An effective sales department works on data. Intuition and experience are important, but precise metrics reveal hidden growth points and bottlenecks in your funnel.
In this article, we'll explore 10 key performance indicators (KPIs) every sales manager should be tracking and show you how Zoho Analytics can help.
The Three Pillars of Sales Effectiveness: Velocity, Win Rate, and Churn
Before diving into the full list, let’s explore three fundamental metrics, insight into the effectiveness of your pipeline.
1. Sales Velocity
What it is: Sales velocity is more than just the speed of closing deals. It's a metric that measures how much revenue your sales team generates over a given period of time (usually a month or quarter).
Formula in Zoho Analytics:
(Number of Deals × Average Deal Value × Win Rate ) ÷ Average Sales Cycle Length
Why it's important: Velocity shows not only how much you're selling, but also how effectively you're doing it. By increasing the number of leads, average order value, or win rate, or by reducing the sales cycle time, you directly accelerate your revenue flow.
2. Win Rate (Close Rate)
What it is: This is the percentage of deals won out of the total number of closed deals (won + lost) over a period. It directly reflects your sales reps’ effectiveness and the quality of incoming leads flow.
Formula in Zoho Analytics:
(Number of won deals / (Number of won deals + Number of lost deals) ) × 100
Why it's important: A low Win Rate may indicate lead qualification issues, a weak presentation, or strong competitive resistance. Zoho Analytics allows you to analyze this metric by individual sales reps, products, or lead sources.
3. Customer Churn
What it is: Customer churn rate (or churn rate) measures the percentage of customers who stopped using your service or did not make a repeat purchase during a reporting period.
Why this matters: High churn is a warning sign. It indicates potential issues with your product, customer service, or that you're attracting the wrong audience.
Other Key KPIs for Your Dashboard
In addition to the three main ones, your Zoho Analytics dashboard should include:
4. Number of new deals: The total number of deals created during the period. Shows the department's activity and incoming pipeline volume.
5. Sales pipeline value: The total potential value of all active deals in your pipeline. This represents your near-term forecasted revenue.
6. Average deal size: The average value of a won deal. Helps plan and evaluate the effectiveness of upsell strategies.
7. Average sales cycle length: The average number of days it takes to close a deal from creation to completion. Reducing this cycle directly improves Sales velocity.
8. Pipeline conversion rate: Shows the percentage of deals moving from one stage of the funnel to the next. Identifies the bottlenecks where deals are lost or stuck.
9. Sales activities: Number of calls, meetings, and emails sent. Links operational activity to result.
10. Sales forecast: Zoho Analytics allows you to create accurate revenue forecasts based on historical data and the current state of your pipeline.
Conclusion
Tracking the right KPIs is not just about collecting statistics, it’s a strategic necessity. Zoho Analytics transforms data from your Zoho CRM into actionable insights, which allows you to make informed decisions and accelerate sales.