How to present a sales portfolio to chart performance?
Asked by atg28
For many sales jobs, there is always a requirement to document 2 years of sales experience or sales growth. How does someone create this portfolio to show this performance? I currently perform lower level sales tasks, but I would like to create a segway to show how my prospects turned into customers turned into repeat customers. What's the best way to create a consise report or chart to show this? Obviously, I can't pull out multiple sales slips during the interview. The field is in biological sciences (not pharmaceutical). Thanks.

Best Answer:
charts and graphs are excellent ways to show data and will impress and intelligent boss (although it may intimidate a stupid one). First, pick your measurable. Do you have a record of the $$'s in sales you generated over the last few years? Has the average value of your sale increased and can you demonstrate it? Can you record the number of new contacts you made for your employer? Maybe you can show an average increase in the revenue dollars generated over time by the customers you brought into the company. You will have to brainstorm this a little to find the right measurable to chart. Don't fake it because boogered up data is easy to identify. You can chart averages just like you chart individual data points. You'll have to understand the relationship between averages and variation to properly explain your chart. Excell does an excellent job of creating professional charts. Use time as your independent or X varible. Keep it simple and elegant. Do two or three straightforward charts. Your understanding of data reporting will resonate with upper management as senior sales people have to provide trends and data all the time (as I'm sure you know), as they will base their financial planning on sales etc. PS, if you haven't taken a statistics course, you may want to.
statiscian
Answered by utterlyagog