Companies sell in different ways. Some rigorously adhere to one of the top selling methods, while others go their own way and rely on the experience of their sales team to hunt, gather, and nurture in the markets they serve. No matter which way your company sells, data-driven lead capture and data synthesis may be part of your plan. If it is, consider the data you use carefully. You could be using the wrong data in your sales planning.

Let’s start with the basics. You should be using data to guide your sales planning. You should be revisiting the data you collect on a regular cadence because things change. How many sales plans put in place in December of 2019 and January of 2020 went up in flames as lockdowns took hold, companies had to send staff to work from home, and the pattern of commerce changed? Data-driven planners in many companies were revisiting their sales plan weekly, if not daily. Many were successful in reading their data to pivot their sales plans. Some of the most successful were using a combination of internal and external data to guide their next steps.

The data generated within the company is internal data, but so is the data that arrives in the form of pricing lists and supply chain data from vendor partners. Customer data is a large bucket with many elements. It includes contact details for the principal contacts, billing, account status, and order data. It may also include financial information used to establish or update credit worthiness. Business data consists of everything that feeds the estimating and quoting system, rent or mortgage costs, utilities, labor costs, and the ancillary costs of running the breakroom, employee benefits, or expenses that contribute to the running costs. There are production costs, including the cost of hardware and software, associated consumables, and costs associated with shipping and delivery. There are also the costs associated with waste from misprinted or misfinished jobs.