Sales monitoring connects the sales plan, the state of deals and salespeople’s work with the actions the head of sales takes when things go off track. Set it up in this order: choose the result, define the warning signs, set response deadlines and appoint the person responsible for putting things right. The business owner gets a picture of the money and unresolved risks, while the head of sales handles the daily work with the team.
You want closer monitoring when you find out about a late payment after the promised date, and about a lost buyer after they have turned you down. It is natural to want to see more: a morning report, an evening summary, all the salespeople’s conversations. If information arrives too late, another spreadsheet really does seem like the first remedy.
But first look at the time between an event and a decision. When does the head of sales notice that something is overdue? How long do they then wait for approval? Does the department still have time to change anything before the buyer’s deadline? This reveals the difference between a lack of information and a delay in management action. In the latter case, the amount of information grows while the time available to put things right keeps slipping away.
Base monitoring frequency on the client’s deadline
Monitoring needs to be frequent enough to leave time for action after a problem is found. A weekly report suits decisions that can wait that long. It will be too late for a reply promised today.
Take one recurring failure in your business: for example, a delay in preparing the figures for a proposal. Work out how much time passes between the first visible sign and the point when it is too late to send the client a revised proposal. Then subtract the time the team needs to put things right. What remains is the maximum time available to spot the problem and pass it to the head of sales.
For example, the buyer’s deadline is three working days away, and preparing and approving the revised figures takes two. Three minus two leaves one working day to spot the problem. A weekly summary is clearly slower than the deal here. The head of sales needs an alert on the day the delay starts, with time allowed for approval. This calculation is based on the timescales of your work; there is no universal rule to “check the CRM system twice a day”.
If putting things right takes all the time left, checking more often will not be enough. You will have to shorten the approval process, pass the decision to someone available, or spot the warning sign of a delay earlier. It helps the business owner to distinguish between these cases before buying a new service: a notification does not give an employee the authority they lack.
Which measures to include in sales monitoring
To start, it is enough to see the financial result, upcoming commitments to buyers and where the department’s work is going off track. Every row should answer the question of when the head of sales steps in. Keep a measure without such a condition for reference; otherwise, the summary will soon become a list of everything the CRM can count.
| What to monitor | Measure and source | Reason to act |
|---|---|---|
| Sales plan performance | The sales plan and actual results to date, on the same basis: payments, shipments or signed contracts | Falling behind the agreed schedule requires a review of actions on current deals |
| Upcoming money | The total expected payments and obstacles to each, from deals and payment records | An obstacle remains unresolved by the agreed payment deadline |
| First response | The number of enquiries left unanswered beyond the agreed time limit, from the enquiry queue | The head of sales assigns someone to respond or changes how incoming enquiries are allocated |
| Commitments to clients | Overdue promises and upcoming actions, from tasks and correspondence | Less time remains before the buyer’s deadline than is needed to fulfil the commitment |
| Stalled deals | Deals where the next step has not been completed or no date has been confirmed for continuing | The head of sales finds the reason for the standstill and chooses an action |
| Quality of negotiations | Recurring mistakes in conversations for selected deals | A mistake recurs after a review or immediately puts the order at serious risk |
All the business owner needs is the total amount, the reason for a significant deviation and what the head of sales has already done. The head of sales needs detailed lists to allocate the work. The owner keeps access to them, but sending over all overdue tasks every day turns them into the person coordinating the department’s work.
Compare the financial sales plan with the schedule on which sales are actually expected. Half a calendar month does not mean half the payments if buyers pay on dates agreed in advance. For a separate look at how to connect the goal with the team’s actions, see “Sales have fallen. There is a sales plan — but what should salespeople do differently?”.
Calculate the amount at risk carefully too. For example, a contract worth 1 million ₽ provides for an advance payment of 200 thousand ₽ this month, with the rest due later. If the advance is delayed, 200 thousand ₽ of the current financial sales plan is at risk. A million represents the value of the whole deal. These are different amounts for different decisions; neither is yet the same as a final loss.
Sales monitoring methods: which to use for different tasks
Comparing the sales plan with actual results shows where results differ, notifications help you spot an event in time, and reviewing a deal explains the cause. Choosing one method for the whole department is awkward: it will either leave problems unnoticed or take too much time.
| Method | Purpose | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled summary | See changes in results and workload | The head of sales compares the period’s results with the sales plan and picks out deviations that need a decision |
| Event alert | Respond before the client’s deadline | A missed deadline or change in terms goes straight to the person responsible, without waiting for a meeting |
| Review of a problem deal | Find where progress stopped | The head of sales brings together the deal record, the conversation, the promise to the client and the action actually taken |
| Spot checks of ordinary deals | Find what the configured alerts do not detect | The head of sales selects deals from different salespeople, including those with no recorded breaches |
CRM is useful for deadlines, history and who is responsible. The phone system and correspondence provide the content of conversations. Payment records confirm the money received. A small department can start with a shared spreadsheet, as long as one person is responsible for it and it is clear when it is updated. It is worth moving to CRM when changes get lost, versions have to be brought together by hand, or tasks cannot be assigned in time.
Every alert must have a recipient. If a notification goes to the salesperson, the head of sales and the owner at the same time, decide in advance who must act. Otherwise, all three know about the missed deadline, but each waits for someone else. The business owner is brought in for a specified reason: their decision is needed, a limit has been breached, or the head of sales has not managed to resolve the issue in the allotted time.
Monitoring salespeople’s performance
Monitoring salespeople’s performance starts with each salesperson’s commitments: which clients have been assigned to them, what they must do, by when, and what the result was. The head of sales compares these conditions with the actions and result, then decides whether to provide help, training or a change in workload.
It is pointless to start with a general judgement that someone is “doing a poor job”. A missed call when time was available, a queue of work beyond someone’s capacity and waiting for figures from another department require different decisions. In the first case, the head of sales reviews how the work was done; in the second, redistributes the work; in the third, agrees a deadline with the other department. Putting pressure on a salesperson will not speed up a calculation being done by another employee.
Do not turn monitoring into the head of sales’ right to change requirements at any time. The salesperson knows the response deadline, required actions and how to ask for help in advance. Then the review rests on what was agreed. A new requirement thought up after a deal is lost must first be introduced into day-to-day work; otherwise, the team will be guessing the boss’s mood.
The content of negotiations is considered alongside the purpose of the conversation. If the client has already agreed to buy, not presenting the product again is not a mistake in itself. The head of sales looks for what affected the next decision: was the approval process clarified, was the promised deadline achievable, was the buyer’s constraint heard?
The business owner does not need to review every conversation for this. The head of sales starts with a recurring problem, reviews the relevant conversations and shows the salesperson a specific action. During the next suitable conversation, they check whether the behaviour has changed. Completing training does not confirm this by itself.
Sales monitoring and analysis
Sales monitoring and analysis handle tasks in sequence: monitoring spots a deviation and triggers a response, while analysis explains the cause and helps change the way work is done. An urgent deal is put back in motion straight away; a recurring delay is examined across several cases.
For example, a proposal has not been sent on time. For the current client, there needs to be a new, achievable deadline and an employee who will make sure the proposal is sent. For the analysis, the head of sales finds where the wait keeps occurring: with the salesperson, while the price is being calculated or when terms are being approved. As long as these stages are lumped together, the business owner sees only a general “salespeople are dragging things out” and risks monitoring the wrong person more closely.
Compare similar orders. A complex calculation based on a buyer’s requirements cannot be judged by the time needed for a ready-made proposal from a catalogue. If delays are concentrated in complex orders handled by different salespeople, start by examining how the figures are prepared. If one salesperson is causing delays on orders of the same complexity, there is a different basis for the conversation.
The result of analysis is a change to a specific action: remove an unnecessary approval, change the queue for calculations, teach the salesperson to gather missing information before passing on an order. With new deals, check whether the wait at the chosen stage has shortened and whether a delay has appeared further along. One rescued deal cannot be presented as the removal of the common cause.
A review does not have to turn into another meeting. The article “The sales meeting is over. Deals are still stuck” shows how to turn what was discussed into changes between meetings.
How do you start monitoring and know it is working?
Start with one part of sales, follow the path from alert to correction, and only then extend the process to the other deals. For the initial launch, choose a recurring loss that the department can spot in advance: a late reply, an unprepared proposal or a missed approval.
1. Record the starting process
The head of sales gathers the times when the problem arose, was spotted and was first acted on for completed deals. The business owner receives the conclusion: which part of the process delays the response and who can change it. If the times are unknown, the first days of the launch are needed to record them. It is too early to buy automation before this: it is not yet clear which delay it is meant to remove.
2. Set a response rule
For the chosen breach, record five fields: the sign, the information source, the alert recipient, the action and the maximum response time. Add a replacement for when the recipient is absent. For example, an overdue promise to send a proposal goes to the head of sales; they find the cause, assign someone to act and ensure a new deadline is agreed with the client that same working day. If the client needs a reply sooner, their deadline applies.
3. Test the whole process
Run through the rule on a completed deal, then track a new event. Is the breach visible without a reminder from the owner? Did it reach the right person? Was there enough time to act? The result of the first check is a clear answer to each of these points. If a missed deadline is spotted but no one is assigned to act, the launch has stopped halfway.
4. Remove unnecessary alerts
After the first ten alerts, the head of sales separates real breaches from record-keeping errors and wrongly chosen deadlines. If a waiting period agreed with the buyer is constantly treated as overdue, adjust the rule. If the notification is correct but is ignored, change how the rule is followed. You cannot turn off an inconvenient warning just to make the summary look reassuring.
Monitoring also takes working time
Before extending the process, calculate the workload. For example, ten minutes of daily review for each of five salespeople over five working days is 10 × 5 × 5 = 250 minutes, or 4 hours 10 minutes a week. This does not yet include help with negotiations or work with other departments. This calculation is worth doing before assigning all alerts to the business owner.
If the head of sales only has time to gather information, time needs to be freed up for decisions and seeing tasks through. If there is no one at all to regularly look after the existing department, requiring new reports will add to the owner’s work. At RENTROP, sales monitoring is part of the “turnkey sales management” product: a team handles the sales plan, salespeople and stalled deals. This option suits a business owner who wants to hand over the day-to-day work.
Whenever you add another report, decide straight away which work it will let you stop doing: calling salespeople, manually looking for overdue tasks, collecting promises from correspondence. If all the old work stays and a new summary is added on top, there will be even less time for management. This arithmetic is where you should start when you want to monitor sales more closely.