6 Steps to Conducting a Sales Audit

When you evaluate your business, you probably think long and hard about things like your marketing strategy, your overall budget and ways to trim, or your company culture and whether or not it is serving your team well.

But something you might not evaluate quite as often is your sales strategy. This is actually very understandable, because it’s easy to think of sales as something that is dependent upon leads generated from marketing, and as something that either succeeds or doesn’t. But, your sales strategy is much more productive than that, and it’s something you can consistently refine and improve. The best way to make sure you’re reaching your maximum sales potential? A sales audit.

What is a Sales Audit?

Audits aren’t just for the IRS. They’re a powerful way for you and your team to evaluate your work and determine where you can improve things to reach your revenue goals. While a sales audit might sound complex or intense, it’s pretty straightforward. You and your team go over each of the components that makes up your sales cycle or process. What is working? Where do you have gaps, holes, or bottlenecks that keep you from closing deals? Are you doing something to turn prospects away?

It’s important to note that an audit like this needs to be done with both marketing and sales. While this is not a direct audit of your marketing efforts, their input and thoughts matter because of the close relationship that should exist between these teams. 

6 Steps to Conducting a Sales Audit

Your sales audit will be unique to your business and your needs, but there are a few components it should include no matter what. As you’re going through these different components, keep your revenue goals close at hand.

1. Evaluate your sales process or road map. What process do you want leads to follow to become a prospect and then a customer? Does your current process leave any gaps where prospects fall through the cracks?
2. Review your existing tools and assets. There are a few tools your sales team needs to successfully move prospects through the pipeline to become customers. One of the most critical is a CRM that allows you to manage lead information, track progress, and view analytics and data all in one place. 
3. Review your existing content and sales resources. Often, we think of content as part of our marketing process, but it plays a critical role in helping prospects make the leap to become a customer. Things like case studies or comparisons, webinars, and product demonstrations are just some of the resources that will educate prospects and serve them in their decision-making process.
4. Determine the quality of your current leads. Not all leads are equal, and not all leads are ones you want for your business. How would you rate the quality of your current leads? What do marketing and sales need in order to be sure a lead is qualified for sales?
5. Assess your current reporting. The more data your sales team has to work with, the more accurate and successful their efforts will be. Do you have the tools to provide your team with the information they need? Is your team viewing and evaluating this information on a regular basis?
6. Evaluate your sales synergy. Your sales team is not on an island. Instead, they should have a close working relationship with company leadership, marketing, and account managers. Find out what will help create a better synergy between these teams, then make a plan to put it in place.

Start Your Sales Audit Now

Conducting a sales audit is an important and necessary step in positioning your company for success and growth. Evaluating each of these components of your current sales process will help you determine what your team needs to meet your revenue goals.

Our experience with our own business and with our clients has given us the tools and knowledge to help businesses conduct sales audits. If you’re interested in learning more about this service, we’d love to set up a time to meet with you and learn about your business and help you develop a plan for growth in the year ahead. Click the image below to learn more!