All the vital information your spreadsheet will never tell you.
By George Petri finstSMM, Published: May 15th 2006
How much time do you actually spend on creating forecasts? How much time do your sales force take in preparing information for your sales forecasts? Think about it...
Here are a list of questions with regards to using spreadsheets with regards to all the headaches that spreadsheets and forecasts create.
1. Are you spending an inordinate amount of time consolidating forecasts?
- Realistically, how long is it taking to make headway from your spreadsheets? Hours, maybe days? If you are honest, then perhaps there is also a groan of despair when you know that it is time to "hit those" spreadsheets. Think on this then.
Think of all the times that you have put off consollidating the spreadsheets because it takes too much time. Then think of how many times you really are getting a good understanding of how your business is performing. Wouldn't it be great if you could snap your fingers and get a snapshot of your business whenever you want without any hassle?
2. Do you have enough real prospects in the pipeline?
- With a spreadsheet, how can you tell whether your projected sales income is predicted accurately? How do you differentiate between a 'real' prospect and a 'phantom'?
3. Are you able to generate a real and rapid improvement in the quality and value of the pipeline?
- Business is a fluid environment. Being able to identify what areas you are getting the best return of investment in time and effort, so that you can divert your energy towards them is one of the most important aspects of a healthy business. Can you easily achieve this using a spreadsheet?
4. Can you quickly and easily identify key opportunities and what can be done to progress them?
- Can a spreadsheet analyse trends in your sales cycles that recognise when a prospect is 'hot', so that your sales force can then divert resources to pursue these more profitable deals.
5. Are you able to analyse whether there is a recurring theme as to why opportunities are won and lost?
- Sometimes, simply knowing that you won opportunities or lost opportunities in certain areas is not enough, you need to know why! A spreadsheet can't tell you that.
6. Can you easily quantify which products, services, market sectors are proving more profitable than others, and why?
- Maybe you can quantify, but at a glance can you tell why?
7. Can you easily quantify what are the comparative sales cycle times for each sales person, product, or market sector?
- How much effort is it going to take you using a spreadsheet to establish the length of sales cycles for each product in respect to each sales person?
8. Do you know which sales people perform better (at various stages in the sales cycle), and why?
- Does a spreadsheet tell you that one member of your team has difficulty in closing deals but is great at getting new prospects and turning them into opportunities?
9. Are you fully aware of the strengths and weaknesses of your sales people?
- If your spreadsheet doesn't tell you, or you don't have the time to find out, how are you going to find this information out?
Guess what? Yes, SymVolli can do all this..
SymVolli helps you address these pains and increase revenue by gaining a clearer picture of the reasons behind success and failure. It helps by asking the questions of the sales force to ensure that each opportunity is being qualified continuously, and with minimum effort, throughout the sales cycle.