How To Amplify Sales Tracking For Your Team

The end of the year is just around the corner, and with that being said, many of my own friends have been putting in extra hours at work to help meet quarterly sales goals. I caught up with a few of my friends last weekend to catch up and discuss trade negotiations on behalf of our fantasy football league, when two of my friends became engrossed in a conversation regarding their sales targets for the end of the year:

“It stresses me out to know I have to hit this sales goal before the quarter is over. It’s not as easy as simply picking up the phone and asking someone to buy something, you know? It’s not really even in my control; I do my part of the job and get someone on the phone, and then it’s in the hands of one of the senior guys to close it out. Half the time I don’t even know who’s responsible for my sale, and it’s not until later that I actually know if it went through.”

Rather than interrupting in the midst of a conversation I had no part in, I continued on with my evening and enjoyed the time spent with good friends. Yet the conversation has stuck with me for the past few days. After digging deeper into the intricacies of sales, I was reminded that American businesses frequently divide their metrics up into monthly, quarterly, and yearly reports. However, nearly every sales team we work with primarily divides their metrics into monthly forms of tracking. In an effort to maintain a better understanding for why our monthly boards are so popular, I spoke with a few members of Magnatag’s own sales team.

What I found was that many Sales Managers approach their quarterly goals on a month-to-month basis, and while it may sound counterintuitive to further consolidate a calendar year, many managers believe daily and monthly tacking offers sales teams more control over their quarterly expectations.

Tracking expectations on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis provides sales teams with an added layer of depth to their quarterly analytics, offering a real-time analysis of when expectations are met. However, while most of our customers prefer tracking on a monthly scale, the strategy is not ideal for every sales team. For instance, car salesmen sell multiple cars during the course of the month, lending nicely to a monthly program; but real estate agents average anywhere from 20-5 homes per year, making a monthly tracker not as viable.

Sales team leaders like Steven S., a Real Estate Agent and satisfied Magnatag Customer I spoke with recently, believe quarterly goals provide members of their sales team with a manageable timetable that reflects tangible expectations.

As far as Magnatag’s customers are concerned, they primarily come to us looking to find a reliable and large-scale tool to help measure and track their success during their quarterly and yearly timelines. Luckily, with the help of our magnetic dry erase SalesTracker whiteboard system, we’re able to provide our customers with motivational trackers that can accurately reflect when a sale goal has been met.

As with any tool for the workplace, our trackers are built with a purpose: to enable managers to build systems around the art of selling. Creating an environment built around the art of selling requires both veterans and newcomers of the sales team to be working towards a collective goal. Many sales teams are currently focusing on driving sales to reach milestones, but fail to get their entire team on board. The goal with team-wide sales initiatives is to create a workplace that encourages both team building and maximizes employee potential.

Our customers tell us that creating a competitive environment is a crucial part of driving sales in the workplace, but without a culture that allows for growth and teambuilding, an incentivized workplace cannot reach its full potential. Giving employees the opportunity to comprehend how their performance impacts the company as a whole adds an additional sense of value to the members of your sales team, giving them a constant reminder of their importance to your mission.

I reached out to my friend and asked what kind of sales tracking goes on in his workplace—for curiosity’s sake. Much to my surprise, there was virtually no tracking done outside of a company-wide spreadsheet that was updated at the end of the day.

After telling him about some of the tactics our customers find to be most effective, he relayed this information along to his boss who immediately took to the idea. He has yet to tell me how the change has altered their sales initiatives, but I can’t help to think there will be dramatic shifts in the way his company records success in the near future.

Successful companies don’t shy away from picking up the latest and greatest trends in their industry, and neither should you. If you’d like to re-energize your sales initiatives, visit our website.