Since I have been busy updating our reporting model for InsideSales.com and tying it to our new 7 Tier Consulting Model I have thought deeply and discussed reporting with many of our team and our customers.  The question is “which reports are really needed for the sales and marketing teams?”

In our industry you can do one of about four things to design reports:

1. Think about the logical categories in your software; like Leads, Accounts, Deals, Cases, etc.
2. Copy what everyone else is doing.
3. Respond to what your customers ask for.
4. Ask what questions your customers are needing answers to.

Which method would you choose?

If you Think about the categories in your software and write reports that work with each category you tend to focus on the product and the features of your product.

If you Copy what everyone else is doing you only do as well as as their best thinking and research and the entire industry seems to get tunnel vision.  (We shy away from this because we learned a long time ago to Zig when everyone else Zags.)

If you Respond to what your customers ask for you tend to go by the prevailing wisdom.  This may be a safe bet.  But what is the result if your customers are typically looking to you for best practices?  If you respond to them when they are really looking to you, this produces a circular loop of mediocrity.  In highly developed industries (of which we are not), the customer is much more educated on what they want and this works much better.

We have tried all of these methods… and each one has proven to miss the mark.

It is best to ask the customer the questions they are trying to solve, design a report that clearly answers as many of those questions as possible in one simple place.

What customers are really needing is answers to their questions:

1- Which lead source actually closes the most revenue?
2- Which campaign is converting the most leads?
3- Which sales reps is most/least effective?
4- Are my leads getting contacted?
5- Why don’t my sales close?
6- Why do my sales close?
7- Do my leads trend up?
8- Do I make money?

What are your key questions?

After careful analysis and lots of thought I have come to the conclusion that there are about 7 levels of reporting structure and value.  This model is quickly becoming part of our new book and more important the consulting model that will follow thereafter.

Level 1- Metrics: This is a simple number.  7 calls.

Level 2- Rates: This is a simple number over time.  7 calls in an hour.  This is the only way to actually compare people over time and especially helpful in comparing full time to part time reps where they work differing hours in a day.

Level 3- Ratios: This is a Rate over a Rate, like Contacts over Dials during the same period of time is a Contact Ratio.

Level 4- Trends: This is a Rate or Ratio over time.  Like Dials per hour for each day in a month, or revenue per week for each week in a quarter.

Level  5- Dispositions/Surveys: This is the only report that answers the key question of ‘Why?’ something happens.  If you follow up with every prospect that does not close and ask why they don’t, you will gain invaluable data to help you change your offering, approach, price, term, etc., based on their combined answers.

Level 6- ROI (Return on Investment): This is the number that owners and management really want.  This is cost compared to revenue.  Each dollar in buys how many dollars out?  This is most valuable for leads, sales people, offers, and marketing content because it focusses on what is most effective.  This report is very hard to get in real time when their is still time to make a difference.

Level 7-  Console/Dashboard: These are Rates, Ratios, Trends, Dispositions, or ROI in real time; while you can still do something about them.

Best Practices:

1- Strong companies invest in Level 3 reports or higher.
2- Managers or Executives think the holy grail are Trends and ROI reports in real time consoles or dashboards so they can do their jobs better and gain visibility over what their people are doing.  Wise companies give these consoles and real time dashboards to the front line sales rep so they can actually make changes during their day.

The marketing department almost always wants the sales department to report results, link campaigns to toll free number and track the search engine keywords that bring in the most sales but it rarely happens. However, knowing the sources of your successes and failures will help you streamline your marketing and ultimately tap your most profitable sources of prospects and profits.

Very few companies track a lead from capture to conclusion or interview prospects and customers to find out why they do or do not buy. However, a sales team that fails to track why it wins or loses each sale is like a sports team that refuses to watch film of its competition before a game to prepare and then film of the actual game to improve for future wins: real progress is impossible unless it takes the time to learn from past successes and failures.

Best Practices: This time-waster covers nearly every area of the lead management and sales processes but it is also very simple to eliminate. The key is to start simple: pick 5 to 10 Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to track for 30 days. Once you have a baseline to work with, begin making changes and tracking them to see how they affect performance and profits.

You can begin be picking the most important Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) such as:

Internet-based Leads

Counts: Impressions, Clicks, Leads, Prospects, Customers

Ratios: Impressions to Clicks, Clicks to Leads, Leads to Prospects, Prospects to Closes.

Cost per: Click, Lead, Prospect, Customer

Cold-Calling Leads

Counts: Dials, Contacts, Presentations, 1^st Appointments Set, 1^st Appointments Held, Demonstrations, Proposals, Closes

Ratios: Contacts per Dial, Closes per Proposal, etc.

Cost per: Dial, Contact, Demo, Close

Revenue

New Revenue per month, Revenue lost per month, Average Revenue per Account, Average Revenue per Sales Rep.

Ranking and Dispositions (from surveys)

Top 10 reasons why: people click on your site/ad, people bought, people didn’t buy, people called your support team, people quit your service.

Top 20 Accounts

Top Sales Representatives