sales analytics
How to make win/loss analysis more useful
Win/loss analysis should be a critical tool for improving sales force effectiveness, yet many organizations only analyze some of their wins and losses, and the focus is often more on the losses than the wins.
Sales pipeline management: let’s stop confusing progress with probability
Sales forecasting is hard. For proof, you need look no further than the 2018 CSO Insights Sales Performance study, which reported that on average a little over 46% of all forecasted sales deals actually resulted in a win (never mind the timing).
Is this the most counterproductive sales metric?
If we’re driven by data and interested in statistics, there are a wide range of sales metrics we can choose to monitor. Assuming that we have collected the data in the first place, we can measure win rates, sales cycle velocity, changes in deal value or close date and all manner of other indicators.
What if your sales analytics are missing the point?
Sales analytics are supposed to make everything about your sales system more effective. Companies that market sales analytics technologies love to tout its benefits, from providing greater “insights” to promoting “optimization” of the pipeline.
Do women make better salespeople than men?
When I meet sales leaders for the first time, one of the questions I usually ask is, “Who is your top salesperson?” Very often, the answer is the name of a woman.
Size isn’t everything: why more revenue often flows from smaller pipelines
One of the abiding urban myths that misinforms sales pipeline management is the idea that sales people need at least 3x pipeline coverage in order to achieve their quota. Where this “golden number” came from, nobody seems to know, but it’s a fair bet that it dates back beyond the Neolithic.
