It is popular with companies with both low and high IT literacy due to its advantages, such as low cost, ease of operation, advanced analysis capabilities, excellent customizability, and the fact that many employees are accustomed to it from other work.
However, using Excel as a sales management tool can often be inefficient, so you need to be careful how you use it.
In this article, we will introduce tips for efficiently managing sales using Excel, as well as free Excel templates that you can use immediately in the field.
What is sales management?
Sales management is a general term for the management of sales activities. It is generally used to mean grasping sales activities numerically and implementing the PDCA cycle in order to maximize one's sales.
Sales management is made up of various management techniques, but the basic management consists of the following four:
Sales management (goal management)
Customer Management
Case Management
Behavior Management
Sales management is carried out using tools such as Excel, Google Spreadsheets, CRM (customer relationship management system), and SFA (sales force automation system), and the data is used for the sales department's sales forecasts, sales strategies, tactics, etc. Among these, the most widely used tool is Excel.
The following is a survey of 310 sales managers thailand b2b leads conducted by software vendor Hammock Co., Ltd. in 2022. Excel is ranked first as a tool used for sales management.
1. Survey results on tools used in sales management (survey by Hammock Co., Ltd.)
(Source: Hammock Co., Ltd. )
Why is sales management important?
Along with the marketing department, the sales department is responsible for increasing a company's sales and profits, so it has an obligation to always provide accurate figures to management.
In addition, since much of sales activity is left to individuals, it can easily become dependent on one's personality, and information from the field tends to become a black box, making sales management essential.
Project status can be visualized and shared within the team
By managing projects, the progress of each sales representative's projects can be shared with the entire team. The following benefits are available because all steps from contact with potential customers to approach, order receipt, and transaction status are visualized.
Managers can easily forecast sales and anticipate new orders.
Cases that require follow-up can be dealt with early on
Even if a sales representative leaves the company or goes on vacation, other staff can smoothly follow up.
In addition, everyone's activity and sales activities are made visible, allowing you to learn naturally.
Standardization of sales capabilities and activities
Within a team, there will inevitably be salespeople who sell well and those who don't achieve much. New employees join the company, and veteran salespeople fall into a slump.
One of the reasons for this is that sales activities are left to the discretion of the individual, resulting in some people using inefficient methods or taking approaches at poor timing. While some people have the aptitude, many of them get stuck because they don't know even a little bit of know-how.
By analyzing the behavioral patterns of top-performing sales representatives based on sales management data and creating the most effective "standard sales workflow," even new employees will be able to carry out a certain level of effective sales activities.
Basic sales activities such as the amount of daily action and the timing of emails and follow-ups with potential customers are standardized, which leads to improved sales for members who previously had poor performance, and raises the sales ability of the entire team.
