Art Post
It wasn’t until I visited my son at basic training that I picked up on the word “tracking.” In the Army “tracking” refers to “do you understand what I’m talking about”? My son made a statement and at the end tagged it with “are you tracking?”
Even though I work with a CRM software that tracks everything I do (I liked it a lot better when I had index cards, they were mine and all mine, I’m figuring sooner or later the company will give me a cell phone and then…well let’s say I’ll probably not be sipping Margarita’s at the Jersey Shore anymore) from calls, to opportunities and dollar amounts, I still keep track of my sales and opportunities on my own Excel spreadsheet. My manager once asked why I do this since all that information is already in the CRM. I told him, I do it so I can have a quick glance of everything I need to know on one document/file, things like name of account, what model number, what serial number, spiff from the manufacturer, total sale, total GP, commission, bonus, term of lease, date of sale, monthly totals, quarterly totals, bonus totals, future opportunities, accessories, maintenance agreements and the cost of the equipment (dealer cost). Thus at anytime I can get a quick snap shot of what’s going on instead of accessing multiple screens of data from the CRM. Are you tracking?
At any given time I can tell how much profit I’m generating for the company, back out my salary, my benefits, taxes, expenses, and pretty much it’s my way of knowing that I’m performing and can help when I need to negotiate in the future. This has also proven to be a great time saver. In some cases I had a question come up on a sale and if I did not have the spreadsheet then I had to access scanned files, look at order forms, leases, etc. in order to have the answer. I never thought that a simple spreadsheet would save so much time, and especially when it comes to commissions. Are you tracking?
If you’re going to stay in this business’s you need to track all of your sales—three, four, and five years can come around in a hurry. I’ve also found that having the spreadsheet allows me to work and or review my sales and pipeline and whenever and where ever I need to.
A few years ago I wrote a blog about tracking the sales that I didn’t make. You can also keep these in the CRM, but I like to have them in both places. You might have not been able to secure the customer the first time around, however, when you follow up in 2-5 years what you’ll probably find out is that the salesperson that sold them the first copier is no longer with the company, thus you would be that go to person, right? Are you tracking?
