A sales audit evaluates a company’s sales process, from software to management strategies, to determine if methods are cost-effective and generate revenue. Auditors analyze the external and internal environment, sales goals, structure, and hiring process to suggest improvements. The goal is to improve sales performance and increase predictability of results.
A sales audit is a review of a company’s entire sales process, from the use of particular types of software, to staff, to management strategies. This type of audit differs from a financial audit in which a business evaluates its operating costs against its sales revenue. A sales audit evaluates the effectiveness of every aspect of the sales process and helps companies determine whether their methods are cost-effective and beneficial in generating revenue. Some companies choose to carry out this process themselves, often with the help of specialized auditing software, while others prefer to have an outside consultant objectively carry out the assessment.
Sales auditors can start by analyzing the atmosphere in which a company works, both externally and internally. The external environment refers to the size of the market in which a company markets its product, the market demand for that product, and the growth trends in that area. The internal environment refers to the culture of the company itself, including the ways the sales team interacts with each other and the nature of their relationships with their managers. This typically provides a basis for the sales reviewer to evaluate the sales performance a company wants versus what they are actually achieving.
Reviewers may later consider a company’s specific goals and the sales tactics used to achieve those goals, including long-term and short-term goals. The audit can evaluate how management communicates sales targets to the sales team, for example. It can also be used to analyze whether the sales strategies used during the audit period reflect those goals. These strategies may include setting numerical goals for sales teams, offering rewards in the form of contests and commissions to encourage the team to achieve those goals, and tracking the achievement of those goals in a timely manner.
A company’s sales structure and hiring process can also play an important role in the sales process, as it relates to the structuring of various departments that work together to assist the sales team. A company may request that its auditor review the internal functioning of its support personnel, such as accounting or billing departments and marketing departments. The sales auditor may seek to understand how these departments collaborate with the sales department and whether they communicate effectively with each other regarding cross-departmental needs. Some audits may use this aspect of the process to help a company evaluate prospective and future employees by constructing hiring guidelines to enable the company to hire personalities that are a good fit for their specific sales structure and company culture.
Upon completion of a sales audit, a business typically receives a report outlining its strengths and weaknesses and suggesting ways it could improve its overall sales tactics. The overall goal of a sales audit is to improve overall sales performance against management expectations and to increase the predictability of results. Repeated and predictable results in sales productivity typically ensure that the sales process operates with a high degree of reliability and efficiency.
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