;
• how to get benefits from this information. 

So be ready to practice with sales analytics. This is an overview of data you have received from professional tools. Be careful to avoid analysis parallels. This is a problem when overthinking blocks decision-making opportunities. 

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As you can see, data is an essential tool in sales. You have no right to ignore such useful information. 

Whether you have experience in this field or not, every leader or manager wants to know what sales metrics should I measure. So here are 3 essential options that may change everything for your team.

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Your sales process must be holistic. To track the following metrics to clarify the condition of your pipeline:

• percentage of successful leads;
• percentage of lost leads;
• an average time for response;
• frequency and volume of new opportunities, etc. 

These examples and other lead generation standards will help you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your pipeline. 

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If you want to understand which strategies work and which don't for your salespeople and business, you may rely on these metrics. Here are several important elements for you:

• an average contract value;
• an average sales cycle duration;
• total open opportunities;
• total closed opportunities;
• conversation rate, etc. 

Thanks to pipeline sales measures, you can improve many issues.

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These metrics are dedicated to the numbers. Calls, emails, meetings, conversations, presentations, and other activities show what every individual in your team does daily to reach the goal. These indicators are leading, which means they predict the future results. 

Let's imagine that one of your salespeople doesn't hit the quota. If you analyze the listed above standards, you'll see that an employee doesn't make enough calls during the day. Well, you can't make a person sell more, but you can tell him or her to make more calls.  This simple step will increase the percentage of successful deals and let the manager reach goals. As a result, plans are essential elements for the team. All sales productivity metrics will be useless if you don't set goals.

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Intuition is a very useful thing sometimes, but businesses can rely only on real facts and numbers. The goal of any company is to beat rivals, increase engagement with customers, and scale profit. That's why sales leaders and salespeople are the key players in this battle. They are responsible for trading and keeping the leadership in making successful deals. 

Many sales leaders and salespeople don't analyze metrics. Are they successful? Definitely not. Can they change the chain of failures? Yes, if the leader changes the whole system from the inside. Make a step towards success, and very soon, you'll be able to set and reach goals, analyze your progress in deals, and fix issues. 

After you start to track sales, you'll receive very important data that may change your sales strategy and results. Without proper metrics and wise sales analytics, your team and the company, in general, will stay on the dark side and lose revenue to competitors. 

Remember that you can unblock any website with a useful tool if it is blocked for your location. Just try these useful metrics with VPN, and you will appreciate new opportunities for your sales team.

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Author: Rachel Burnham