Consumers today prefer to get to know in detail about their purchases. Consequently, sales teams have become vital to organizations in how they interact with consumers on a one-on-one basis to inform them and answer their questions on your behalf. The way they present your brand and its products can get you loyal customers.

For this reason, tracking the performance of a sales team is necessary. It can let businesses identify pain points on time to eliminate them. However, the task is difficult because of the sheer amount of raw data that needs to be assessed. If you have been facing difficulties in measuring your team’s performance, read on as we explore different points that you need to keep in mind. 

Having clear goals will let your sales personnel know what is expected of them. This will make them assess their own performance and adjust their pace accordingly. You should have both long-term and short-term aims. 

A critical element of ensuring that you have a holistic picture is actively involving your team members who will be in the field. Make sure your goals are realistic. Setting high and unreasonable sales targets can be counterproductive in how they burden employees. Your goals should motivate them, not drain them of their energy. 

KPIs pose as numerical evidence of your team's performance. Keep track of activity metrics like the number of calls, emails, and acquired leads, and compare them to productivity metrics like win rate, average deal size, and lead response time. The more digits you have sorted out, the better you'll be able to monitor your team's progress and provide advice when necessary.

Sticking to plain, self-made spreadsheets won't do the job. Digital tools now exist for practically every job, and you need to make the most out of them. You'll need insights and reports, so you don't have to analyze every data point manually. Look for decent sales tracking templates with built-in formulas to save yourself time, gain better visibility into your team's performance, and recognize any gaps in your pipeline. 

You'll have to closely monitor your team members and their work to fix any problems before they worsen. For example, if all team members are performing below your expectations, there may be a problem in how you've set your goals, or there may be a new competitor on the rise. Closely following up will also let you identify which team members are the most convincing. You can collaborate with them to train the rest of your team better. Similarly, checking up on sales personnel performing below the mark can let you tailor your advice to them. Some people aren't just cut for the job, and keeping your team monitored will let you single those out too.

Sales activities play a critical part in determining the results of sales, so not watching them closely can put you in a situation where you have bad results and no way to change them. Closely monitoring a team's performance by setting up realistic goals, establishing KPIs, and following up with your sales personnel is necessary to ascertain the success of your strategies. Be sure that you leverage digital tools wherever you can find them so that you make the most out of your time and gain optimal visibility into the processes.