FEATURE | GROWING SALES
RESULTS THAT COUNT RICHARD HIGHAM and ALAN TIMOTHY continue their series on data-led insights to help achieve impressive sales growth
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n this feature we look at understanding high growth sales results. The sales result is what drives the business. If sales results targets are missed, all the other budgets in the plan are irrelevant. Here, we look at ways of gathering, interpreting and presenting the sales result in ways that make sense to the key players, builds the credibility of the sales organisation, and increases the likelihood of achieving sales goals. We will address four questions: l What data should I gather on our sales result? l What are the best ways of gathering the data? l How do we analyse sales results data? l How can I make best use of sales results data? WHAT DATA TO GATHER In a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world it is essential to have the right data to work from. It is also essential to be able to triangulate – to look at the data from a number of angles. Here we look at the data that can be really useful. Some will be obvious and some less so. Where possible we show the percentage of smaller (less than £3m turnover) and larger companies that use this data. These percentages are drawn from a survey of 216 UK industrial companies by David Jobber, Graham Hooley and David Shipley: Organizational size and salesforce evaluation practices, published in the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management in 2013. We show the percentage for smaller companies followed by the percentage for larger companies (X%/Y%)
recognition clear?” and “Will your figures be recognised as accurate by both finance and the sales team?” Sales volume by product line or category
(61%/80%). Make sure your categories are clearly defined. One firm we saw split sales by category but had no agreed definitions, so sales support staff simply entered projects where they thought they fitted best. The product mix figures were greeted with incredulity by the salesforce and were therefore rendered useless as a diagnostic tool. Sales by customer
(48%/60% – includes customer type). Having data on sales by customer should be easy but ensure you know what you are looking at. Is this a standalone customer or part of a group? Are you taking into account channel sales? Sales by active account
This will help you in predicting future sales as you bring more new accounts on board.
“If sales results targets are missed, all the other budgets in the plan are irrelevant”
Sales by key account
This allow measurement of account profitability – crucial if you manage strategic accounts. But it can prove difficult if gathering data from multiple buying points, geographies and channels.
Sales volume
This is the obvious starting point and is used by 87% of smaller companies and 93% of larger. Although this measure seems uncontentious, do consider questions such as: “Are you measuring gross sales or net sales?” “Is the timing of income 30 WINNING EDGE
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