All businesses that are focused on growth should measure the effectiveness of their sales and marketing strategies. In an increasingly digitised world, the quantity of data elements to analyse has risen steadily. Moreover, this huge quantity of data is disjointed. Your measurement calculations can go skew-whiff rapidly, due to the diverse metrics and channels involved. This results in costly, substandard marketing. Happily, it is possible to manage this overabundance of data – by realising that some of it is not important, and concentrating on the aspects that are.

Whether you're a new start-up or you've been in the game for a while, sales targets can cause difficulties. Often they're too ambitious, ending up as pie in the sky and causing friction as workers struggle valiantly to meet them, or they may be too low, so that they fail to motivate your team to their full productive potential. Here's how to ensure that your sales targets stay realistic to your means but ambitious enough to deliver prosperity.

Judging good sales leads is essential to business success. A steady supply of leads is invaluable, but they must also be likely to convert to sales. The best, or most qualified leads are those tending toward significant purchases, at a good price and with ongoing repeat sales opportunities. But how do you identify them? Start by asking the following questions:

Strong field sales management can take your business further by bringing in revenue and unlocking the potential of your company’s human capital. However, first-time business owners or those who manage small companies often miss targets or struggle finding the formula that works for them. And recently, field sales have come under additional pressure due to the effects of the pandemic and subsequent lockdown. Here are some useful pointers to strengthen your results and stay ahead in uncertain times.

Your sales plan should be the heart of your business. Every company that wants to succeed needs to have a clear, well-laid-out plan. While the exact format will vary from company to company, and tactics can vary during a recession, here are a few of the essentials you should include in yours.

The impact of coronavirus on the UK and world economy has yet to be fully felt. However, with a recession all but guaranteed, it's time to safeguard your business development strategy to ensure your business can continue making progress in sales. A recession does not mean you have to shelve your growth plans or go into damage limitation mode – far from it. This approach could be counter-productive. The lessons from the 2008 recession show that bold companies who streamline their operations and recognise market opportunities can still grow and thrive during a downturn.

Lockdown measures have left no sector untouched, and field sales are no exception. Businesses that rely on face-to-face sales have experienced large disruption to their operations, although the increased uptake of video conferencing platforms, such as Zoom, have mitigated this and in some cases created new sales opportunities. In this changing landscape, it pays to understand emerging trends so you can identify business growth opportunities in times of crisis.

Measuring sales performance is crucial to long-term profitability and growth. However, this may pose a challenge, since defining and tracking performance is complex and depends on various metrics – some of which will have more relevance to your business than others.

Effective tracking involves more than simply monitoring revenues in and out, and requires a proactive approach that anticipates obstacles to productivity. Owner-managers of small businesses may find this even harder due to the time constraints, which can easily lead to losing track of strategic objectives. Here’s a brief overview of the five best practices that will make the task easier.

Regardless of the potential of a business, there are always periods of unprecedented slowness, over which you have little or no control.

Economic downturns happen for many reasons – in this case due to the disruption caused by Coronavirus lockdowns – and can last for months or even years. In a downturn, you may experience a sudden plunge in your revenue or cash flow difficulties, or it may be harder to make sales.

As a business owner, whenever you engage a person using a marketing technique – e.g. email marketing, an online advert etc – that person becomes a lead. Lead generation is the process of creating interest in your products and services in the hopes of turning them into paying customers.

As the result of lead generation is ultimately sales, rather than enquiries, finding the best ways to increase the quality and relevance of your leads is central to lead generation, as is the process of nurturing a lead from first contact to first purchase.