Guest Expert Follow-up
Ellen DePasquale, the Software Revitalist, was the guest expert at our May Brain Exchange Roundtable. At the Roundtable she presented a fascinating in-depth guide for finding “Six Sales Secrets Hiding in Your Accounting Software”. If you missed that Roundtable, or would just like a review, the content from her presentation was published as an article under the same title in the July issue of New York Enterprise Report.
Here are some of the highlights.
To get a good handle on your top customers, run a sales-by-customer report sorting by the amount they spent with your company in 2008, and a second report for 2009. Compare the two reports. How many of your customers changed positions? Do you have a few new names on the top in 2009? If so, what happened to the customers that got bumped off?
Sales reports uncover trends and cycles, but only if you are looking for them. Even if your company’s sales are stable, take a look at the details—which customers are buying which products or services, and when they are buying them. Your customers should be categorized by industry in your accounting software so you can sort by that field, creating industry-specific snapshots of your market. By understanding the granular data that makes up your sales figures, you can target your marketing appropriately. Sell to your customers when they typically buy, and you should sell more.
Read about all six sales secrets here.
Ellen also has just posted her new white paper, The Importance of Software Training, which is an eye opener for those scrimping on training to save money.
Thanks, Ellen, for continuing to educate us.
