Get an overview of your sales over time with trendline reports! You can track and evaluate sales trends for any time period, and for any category – leads, deals, etc. Trendline reports provide much needed meaning to data so you can know where your sales stands in time, and get a clear context on sales performance through vivid charts.
Reports in general visualize your sales practices and outcomes. However, with the input of time factor, you can do much more for your sales. How? – One, you can figure out why things happened in the past which will tell you the do’s and don’ts of your sales processes; and two, you can make decisions and take actions for effective sales planning.
Freshsales precisely offers quantitative insights into reports that highlight your sales metrics through time and drives decisions to stay ahead. Some reports truly matter. Let’s get down to a few key trendline reports you can create to accelerate your sales.
Lead Analysis
Create your lead generated report by selecting a time period for the “created at” field, and filter by lead stage to know how many leads you’ve generated, and what stage they’re in.
One of the most important and key metrics in sales is lead conversion rate. This real-time rate is a latent indicator of future growth and revenue. By steadily increasing your conversion rate, you increase the potential to close deals by converting as many new leads into customers. Improving conversion rate begins with successful marketing campaigns to generate the right leads for your business. Track conversion rates so you can learn what’s working, and where you need to improve to target better markets for the next period.
Lead Analysis
Also, learn how well your sales team is following-up on leads using the lead analysis report. Converting a lead into a customer happens through several intermediate stages which require effort. Of them, first is lead follow-up. According to statistics, contacting web leads within 5 minutes makes it 9x more likely for you to convert them. For instance, the data for January reveals no follow-up on 42 leads at least until March (when this report was generated), while 229 leads remain under contact attempted, without any progress. Statistics also show that 44% of salespersons give up after one follow-up.
By implementing best practices for salespersons, and keeping track of lead contact over time, sales managers can oversee prompt follow-up of new leads. Because, how soon you follow-up on a lead influences your chances of closing a deal. Remember that time is money!
Deals Win/Loss Analysis
Track your sales deals over time and see where they stand in your pipeline. Create this report using the deal “created at” field for a time period and group by deal stage.
Based on where your deals stand, you can plan actions accordingly. New deals require progress, open deals need attention, won deals call for celebration, and lost deals warrant reasons. Also, find out how good your sales team is at selling your product. More deals over time should ideally indicate they are identifying qualified leads, and giving the right pitch to create new deal opportunities, whether won or lost.
Deal Analysis
Look at Lost Reasons
“If you learn from defeat, then you haven’t really lost.”
To see lost deals by reasons over time, use the deal “closed date” field for a time period, filter by deal stage “lost”, and group by lost reason.
A look at this report will spark several questions in your mind. The most important being – what went wrong? Recording reasons for lost deals is invaluably important because it provides actionable insights into plain numbers. With trendline reports, you can track reasons through any sales period and know why you lost certain deals.
By tackling your reasons, you can be more effective with your sales process. According to a research by The TAS Group, it takes 50% longer on average to lose a deal than to win one. That’s a lot of wasted time. Dig deeper. Ask questions. Only if your salespersons see the warning signs and know when to cut losses early. Are they poorly qualifying leads? Have they connected with the decision-makers? Are they writing compelling messages? Do they simply sell your product or solve customer’s business problems? Are they open to requests? Use this report to analyse reasons by time, and compare them over periods to see how you’re improving sales, and prevent the loss.
Lost Deals by Reason
Track sales team’s performance
Sales managers want to identify great salespersons because business grows only with successful selling. To create this chart, use the deal “created at” field for a time period, filter by deal stage “won”, and group by owner.
Not every salesperson in your team is a Don Draper. However, every team has its set of stars, core performers, and laggards. Use this report to recognize your top salespersons, and motivate the others. Plan actions to coach your salespersons into champions, and see how they perform in the next sales cycle.
Won Deals by Owner
See where your deals are headed with forecasting
The deal forecast report helps you effectively plan for deals, and gain visibility into the future. To create this report, choose deal “expected at” field and pick a future time period, and filter by your custom deal stages. You can also add other filters like deal value and probability to further narrow your focus. Categorizing deals by stage, and prospecting them by close date are substantial parameters to successfully forecast expected sales. You can forecast deals by their value or count.
If meteorologists can forecast the weather, then salespersons should be able to forecast sales. Coincidentally, some companies use the weather to forecast sales. For now, you can carry out sales forecasting for deals in Freshsales to get an understanding of what’s about to happen to your sales so you can plan ahead, and monitor to win those deals. Because nobody likes bad surprises.
Deal Forecast
Take a closer look at your trendline charts
Drill down into your chart to get more visual clarity on large data, and show/hide legends for interactive presentations through the Freshsales app. You can download a detailed copy of your report as PDF or CSV.
How to get this
Trendline reporting is available in our Garden, Estate and Forest plans. Read our how to create tutorial.
You can also save time and auto schedule reports to land in your inbox – daily, weekly or monthly.
Trendline Reports drive Sales and Performance
Whether you’re the VP of Sales, sales manager, marketing manager or even the competitive sales agent, stay on top of your game by learning and planning with trendline reports. If you’re reading this, it’s time for you to create one.
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If you have any questions, contact our team at support@freshsales.io.
Happy Selling!
