Who better than Deming, Father of Total Quality Management, could have made this profound statement. Quality of data, many a times, reflects on the quality of a product or the quality of work done by a person.
Limiting our discussion to sales and marketing, where are all this “data” coming from?
1. Predominantly data is collected during market research, studies, surveys, tests etc. and the collected data is collated to create reports that would help analyse ground situation, explain behavioural characteristics, understand what happened and why such a thing happened etc.
2. Data is also mined from trails left behind by people, for ex. Customer billing data, website visits etc., to know who did what, when and where?
3. Both the above helps to make strategic decisions which have major impact and can help run powerful CRM programs to engage with customer through the sales cycle and product usage life cycle also.
4. To understand ongoing sales transactions and activities, mile stones achieved, processes completed, etc, to know whether we are on track to achieve what we set out to and if not what are the correctives we need to be taking to get back on track and reach our goals.
Salespersons are measured mostly on numbers and numbers alone. It is Data that makes up these numbers. Sales guys being what they are, try hard to spin stories instead of talking numbers, especially when they are struggling to meet their targets. Spinning yarns to their bosses, comes naturally to many salespersons.
Before we tell our Sales friends how to become “data friendly” and transform themselves in to successful champions, let’s go back in time.
Many years ago, Vikas, a young Area Sales Manager of a large territory in an equally large company, entered the conference room for a mid-quarter sales review with his managers. To say he was completely stressed out would be an understatement. These are meetings where the bosses skin their subordinates, especially those who are behind on their “sales targets”. Needless to mention, Vikas’s territory had a tepid quarter and they didn’t have much to talk about.
The tension was palpable inside the room with all serious faces. These are days that one does not want to remember and the sole focus is on getting though the day with minimal damages. But that day, something happened that opened Vikas’s eyes.
One of his senior colleagues, an Area Manager from a neighbouring large state was presenting the performance of his territory, which by the way was equally bad. However the managers were listening to him keenly rather than beating him up for missing his numbers.
This Area Manager was presenting his number in a nice story format. His numbers showed that his “sell-out” from retailer to end-customer was actually better than previous quarter but revenues were not happening because stocks could not be replenished due to product availability issues from the factory and distributors. He showed through numbers, how he could be doing better if he can get supplies of a key SKU which he had forecasted but did not get allocation so far. He asked for specific marketing and price support to shift demand to a different SKU. He laced his presentation with real life examples and anecdotes that supported the data. He talked about key outcomes and learnings. He talked about Plan B.
There was one common thread in all his slides – he had solid data for every aspect of his story.
That day, it dawned on Vikas that it is not just what the data is, it is the story it says and your ability to decipher that and present it. Vikas never looked back and embraced data in all its forms.
Let’s come back to present!
As salespeople, we all have gone through numerous reviews and have had our fair share of tension and stress with either no proper data to back our story or our inability to interpret the data to find a solution to our problems. To become a successful salesperson, it is important to make the data work for you. Data analysis is now a critical part of a salesperson’s job, as much as meeting customers and making sales pitches. A salesperson who can get data, collate it and analyse it, will be able to get insights to stay ahead of the curve.
Here are the ten steps of “Data Handling” for a salesperson. If imbibed and practiced, it can help salespersons overcome their stress of handling data and put them on the journey to become a Champion Salesperson.
1. Get comfortable with data – A lot of Sales people feel jittery when asked to collate data, leave alone analysing it. This jitter can even lead to breakdowns when it comes to their own sales performance. Remember, these are just numbers. First thing to remember when handling data, is to detach from any judgment or justification and look at it objectively, like if you were a 3rd party.
2. Learn to use MS excel – This one is the key. A lot of Sales people become vary of excel sheets and don’t make an effort to learn even simplest of its features that can make their life easy. Excel provides a whole lot of tools and shortcuts that can help you store your data in an orderly fashion and analyse as per your convenience. Learning MS Excel is investing in your sales career and not an expense. It pays you back handsomely. There are lot of videos on You tube that you can watch and become better at excel.
3. Know your objective - What is it that you want this data for? What do want to analyse from the data? Is it the sales trend of your territory or the performance of your frontline sales team or performance of a particular SKU or how customers are using your product or service, or historical past performances etc. It is important to know what you are trying to understand and start from there. This will ensure you do not go all over and waste time.
4. Identifying the variables – No data is standalone, everything has a link. For instance, the sales performance of your region is a function of stocks, availability of specific best-selling SKUs, Competition activity, Promotional Schemes, Advertisements and other market conditions amongst many. Similarly there are many factors in B2B sales also. If one variable changes, the result of the equation changes. Identify the variables. This is the key.
5. Past data matters – For a Salesperson, be it managing a territory or a state or set of large accounts / customers, it always makes great sense to have past performance trends. Performance trends for Last 3-4 years or last few quarters is a good indicator of how the business has shaped and can provide interesting insights on performance. Year on Year (YoY), Quarter on Quarter (QoQ) and other seasonality trends do not change dramatically. Of course, this does not apply to a new company or a product category, in which case you may want to know about existing competition data to give you certain ideas.
6. Never ignore the Competition – Different industries have different ways to track competition performance to a certain degree of accuracy. Some buy data from research agencies. Some get it from common channel partners and customers. Whichever case, it is important to get as much competition data as possible especially if you and your bosses are goaled on market share metrics. Blending your performance with that of competition will provide insights on gains and losses. It will tell you where you are doing right and where the competition is doing better. It will provide areas where you need to allocate more time to see improvements.
7. Dive in to details – De-averaging the data can unearth interesting insights. De-duplicating data can point you to fraud and wastage in a promotional scheme. The falling of Average Selling Price (ASP) despite growing volumes will tell you about your profitability and losing premium space to competition.
The details can be, by geography or market or SKU or price or timelines. These details when juxtaposed with competition information can give startling insights. And the same insights can be used to improve performance or take drastic correctives.
When an enterprise sales leader was reviewing sales performance of the five new management trainees he had hired six months back, he found two of them averaging 40% lower than the other three, despite the value of pipeline being almost same for all. On diving deep in to data he found that these two were making on an average 15 sales calls a week while the other three were averaging about 20 sales a week. Soon the situation was fixed and these two salespersons also started improving on their performance.
8. Listen to the stories data tells you – All stories have an end. It can be a happy ending if you want.
Here is an interesting chat we had with an FMCG sales leader. His team kept reporting reducing sales volumes for their set of regular retailers in a small territory. During reviews his team kept saying, walk-ins have reduced to the stores because of Covid fear. During the course of that month, he interviewed a competition sales rep for an opening in the team. To his surprise he found that the competition’s sales has gone up significantly. He became curious. He asked his team to go door to door in their territory and meet residents in different housing societies to find out more. The result was startling. The competition had tied up with a hyper local “grocery and daily needs app” that purchased directly from the company’s distributor and supplied to consumer door steps. This “app company” had good tie-ups with large housing societies. Their ordering to delivery was “no contact, hassle free and hygienic”. The FMCG leader met these “app guys” and gave them a good deal and tied up with them. Now their sales has also started climbing up.
Couple of decades back, when a small territory reported sales numbers that were more impressive than bigger territories, the company started investigating. They found that their washing machines were used by Dhabhas in that territory to churn out lassis rather than washing clothes.
One of the key skills for a successful salesperson is the ability to read the story that data is telling you. This will provide the much-needed interpretation for the data. This interpretation can help you convince your superiors and stake holders and get you the desired support to achieve your goals.
Always listen to data. They tell you interesting stories.
9. Look for Causality – Causality, in simple terms, refers to relationships where a change in one variable necessarily results in change in another variable. For Ex. a recent data shows that demand for two-wheeler and three -wheeler rides have gone up post Covid as people believe it is safer as compared to cars despite the noise and pollution that one endures. Here, change in one variable, safety, is causing a change in ridership. This is a great data point for ride sharing businesses to start focussing on three wheelers.
Every industry has some causality that explains an increase or decline in performance. Key is to look for those relationships. These way to do this is by knowing what are the key variables and looking at the impact of each of them or their combinations on the end result or desired results. This is the only way to find out the root cause and address it.
There are two important data points. One is a lead indicator which tells you what you should do. The second one is a lag indicator which tells you what has happened. Both lead indicators and lag indicators play their role if you can read them. For Ex. Sales for the month is a lag indicator whereas number of calls made by the team is a lead indicator. Remember, a forensic investigator uses post-mortem results to find out the perpetrator of the crime. Beat cops by patrolling at key hours prevent crime from happening.
10. Avoid confirmation bias – Many of us start with a story in our mind and then use the data at hand to corroborate that story. This is called confirmation bias, which is to confirm the story that you want to tell, irrespective of what the data is pointing to. True champions never do this. While it may help you in short term, it leads to blind spots and create massive long term issues that cannot be addressed easily. Also one thing leads to another. First it starts with made up stories. Soon it will be self-rationalizing the numbers and reporting only select data that support your story. Shortly you will start fudging data. This is a point of no return. You can lose your job and more importantly lose your credibility. Avoid tampering with data.
In summary, the importance of working and being comfortable with data is one of the most critical skills for any Salesperson wanting to scale up in their career. Follow the above mentioned “10 commandments” on data handling and make your job clean and easy to do. Remember, we are in the information age. Data is the new Oil.
The data shows that, 80% of salespersons reading “Salezart Success Sutras” end up becoming Champion Salespersons and improve their earnings. See, we have already convinced you with the power of data!! Well this was on a lighter note. On a serious note, we do hope to make positive impact on our readers. Hope you find our articles useful. Do share your suggestions on topics you want us to discuss about.
Wishing you all a great season ahead.
Happy reading and happy selling.
Simplicity in Articulation and Sprankled with real time experiences of cutting a sales weaponised with data in modern times... Is timely n great value to the community ..
Reactionary Sales Vs Well informed Sales.