Every sales manager is looking for more efficient ways of doing their jobs. The reality is that good management takes a LOT of time, and great management is all-encompassing. So how can you bake in more accountability and simplify your job as a sales manager? The answer is simple: Data visualization. Let’s take a look at how data visualization can revolutionize the way your sales team does business.
The Basics of Visualization
Traditionally, sales teams have spent hours on clunky excel docs to pull together sales reports that are outdated almost immediately. These documents are hard to read, difficult to process, and extremely boring. More often than not, your sales reps will take one glance at these dense and obtuse documents, and their brains will shut down. And according to the University of Minnesota, the human brain processes visuals 60,000x faster than textual data.
In the world of sales, data visualization is a necessity to allow your sales team to see where they stand in their quarterly goals easily and give them the information they need to pivot quickly. Visualizing day-to-day events like sales blitzes also helps to incentivize them to push harder on sales competitions. Data visualization also provides an environment of accountability across every level of your sales force.
Results At A Glance
Every sales rep wants to know how they are performing, especially when a sales competition is going on. Traditional tactics like writing down the leaders on a whiteboard in the office rely on managers constantly being involved in the minutia of their reps’ days. With data visualization, current standing and results are displayed in real-time so that your sales reps know exactly how they are performing at any given time. This allows your reps to hold themselves accountable and to give themselves enough ramp-up time to hit their quotas and goals before it hits their managers.
Interpersonal Accountability
No one wants to be at the bottom of the class. In sales, that lowest-performing rep is in a dangerous position. Worst of all is when your lower-performing reps have absolutely no idea of the fact that they are struggling to hit their numbers until their manager has to pull them aside. This can be extremely embarrassing and demotivating and can even lead to turnover. When your sales reps can see how they stand up to each other in real time, you provide them with the fuel they need to motivate each other with some friendly ribbing, advice from a seasoned rep, or even some one-on-one competitions. Best of all, when your reps hold each other accountable for their workflow, your managers can get back to actually steering the ship instead of getting stuck in the weeds.
Simplified Coaching
Coaching is one of the biggest potential time sucks of any manager. Some managers have even reported spending up to 3 hours preparing for each one-on-one coaching session. That time really adds up, especially if you are managing a team of a few dozen reps. With data visualization, you have direct access to all your reps’ KPIs, current sales, and overall performance metrics at the touch of a button. Best of all, you don’t need to dive into the numbers on boring excel spreadsheets! Great data visualization tools, like our scorecard system, will even color-coordinate your reps’ results, allowing your managers to see who is crushing it and who needs help in minutes, not hours.
Overall, data visualization is one of the most powerful tools you can integrate into any sales force. From remote teams to in-house call centers, data visualization takes the lift off your managers, simplifies your reps’ daily process, and helps your team remain nimble and up to date.
