[Battle card] The sales professional's business intelligence battle card

For sales leaders, the ability to communicate about the progress of your team in an informative way is essential. As businesses are creating more data than ever before, drawing insights from your information becomes even more difficult as you may not know where to focus.

Sales reports are a key feature of being a sales manager and sales analytics have become an important, if not the dominating element of any sales report. Sales analytics gives leaders the ability to break sales down into actionable information and enables businesses to examine exactly what is working and what needs improvement.

Below, we outline some of the common statements we get from sales executives before they purchase business intelligence. We provide a rebuttal based on the experiences of the many sales leaders who have made the switch to Phocas.

Statement:I don't know how to use a 'data analytics tool'. That sounds very complex - surely only someone with a technical degree knows how to work with data and analytics systems.

Rebuttal: Sales leaders from a variety of backgrounds get value from Phocas. Phocas is well known in the industry for being easy to use. It is easier to use Phocas than it is to manipulate spreadsheets. Information you can use to increase sales and manage performance will be at your fingertips.

Statement: I manage the sales team. I don't need something else to learn. I am managing all my staff effectively.

Rebuttal: You might be getting the sales in but are you checking the margins? Are your team selling closer to the bone to make their targets? If they are off target, how can you tell your staff where they need to concentrate? Phocas helps you become a better leader by directing your team to the growth opportunities.

Statement: I don’t need anything to help me or my team sell more. I know that my team knows their customers well and their customers know us well. Our customers are loyal and we have the best sales team in the world.

Rebuttal: There may be lots of opportunities you are missing. When was the last time you ran a gap analysis? What you don’t know can be hurting you.

In the words of LED Autolamps executive, Maurice Bibb, "In 3 days using Phocas, we were able to sell more of our commodity product than we did previously in our busiest month.”

Download your sales battle card to learn how to overcome objections and lead a high performing team with business intelligence.