RA Quick Insights: Using Sales Stack Ranking to Grow Net Sales & Profits

Commercial Analytics, aimed at improving Gross Profits and Sales Productivity, doesn't have to be complex to drive the proper outcomes with Pricing and Sales teams.

Sales & Discounting Stack Ranking is another simple yet effective Revenue Analytics technique to steer Sales behavior in the right direction and drive incremental Net Sales (and Gross Profits).

We can build it at various levels, including the Product, Customer, or Sales Team (Sales Reps and Managers). For ease of consumption, root cause analysis, and action, it typically focuses on 4-5 key metrics and dynamically ranks the performance (hence the name), allowing for sorting, filtering, drill-downs, or applying performance thresholds.

To be most impactful, any Stack Ranking should include a "𝐒𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐞" component. In other words, what are the incremental Net Sales, Gross Profit, or Operating Profit impacts if we close the performance gaps for the bottom performing Reps, Customers, Products, etc.

See the example below for a simple Sales & Discounting Rep Stack Ranking.

If I'm a Sales Executive, there are a few things that stand out to me immediately:

🔥 Over half of my Business Development Managers (BDMs) give Price Discounts to Customers well above our 20% threshold.

🔥 Some of my team members are growing their Discounts from Last Year while decreasing Net Sales. We need to dig deeper at the Account level to see which Customers and Products are driving these trends and why (and most importantly, what can we do about it).

🎯 Some of my BDMs are doing quite well: they are Discounting well below our 20% threshold, have reduced their Price Discounts from Last Year, and are driving positive Net Sales Growth. It is the perfect opportunity to discover how they did it and share those best practices with the rest of my Sales Team.

🛠️The BDMs who are Discounting above the 20% threshold have an opportunity to close the gap over the next six months. If my Top 5 Discounting BDMs were to reduce their Discounts down to the threshold, it would be worth an extra $30MM in Net Sales for the team.

Translating this in a way that will better resonate with my team: even if we close the gap by 50%, that extra $15MM in Net Sales will be the difference between a 90% or a 105% bonus payout!

Analyses like the Sales & Discounting Stack Ranking are lightning-fast and easy but powerful.

As a next step, we could easily include the Account and transaction details (with dynamic drill-downs), so when the Sales Director clicks on a Sales Rep Name, the key Customer and Product level performance drivers show up.

More importantly, this is an excellent tool to recognize Sales Team members and coach them for better performance.

Combining effective visual analytics with positive Sales Rep stories and learning opportunities is highly effective in driving organizational change in the right direction.