As you develop your sales data strategy, you might find that you need to perform a thorough analysis of your collected data. This can help you better understand the market you operate in and show you how your sales team is currently performing to make more impactful, data-driven decisions. Whatever the case, conducting a sales data analysis can help. But in order to do it right, it’s important to know how to analyze sales data using the technique that pairs best with your goals.
Why Perform a Sales Data Analysis?
There are several benefits to conducting a sales data analysis, including:
- Finding quality prospects: Sales data allows you to find prospects for your business that are more likely to purchase your products or services. That includes finding customers who might have a higher interest in the brands you offer, who reside in your trading area, or who are currently in their buying cycle.
- Assessing performance: Analyzing sales data can help you assess the performance of your sales team and see how well your sales and marketing efforts are working. Using data, you can see exactly where your team is going right or how they’re coming up short. From there, you can make adjustments and data-driven decisions to ensure you meet your goals.
- Finding your best customers: Using a sales data analysis, you can uncover who your best customers are and what they need from you to keep up that relationship with them. This can help you determine what types of equipment you should prioritize for your supply and what services, promotions, or products you should offer to them to ensure they keep coming back.
"...it’s important to know how to analyze sales data using the technique that pairs best with your goals."
How To Perform a Sales Data Analysis
Here is a list of steps to help you perform a sales data analysis:
1. Know Your Objectives
Before you start your sales data analysis, it’s important to understand your main objectives. Having a better understanding of your goals can help you pick the right technique for your sales analysis and know which data you need to monitor in order to track their progress.
For example, let’s say you know that your main objective is to improve the internal performance of your sales team. There are a few analysis techniques that will help you more than others, such as a performance analysis or an effectiveness analysis. From there, you can determine which metrics of your sales team are most important to monitor and improve, such as improving your number of touches from 10 to 20 or improving your revenue growth by 15%.
2. Choose The Right Technique
There are a number of ways you can perform a sales data analysis. Depending on what you want to analyze and which goals you want to fulfill, some techniques might be more beneficial to your company than others.
Here are some of the most common sales data analysis techniques that businesses use:
Sales Performance Analysis
A sales performance analysis measures the performance and effectiveness of your current sales team and their strategy. This could simply be a measure of your department’s financial performance, like their generated revenue compared to their sales targets, or it could be a more in-depth analysis that measures things like closing rates, win rates, revenue growth, and number of touches. Understanding your current sales performance can help you make better decisions about the future of your sales team and see how your team is faring compared to their expected performance.
Sales Trend Analysis
A sales trend analysis finds patterns in sales data over a period of time. For example, your company could measure how many sales you’ve finalized over the last year or how many prospects you’ve gained over the last few months. This can help you discover trends in the current sales market and discover correlations between different data sets. For example, you might notice that your sales are on the rise, but your incoming prospects are on a slight decline. This can help you start to determine why those correlations exist and the best ways to approach your future sales strategy.
Sales Effectiveness Analysis
Similar to performance analysis, this technique focuses on your sales department’s performance. But instead of measuring the department as a whole, it takes a look at the individuals. This includes measuring the goals and performance of your entire sales team, including your reps and their managers. Performing this analysis can help you get a better idea of how your sales department functions to make sure your representatives are performing as well as they can and that your managers are setting them up for success with effective coaching and training.
When conducting this analysis, you can track specific KPIs, such as the revenue growth of your reps, their sales quotas, and how many prospects they’ve contacted over a certain time period.
Sales Diagnostic Analysis
The diagnostic analysis helps you understand the “why” of particular sales metrics or statistics. For example, let’s say you realize that your sales last year were great, but this year they’re lacking. You might send out a survey to last year’s clients to see what influenced their purchasing decisions and discover that though your product sold well, it didn’t meet your clients’ quality expectations. Using this analysis method and uncovering the “why”, your company can now take the necessary steps to increase future retention rates and ensure the number of sales don’t dip again.
Sales Predictive Analysis
The sales predictive analysis uses sales forecasting to predict upcoming revenue and sales performance. One of the best ways to determine how you might perform in the future is to look at your past performance and the current state of the market.
For example, during this time where brand loyalty is eroding, your analysis might predict possible conquest sales and attract new prospects to your business who might not have been interested in the brands you sold previously. In fact, in the current state of this unusual economy and its continued supply chain issues, Randall Reilly has conducted a survey where up to a third of equipment buyers have said they are actively considering other brands.
Sales Pipeline Analysis
A sales pipeline is a representation of a buyer’s journey in your company. It allows you to see how your prospects are moving through the journey and what or who they might interact with before making a purchase. A sales pipeline analysis examines your current pipeline and evaluates how successful it is at attracting quality prospects and closing or finalizing sales.
It’s helpful to use this analysis when you’re trying to determine how effective your pipeline is for your business and if there are any gaps in your current sales strategy. It can also show you if there are areas where you’re attracting prospects and leads who might not be a good fit for your company. During a sales pipeline analysis, many businesses will track different metrics including:
- Sales rep pipeline performance
- New qualified leads per week
- Conversion rate per stage
- Overall pipeline value per stage
- Sales pipeline velocity
Product Sales Analysis
The product sales analysis is especially helpful for businesses that offer a wide-variety of products for their clients and consumers. Conducting this analysis allows you to see which products are performing better than others and if there’s any you want to cut from your line up. You can also learn more about the individual products or brands you sell, including which locations or regions tend to purchase certain products or brands over others.
3. Use The Right Data Tools
In order to find the right data for the job, it’s important to have data products you can rely on. That includes data products that offer timely and relevant information you can use for all your sales analysis needs. If your data products don’t have the most up-to-date information for your sales team, you might approach prospects outside of their buying cycle or prepare your sales reps with the wrong information during a sales call.
If your business operates in industries such as agriculture, construction, and trucking, start with Randall Reilly. We offer powerful data products like RigDig BI and EDA that cover all your sales data needs and help you perform a thorough analysis of your current market. Learn more about the prospects in your area, including which brands or products they currently own and when they tend to make purchases.
"In order to find the right data for the job, it’s important to have data products you can rely on. That includes data products that offer timely and relevant information you can use for all your sales analysis needs."
4. Implement Changes
Once you have a better understanding of your sales data and how it affects your current goals, it’s time to start making data-driven decisions to improve your business and help you boost your sales endeavors. For example, let’s say you perform a sales trend analysis. You might realize that both your revenue growth and prospecting are on a downward trajectory.
Knowing that information, you can start to determine if the performance of one metric caused the other, or if there’s another reason for the downward trend. For example, your lack of prospecting and revenue growth might be due to other factors, such as supply chain issues or a successful promotion from a competitor.
It’s also possible that some of your problems or roadblocks on your sales team might need help from other departments, like marketing. Developing marketing materials and advertisements that attract higher quality leads for your business can improve your selling efforts and give your sales team some additional support in their strategies. It can also keep your business and the brands you offer top of mind with effective, well-placed ads, which can help you shift buyer behavior in your favor.
Randall Reilly currently offers programmatic marketing solutions that can help you buy ad space and attract your target audience wherever they consume content. Whether it’s through social media or content sites that are relevant to your industry, our programmatic solutions can make sure your audience views your advertisements and sees what you have to offer them. Contact us today to see how we can boost your marketing and sales efforts.