How Medical Sales Leaders Can Boost Sales Reporting and Performance

In medical sales, the ultimate goal is (usually) to close as many deals as possible for the maximum possible value to the company. One of the key tasks in any sales process that helps team leads measure success is sales reporting.

However, while sales reporting can be an incredibly useful tool for tracking sales team progress towards goals, not every manager makes the most of this tool.

Used correctly, sales reports can help managers track the performance of their team members and make data-driven decisions for how to improve said performance.

What Makes Sales Reporting Successful?

Sales reports are a core tool for managing successful sales processes. They help to ensure both individual and group accountability for major sales milestones.

For example, according to a study cited by Process Street:

“48% of under-performing organizations have non-existent or informal processes” while “50% of high-performing sales organizations have sales processes that are ‘closely monitored, strictly enforced or automated’ compared to just 28% from under-performing organizations.”

Organizations that don’t have sales reporting tools and a formal process for using them are less likely to achieve their goals than ones that do. Sales manager reports give team leads the data they need to make course corrections that improve overall results.

For example, say there are two sales representatives who are undergoing a performance review. One has a lot of sales, but the other is struggling to close deals. Without more information, it would be hard to determine why one is successful while the other isn’t.

With a sales activity report, you could compare factors such as call length, number of calls made, and other activities between both employees to discover if specific actions (such as calling five times instead of just twice) have a noticeable impact on sales success.

From there, it may be possible to modify your sales training to emphasize behaviors that improve deal close rates or avoid behaviors that reduce results.

5 Types of Sales Reports

There are many different kinds of sales reports. These reports can be defined by criteria like their frequency, the specific information they track, and who they’re about (such as individual sales reps or the team/sales department as a whole). Here are a few examples of different types of sales reports:

1. Sales Activity/Process Metric Reports

A set of process metrics compiled into a report to let sales managers track how sales reps spend their time. Process metrics are those metrics which measure specific activities that are part of the sales process, such as:

• Number of sales meetings made;
• Time spent on each sales meeting; and
• Number of emails sent.

This type of report helps keep sales team members on task with their sales processes so they can hit their goals. Alternatively, it can be used alongside reports with more results-oriented metrics to identify the behaviors of top performers so others can be trained to emulate them.

2. Sales Performance Reports

A results-oriented report that highlights performance metrics like deals closed, deal value, and successful close rate. These reports can focus on a single sales team member, or the sales department as a whole to help track success.

In these reports, performance metrics are measured against set goals to determine how close the organization (or a sales rep) is to meeting sales goals. If a single sales rep is consistently underperforming compared to their goals when others are meeting them, that could be an indication that the rep needs additional support or other corrective actions.

Alternatively, if the whole sales team/department is struggling to consistently meet sales goals, that could be an indication that the sales process needs to be modified.

3. Time-Based Reports

Sales reports are made to cover activity or results for a specific time period. This can be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or even yearly.

• Daily Reports. Short-term reports that tend to focus on sales activity data on a given day. This can be useful for tracking process-oriented goals on a day-by-day basis so sales managers can verify that reps are staying on track.
• Weekly Reports. Reports that track sales activities and results over the course of a given week. Useful for amassing more data over time than the daily reports, which may help average results out to give a better idea if short-term sales activities and results are on track.
• Monthly Reports. These are somewhat longer-term reports that are often useful for checking sales results on a departmental or team level. Can be useful in sales team reviews to highlight successes and challenges that need to be addressed.
• Quarterly Reports. Long-term reports that are often useful for reporting sales results and activities to leaders and key stakeholders in the organization who aren’t part of the sales team/department. Assembles a large amount of data to help track trends over time.
• Yearly Reports. An end-of-year report that looks at all sales activity and results for the fiscal year. The delay between activity and report is too long to be useful for short-term initiatives to improve sales, but can be crucial for tracking long-term sales success.

4. Individual Sales Rep Performance Reports

Sales reports that focus on the activities and results generated by a single sales rep. These reports can be crucial for conducting a fair and accurate employee performance review. They can also be useful for modifying sales rep training and development programs.

5. Team/Departmental Performance Reports

Reports that look at the performance of the sales team as a whole. Team/departmental performance reports can help track overall trends among the sales team and provide an indication of the health of the company’s medical sales efforts.

7 Metrics Medical Sales Reporting Should Focus On

When creating medical sales reports, which metrics should the organization focus on? The answer to this question depends on the organization’s goals. For example, an organization that wants to improve its sales training might focus on process-oriented metrics to identify the behaviors of successful sellers.

Organizations that are looking simply to increase sales might focus more on results-oriented metrics (like total number of closed deals or average deal value). This information could then be used in an incentive program meant to motivate sales reps to work harder to close more deals.

Some common metrics that medical sales reports should focus on include:

• Total Deals Closed. Regardless of industry specialization or organization goals, the total number of deals closed will always be an important metric to track. Without knowing the total number of deals closed, it’s hard to establish a reasonable performance benchmark for individual sales reps to aim for.
• Average Deal Value. How much is each closed deal worth to the organization? Knowing the average deal value and comparing it to overhead costs helps the leadership team determine sales ROI and reduce the risk of overspending.
• Number of Opportunities in the Sales Pipeline. How many prospects are in the organization’s sales pipeline at any given time? Keeping the pipeline full of sales opportunities is crucial for keeping consistent income. However, it’s important to note that the addition of new opportunities/prospects is typically controlled by the company’s marketing department and not the sales team.
• Sales Pipeline/Funnel Attrition. How many prospects are leaving the sales pipeline (i.e. sales funnel) in a given period of time? At what stages of the sales pipeline are they leaving? Having information on the attrition rate in the sales process can be useful for optimizing processes to maximize the number of prospects who make it all the way through.
• Number of Touchpoints Created by Sales Rep. How many emails, phone conversations, or other touchpoints has a specific sales rep created with prospects? This process metric helps to establish how much “effort” a rep is putting into their sales outreach efforts.
• Number of Demos/Meetings Booked. How many product demos or sales meetings has a sales rep successfully arranged? This metric helps to establish how actively sales reps are working to close deals and how successful they are at engaging prospects.
• Average Time to Close. How long does it take for a new sales prospect to go through the entire sales process to become a closed deal? Having this information helps sales leaders better anticipate when they can expect to generate revenue from different sales leads.

In many cases, multiple metrics can be combined to provide valuable insights. For example, comparing the total number of opportunities in the sales funnel with the average attrition rate and time to close can help establish how much revenue the organization can expect to generate in a given quarter.

How to Improve Sales Reporting

So, how can you improve your organization’s sales manager reports? Some basic tips for improving sales reports include:

1. Choosing the Right Sales Reporting Tools

Odds are that you’re already using some kind of sales reporting dashboard, customer relationship management (CRM) software that tracks process and performance metrics, or other sales reporting tools.

However, finding the right sales reporting tool is important for making sales report creation and management as simple as possible. Relying on multiple reporting tools that draw information from different sources and don’t combine the data into a single report can create room for error that may make reports less valuable.

So, when adding new sales reporting tools, it’s important to consider what data sources they can draw on and whether they can integrate with your other sales management tools.

For example, when adding a new sales reporting dashboard, can it integrate with your CRM to automatically display the most current sales performance data? Such integrations can help make compiling reports or checking progress much simpler.

2. Consider Using Automated Reporting Tools

For some of your more frequent reports that simply present data without the need for interpretation, it may be helpful to use an automated reporting tool. With such tools, reports can be put together automatically from various data feeds and sent out at regular intervals—saving time and labor on report generation.

3. Have a Specific Goal in Mind for Your Reports

What are you trying to accomplish with your sales report? Who is the audience for your report and what do you want them to know? Having a specific goal in mind when creating a sales report can help you to create a more focused, easy-to-read report.

For example, if you’re writing a sales report to use as part of an employee performance review, odds are that you’ll want to keep the employee being reviewed in mind. So, you’ll want to track performance metrics (like deals closed) as well as process metrics (like touchpoints created). With this information, you can have an in-depth conversation about the rep’s activities and results for the period being assessed.

On the other hand, if you’re presenting a report to C-level execs in the organization, it might be helpful to focus more on high-level metrics that apply to the whole sales department. Including a year-over-year comparison of sales data can help highlight successes or opportunities for improvement. This can be useful for motivating leadership to either stay the course or make necessary improvements to sales processes and training.

4. Create Concise Summaries of Key Report Findings

Not every person who reads a sales report will have the time to dive down into every metric to piece together what they need to know. So, including a section in the report that summarizes its key findings in an easy-to-digest manner can be crucial.

The challenge here is that it’s difficult to automate this kind of summary since it requires an active interpretation of the facts. For example, if the data in the report indicates some kind of severe deficiency in the sales process, an automated reporting solution won’t be able to recommend a specific course of action. Instead, you’ll need to create your own plan for addressing the issue and put it into the “key findings” summary of the report.

5. Consider Visual Design

When writing a report, it’s important for data to be easy to find and interpret. A report with nothing but large blocks of text would be nearly impossible for the average reader to skim easily (even with extensive experience).

So, it’s important to consider the visual elements in the report. For example, consider adding charts, images, section headers, bullet lists, and other elements where appropriate to draw the eye to the most important data in the report. This makes it easier to skim through the report—whether it’s printed on paper or in a downloadable PDF file.

As noted by Uplead, “the right charts and graphs do the explaining for you. And they let your audience understand the numbers in an organic, intuitive way.”

Need Help Improving the Sales Results in Your Reports?

Axxelus is here to help with outsourced sales services. We help companies in the medical sales industry grow by pairing dedicated, motivated, and highly skilled sales reps with companies where their talents can flourish.

Every sales rep is carefully vetted to ensure that they’re a good fit for our customers so friction is minimized while sales results are maximized. If you need to grow your sales efforts in a hurry, reach out to Axxelus today to get started!