At a time where more and more companies become data-driven, the process of decision making regarding key business activities like sales is changing once and for all. By leveraging data, a modern sales manager can identify easier than ever before the areas where his assistance is needed the most and provide sales reps with the advice and coaching they need in order to thrive.
With CRM software systems like Pipedrive, these data become easily available. By constructing dashboards dedicated to performance monitoring stakeholders can get a simple and visual overview of the all sales data divided into different categories.
But in order not to get lost in an information flood it is important not to try and monitor everything but instead be able to spot the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) and compile a dashboard with them. This way the monitoring of all critical metrics becomes easier, less time-consuming and thus more effective.
In your dashboard, you can also include important statistics for following the performance of individual agents, the value of each separate deal or the history of every lead. This way, complex comparisons, such as the one between won and lost deals, become trivial daily tasks of every sales manager’s routine.
In this post, we are going to try to compile such an indicative dashboard using data from Pipedrive that we believe captures the most important aspects a sales manager wants to keep track of. Of course, there is nothing like one-size-fits-all and so depending on the specific company you are working at and the sales strategy you are following, you may want to make slightly different choices of key performance indicators to monitor.
To begin with, we have split the selected KPIs in two big categories: Activity Metrics and Results Metrics.
Activity metrics
Activity metrics (or input metrics as they are sometimes called) actually focus on counting how many times specific actions were performed by the members of the sales team.
Number of emails sent/calls made
These activity metrics can really work for your business by helping you understand the average number of calls or emails required to book a demo or a meeting, and keeping your team on pace.
SELECT date_trunc('month', add_time),
count(case when type = 'email' then 1 else null end),
count(case when type = 'call' then 1 else null end),
FROM pd_activities
GROUP BY date_trunc('month', add_time)
ORDER BY date_trunc('month', add_time) DESC
Number and value of new deals added
According to Pipedrive documentation, “the ongoing transaction with a Person or Organization is tracked as a deal which is processed through the stages of your pipeline until it is either won or lost”. So by monitoring the total number of new deals each month along with their corresponding value, you can monitor how “broad” pool of potential customers your sales team managed to get in touch with.
Consequently, the larger the number of new deals each month the higher the probability that more users are going to convert to paying customers.
SELECT date_trunc('month', add_time), count(*), sum(value)
FROM pd_deals
GROUP BY date_trunc('month', add_time)
ORDER BY date_trunc('month', add_time) DESC
Stats split by top performers and cumulatively
Number of emails sent/calls made per user
Apart from monitoring the number of emails sent of calls made by reps of your team, it is also important to break these numbers down by each member. This way you can also keep track of individual performance and also set a realistic goal regarding activity quotas.
keep track of individual performance and also set realistic goal regarding activity quotas.
SELECT date_trunc('month', add_time), user_id,
count(case when type = 'email' then 1 else null end),
count(case when type = 'call' then 1 else null end),
FROM pd_activities
GROUP BY user_id, date_trunc('month', add_time)
ORDER BY date_trunc('month', add_time) DESC
Number & value of new deals added per user
For the same reason explained above, it makes sense to also monitor the number and total value of the newly added deals per sales rep.
total value of the newly added deals per sales rep.
SELECT user_id, date_trunc('month', add_time), count(*), sum(value)
FROM pd_deals
GROUP BY user_id, user_id, date_trunc('month', add_time)
ORDER BY date_trunc('month', add_time) DESC
Number of activities completed per user
Monitoring of completed activities is also important in the scope of team evaluation. As a manager, you will be able to see your team members’ planned or overdue activities, so you’ll know whether it is time to reward them or encourage them to improve their performance.
SELECT user_id, date_trunc('month', add_time), count(*)
FROM pd_activities
WHERE done = 1
GROUP BY user_id, date_trunc('month', add_time)
ORDER BY date_trunc('month', add_time) DESC
Snapshot of recent new deals
By regularly checking out your dashboard, you can always be up-to-date with the most recent deals that your team has opened.
SELECT id, title, status, add_time
FROM pd_deals
ORDER BY date_trunc('month', add_time) DESC
LIMIT 10
Result metrics
On the other hand, Result Metrics primarily focus on the results achieved like, for example, the total revenue generated each month by won deals.
Number and value of won deals
The number and total value of won deals can be seen as complementary to the number and total value of newly opened deals. By this comparison, you can clearly understand what percentage of the initially identified and contacted leads ended up paying the deposit. This way you can get an overview of how your leads are processing through your pipeline. If a more meticulous consideration is needed you can keep track of the total number of leads in every stage of the sales funnel.
SELECT count(*), sum(value), date_trunc('month', add_time)
FROM pd_deals
WHERE status = 'won'
GROUP BY date_trunc('month', add_time)
ORDER BY date_trunc('month', add_time) DESC
Number and value of lost deals
But apart from the won deals, tracking statistics regarding lost deals is equally important. This way a sales manager can easily identify the weak stages of the sales pipeline that that need extra optimization as well as ways to improve them.
SELECT count(*), sum(value), date_trunc('month', add_time)
FROM pd_deals
WHERE status = 'lost'
GROUP BY date_trunc('month', add_time)
ORDER BY date_trunc('month', add_time) DESC
Status stats by top performers
SELECT user_id, count(case when status = 'open' then 1 else null end) open_deals,
count(case when status = 'won' then 1 else null end) won_deals,
count(case when status = 'lost' then 1 else null end) lost_deals
FROM pd_deals
WHERE date_trunc('month', add_time) = date_trunc('month', now())
GROUP BY user_id
To take away
To conclude, although result metrics may seem to be more important as they directly express the ultimate goal of every business (which obviously is securing new sales), activity metrics can be equally informative for a sales manager.
In fact, as the sales expert and best-selling author Jason Jordan claims “Revenue tells you how great you were at selling last month. And that’s informative, but what you sold last month is not going to help you sell more this month, unless you can use it to identify trouble and look at what people are actually doing and how you can manage and sell differently. The most useful data is around sales activity.”
