Sales Audits: Everything You Need to Know

What is a Sales Audit?

A sales audit is a detailed analysis of your company's sales process that is completed with a goal to improve sales productivity, profitability, and process. A great sales audit takes a look not just at who is selling and what is selling, but how your products and services are being sold, and whether your sales process is successful or not. A comprehensive sales audit should cover:

• The steps of your sales process
• Your sales staff
• Sales team training processes and priorities
• Management strategies
• The software you use to support the sales process
• And the financials associated with your sales process

There are tons of ways to complete a sales audit, from hiring an auditor to manually running through a sales audit process on your own. If you have a CRM or sales software, that can also be really useful when it comes to gathering the data you need for your sales audit. 

How Often Should You Run a Sales Audit?

Ideally, your company should run a sales audit at least once a year.

Depending on the size of your sales team, it may also be helpful to run sales audits quarterly, and even monthly, especially if a significant portion of your team's compensation is based on commission.

If you're not sure when to run a sales audit, it's good to know that a sales audit is useful any time you're trying to evaluate how to make your company more profitable. They're also useful if you're considering investing in new sales tools or hiring a new team member. 

At the very least, an annual sales audit helps get you the information you need to understand where your revenue is coming from, who is contributing the most revenue, where you might be losing revenue, and most importantly where you can gain more revenue. 

Who is a Sales Audit For?

Clearly, your sales audit is first and foremost a useful tool for your sales team. It gives concrete insight into how your team is selling. 

That said, your marketing, service, and customer service teams can all benefit from the numbers and analytics you put together as a part of your sales audit. 

Knowing things like:

• Which services and products are most profitable
• Which services and products aren't profitable
• Which parts of the sales process tend to lose prospects
• And how long the sales process usually takes

Is all helpful information the rest of your team can use to improve the work they do on a daily basis. 

How to Complete a Sales Audit

Now that we've covered what a sales audit is, when to run it, and who it's for, let's talk about how to complete a sales audit. 

The general purpose of a sales audit is to give you a clear picture of how your sales process is functioning, in its entirety.

The best place to start?

Data!

Head to your CRM or whatever system you use to keep track of leads and quotes. Use it to gather the information and data you need to answer the question:

"Is my sales process successful? Why or why not?"

We're going to dive into some key information you'll want to look for, but remember that data is only part of the equation.

You'll also want to talk to your sales team to discover what areas of the process they're struggling with, where they feel they could use more support, and what tools might make their jobs a little easier. 

The questions you ask your sales team will be specific to your company and your team. For example, a team using inbound sales is going to have different priorities than a team on outbound sales. 

But, on the data side, we can definitely help you get your sales audit started! On to the checklist: 

Sales Audit Checklist: 17 questions to ask when compiling your next sales audit

To get your sales audit started, use these 17 questions to help guide what data you look for.

While these might not be the only questions you want to answer, they are some of the important ones. Your sales audit should drill down to discover how much your sales team is making, where they're making it, and how much effort it takes them to close those deals.

With those answers in hand, you'll be able to discover plenty of opportunities to grow even faster.

Deal Volume & Close Rate

1. How many leads were generated in a given time period (year, quarter, month)?
2. Of those leads, how many became marketing qualified leads (MQLs)?
3. Of those MQLs, how many became sales-qualified leads (SQLs)?
4. What's your sales teams' win rate from SQL to deal closed?
5. Of all of those closed deals, what kinds of services or products did you sell?
6. Which services or products are you selling the most? 

Deal Velocity & Sales Process

1. How long, on average, does it take to close a deal?
2. How long do closed-won deals usually take?
3. What about closed-lost deals?
4. What stage of your sales process takes the longest?
5. What stage of your sales process is most likely to lose a prospect?
6. What stage of your sales process is most likely to move a prospect through to the next stage?

Deal Value & Deal Revenue

1. What is the total average value of all deals closed in your given time period?
2. What's the total revenue of all of those deals?
3. How much does it cost to close a deal?
4. What is the average value of deals closed in each service or product area?
5. How does revenue break down by service or product?

While you might have more questions, these 17 are a great place to start your sales audit. 

What Do You Do with the Answers to Your Sales Audit Checklist?

Log them! Analyze them!

Don't just complete your sales audit in your brain, and then leave the numbers alone. Make sure you're organizing them in a report or document that's easy to visualize.

Once you have all the answers you need, it's time to take that information and start to develop some next steps based on what you've learned.

This information, once compiled, should tell you:

• Which of your sales team members are closing the most deals
• Who is closing the most profitable deals
• What services & products deliver the greatest profit margins
• What services & products aren't profitable
• What areas of your sales process are most successful?
• What areas of your sales process take the longest, and could be optimized?
• What areas of your sales process are most likely to lose prospects?

And so much more.

This is valuable data you can use to inform not only how you improve your sales process, but also how you can better market and run your business as a whole.

What Happens After Your Sales Audit is Complete?

Once you've completed your sales audit and taken some time to analyze what you've found, break that analysis down even further by identifying 3-5 areas that stand out as priorities you want to address. 

Maybe it's streamlining your sales process, developing more sales collateral to speed up a portion of the sales cycle, or even prioritizing marketing for a specific product or service. Whatever those 3-5 priorities end up being, call them out, and then start building a plan to tackle them. 

This is the essential step that gives your sales audit some meaning. If you don't use what you've learned to prioritize some improvements, you're just looking at numbers. 

Don't Forget to Share Your Sales Audit With Your Team!

The final step of any sales audit is making your findings visible to the rest of your team.

Remember, those numbers and analytics aren't just important to the sales team.

If the sales team has been closing deals on a certain service like crazy, but that service isn't turning a huge profit, that's valuable information for the service team. They know they need to look at ways to make that service more profitable.

Alternatively, if one of your products or services is wildly profitable, that tells your marketing team they need to push the gas pedal when it comes to marketing that side of your business.

Your sales audit is an important tool for everyone in your company.

Make sure that you make the findings from your sales audit public to your entire team. Armed with that information, your company can move forward with the data you need to improve how you market, sell, and service your clients.

A sales audit is an essential tool if you're looking for ways to streamline sales and increase growth. If you're not sure where to start when it comes to a sales audit, the Evenbound crew would love to help. Get in touch and we'll get something on the books.