Sales analysis made simple
You’ve got an amazing product and it’s starting to sell, but are you tracking those sales and analysing that data? Sales tracking and analysis might not sound fun/glamorous/exciting (*delete as appropriate), but it’s really important for saving time, driving sales and growing profit.
Tracking sales saves you precious time. If you’re self-employed, the delightful people in the tax office will want to see your tax return every year. That could cause an annual headache, even if you have an excellent accountant (sadly won’t boast psychic abilities alongside their accountancy skills, so you have to be able to show them your income and expenses).
My own headache isn’t all that bad though. I don’t spend days printing off loads of individual invoices, gathering up scraps of paper I’ve stuffed in a box over the year and trying to make sense of them. Instead, I use a sales tracker to record my sales and orders throughout the year.
It keeps me organised. Everything’s in one place, and I even have it linked to my Profit & Loss (P&L) so I can understand how my business is doing at the drop of a hat. And the great news is that you can use my Flourish Sales Tracker too!
Ta-da! We just saved loads of time AND lots of stress.
But hang on. There’s more.
As well as recording sales, you can use your tracker to make quick, informed decisions
And those decisions could help make you more profit… The information behind the data in your sales tracker will help you to:
Use your time better
Focus on the more profitable areas of your business
Make (and keep) your customers happy
Drive more sales and profit
Say, for example, that the sales analysis shows your sales are low in August. If you know you’re likely to be quiet then, you can plan and use your time effectively. Instead of twiddling your thumbs, you can harness that quiet time to create new products or build stocks for a busier month (November, December and the lead up to Christmas, anyone?!).
But how do you know what stocks to build up?
You use the data and analysis in your sales tracker, of course! Look at:
What you sold last Christmas
What your best seller was
Whether you missed any opportunities
What stocks you could prepare in advance
How many you should make
When you should launch your products
What you could add to (or drop from) your range
Do all that and you’ll make your lead times shorter, be able to fulfil more orders, delight your customers and generate more sales and profit. Woohoo!
And how do you get your product range right?
You don’t have unlimited time, so you need to prioritise and focus on your winners. How many $0.20 renewals are you blindly authorising on Etsy? I've been as guilty of this as the next person, and I know how they all add up!
So here’s the plan. It might sound scary, but look at your sales tracker and stop renewing products which don’t sell or make a profit. Focus your time on the ones that do.
React to the trends you see and adapt your range in the right way. Add new, exciting products that customers want, but also take out the ones they don’t, so you’re not overwhelmed by more and more products.
Focus on your customer AND your winning products.
You can use the sales tracker to decide what product to create next. I know because I’ve done exactly that. I used to make and sell felt animal kits and I wanted to expand into selling digital downloads of the kits. I didn’t have time to do all of them (currently 11 products!), so instead, I looked at my tracker, picked my three best sellers and created those digitally.
I optimised my time and focused on what my customers would want and buy.
You can learn loads from your sales tracker
You can discover things like who your customers are, what they’re buying, which platforms they prefer, where they live, and so much more… If you can spot country-specific trends, you can explore new options for shipping, selling or marketing. You can understand your customer and make them happy.
Get your hands on the Flourish Sales Tracker!
It’s your quickest and smartest way to save time, make good business decisions, plan, and make more profit. And you can find it right here. Enjoy!
