The average sales organization uses 10 sales tools and counting. But having lots of technology doesn’t always mean having lots of insight. While they may be overloaded with sales data, few sales organizations mine this data for its full value.

These organizations need to find a way to turn their sales data into an asset. They need to know what types of data exist and the best way to use this data to succeed.

What is sales data?

Data is the lifeblood of sales organizations—or at least it should be. Sales data includes any information organizations use to make decisions relating to their sales teams about hiring sellers, positioning their offerings, reaching out to buyers, and more.

But some organizations are swimming in too much data from their sales technology stack to maximize its value. Others may not know the best way to analyze their data and keep adding tools to gather more information.

Capturing the right types of data is essential to sales transformation. Your organization should be analyzing three types of data above all.

1. Employee data: Build a winning team

Sales organizations say talent gaps are their top internal challenge, according to our 2020–2021 Sales Performance Study. But for years, these organizations have taken an instinct-driven approach to hiring and promotions. If leaders define “good” sellers as those who close more deals and hit their sales quota, these metrics may not account for whether a seller has inherited a target-filled territory or relationships other sellers have cultivated.

Looking at what’s made sellers successful also doesn’t account for current changes in the market or buyer expectations. When choosing talent, sales organizations must focus on the traits and skills—such as learning agility, digital capabilities, and cultural fit—their team will need in the future. And they need to ground these talent decisions in data.

Many types of data allow sales leaders to figure out which competencies predict success. At the hiring stage, using assessments to determine which candidates have the ideal skill set, mindset, and cultural fit can help organizations differentiate their sales performance, accelerate productivity, and increase employee retention.

And by pairing assessments with data from their customer relationship management (CRM) software, sales leaders can build a success profile of critical traits, drivers, and competencies such as strong customer focus, ability to manage complexity, and striving for achievement. Sales managers can assess candidates for those competencies against a success profile and develop existing candidates who fall short.

With a scarcity of talent, the right total rewards package motivates teams and aligns pay and performance to drive sales, balancing the right pay and pay at risk for their sales environment. Using compensation benchmarking data allows sales leaders to design sales compensation plans that give them a competitive advantage and are cost-effective and linked to business goals.

2. Customer data: Become their go-to partner sooner

Today’s buyers want sellers to understand their business, offer insights, and communicate with them. But they also want to understand the value of sellers’ solutions.

Yet sellers often don’t have an opportunity to explain their value because buyers don’t view sellers as a top resource when making a buying decision. Buyers facing business challenges ranked sellers ninth of 10 go-to resources, behind industry publications, vendor websites, and web searches.

Even when sellers have the opportunity to engage buyers, they often fall short. Today, fewer sellers than ever meet buyers’ expectations. Nearly 20% of buyers find no value in working with sellers, and they generally wait until late in the buying cycle—after clarifying their needs, evaluating solutions, and making their selection—to engage sellers.

Sales organizations need to ensure their sellers add value for buyers. Sales data can help them improve buyer engagement.

With predictive data from their CRM and other sales tools, sellers can map out their buyer’s path from awareness to implementation. Sellers can learn which insights consistently resonate most with different stakeholders at various touchpoints.

Analytics platforms using historical customer data, such as revealing why deals are won or lost, can give sales managers greater visibility into opportunities. Sales leaders can use this information to coach sellers on which actions to pursue—and avoid—to improve their results.

3. Outcome data: Adapt in real time

Sales forecasts are often inaccurate. Only 25% of sales organizations have a forecast accuracy of 75% or greater, according to our 2020–2021 Sales Performance Study. That’s because most organizations still evaluate their deals based on past experiences rather than data.

Organizations with robust CRMs integrated with analytics can build opportunity scorecards that reliably show which opportunities are most likely to convert. Sales managers and sellers also can quickly and precisely determine which deals will move fastest and slowest through a pipeline.

Sales leaders can study this data to identify the most lucrative accounts to mine for opportunities, as well as which new or existing accounts have the most potential to convert, and use this insight to amend their sales methodology or attract similar accounts. This transforms a CRM into a decision-making tool, enabling sales teams to decide where to spend their time for the biggest ROI.

Maximizing the value of sales data

All sales organizations study their numbers. But most don’t go beyond the surface when choosing talent, aligning their sales process with the buyer’s journey, or predicting outcomes.

And now it’s more critical than ever. With the economic slowdown, deals are stalling, and only half of deals are converting. Sales teams need data to help them maximize every selling conversation and increase the likelihood of a conversion in the next six to 12 months.

The first step toward building a formal data strategy is to understand your organization’s universe of data. The next is to identify gaps and fill them with the right sales technology. Only then can your sales organization figure out how to capture the meaningful insights that will drive results.

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Learn how you can stay ahead of the curve and increase conversion likelihood to convert more in your pipeline with artificial intelligence-powered sales strategies with Korn Ferry’s sales effectiveness solutions.