one of the occasionally overlooked benefits of using a CRM<\/a>. While startups may initially see it as a way to help close more deals, having all that customer data at your fingertips streamlines the reporting process considerably. <\/p>\nIf you\u2019ve never written a sales report before or even had to review one, don\u2019t worry. This is what you need to do: <\/p>\n
1. Consider all your possible readers<\/h2>\n
Initially you may see your sales report as something to use for your own purposes, and that\u2019s fine. Just don\u2019t limit yourself to a potential audience of one, because more than likely it will have to be shared among many other stakeholders. <\/p>\n
Even if your sales team is only made up of a few people, a consistent sales report will be critical if they\u2019re often out of the office or working from home. <\/p>\n
As you expand your business, sales reports could be a vital document that will be requested by everyone from banks to venture capitalists. <\/p>\n
Even those among your team who aren\u2019t directly involved in sales, such as marketing or operations, may need to understand your financial picture to appreciate the context of a particular business decision. <\/p>\n
2. Summarize the essentials<\/h2>\n
\u201cToo long; didn\u2019t read\u201d isn\u2019t an appropriate response to receiving a sales report, but recognize that those you deal with are only human beings, with possibly limited attention spans. <\/p>\n
Begin your report with a high-level overview that captures how well your sales are growing relative to your goals. If you wrote a business plan prior to launch (and you should), it becomes easy to align your sales figures with key milestones. <\/p>\n
A summary may also be a good place to include any details that will help make what follows understandable. Your sales may be higher or lower, depending on a macroeconomic fluctuation, the impact of a weather-related event or the introduction of a new product or service to your portfolio. Set the stage for the details that come next. <\/p>\n
3. Map out the metrics<\/h2>\n
Reporting would be easy if you were just sharing the grand total of revenue for a given time period or the sheer number of customers who made a purchase. Sadly, that\u2019s not how it works in real life. <\/p>\n
You want your sales report to delve into more detailed metrics that provide insight into your business. This includes the cost to acquire customers, the average deal size and of course the win\/loss rate. <\/p>\n
The more you can make sense of the numbers, the better. Think about the buying cycle you\u2019re seeing so far and how that affects the number of leads you need to chase. As your startup grows, something like renewal rate will also become a major factor in how you allocate resources. <\/p>\n
4. Always include action items<\/h2>\n
A great sales report isn\u2019t static or simply a historical record. It should ultimately provide a foundation to think about how you can make changes in your business to fuel further growth. <\/p>\n
Using your CRM will offer a lot of help here too, because the best ones have built-in analytics capabilities and artificial intelligence (AI) features that help identify patterns and get ahead of trends. <\/p>\n
This is more than simply a forecast of what you hope to sell within the next quarter, but what kind of action items or steps that will lead to your desired results. <\/p>\n
When you build in an action plan, everyone will take the sales report a lot more seriously, because they realize it will affect them. It will also make you accountable to yourself and the team the next time you look at a report. <\/p>\n
5. Dress it up<\/h2>\n
People almost expect sales reports to be boring \u2014 nothing more than black letters on a white page, or even just a spreadsheet. <\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t take much to turn a report into something more compelling, and therefore of greater value. <\/p>\n
Find a social media post where a customer mentioned you positively and add it into your report. Include a photo from your team\u2019s appearance at a trade show or industry event. Create colourful pie charts and bar graphs that include the logos of your biggest or most recent customer wins. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s no such thing as an owner\u2019s manual for successfully running a startup, but a sales report comes pretty close \u2014 and best of all, it\u2019s an ongoing work in progress that you get to author yourself. <\/p>\n
<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your first sale as a startup might feel like a minor miracle.
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