Despite all of the lofty promises and hype surrounding sales and pipeline analytics, a lot of groups end up scratching their heads when it comes to results.
They’ve gathered the data, configured the views, and started generating performance reports. But after doing this for a while, they can’t help noticing that things are pretty much the same as they’ve always been, and sales performance hasn’t rocketed up-and-to-the right.
What gives? Did these groups just fall for an overblown sales pitch?
In our research, we’ve found that the struggle to deliver on the promise of sales analytics and generate meaningful results can often be traced to a small handful of root-causes and contributing factors:
- Weak or Nonexistent Objectives—Do you have analytics goals? Do your goals include powerful things like increasing close-rates, wallet-share, etc?
- Reporting Instead of Diagnosing—Are you just reporting on what’s happening? Or are you digging into the data to figure-out why things are happening?
- Viewing All Deals As the Same—Are you comparing apples to oranges? Or are you segmenting your customers and deals to get more accurate views?
- Looking Back Instead of Forward—Do you just look at what’s already happened in the past? Or are you looking to predict what should happen in the future?
- Describing Rather Than Prescribing—Do you expect salespeople to decipher the data and determine what to do? Or are you prescribing the correct actions?
The good news is that each of these problems and issues is fixable. And none of the solutions are particularly difficult or cost-prohibitive. In fact, correcting some of these deficiencies may simply be a matter of changing your mindset or perspective.
So, while there may indeed be a lot of hype surrounding sales analytics, that shouldn’t become an excuse for mediocre results. Yes, the sales pitch for sales analytics usually omits some critical information. But make no mistake, the underlying promise is real.
To learn more about what leading sales operations are doing to generate more meaningful results from sales analytics, check out these on-demand resources:
- Beyond Reporting with Sales & Pipeline Analysis — A training session exposing strategies for driving improved sales performance at-scale.
- A Better Way to Manage by the Metrics — The author of “Cracking the Sales Management Code,” discusses his research into sales measurement.
- Delivering Answers to the Point of Sale — A tutorial explaining a more realistic approach for helping salespeople make data-driven decisions.
