B2B sales organizations are constantly focused on hitting their sales targets, but it can sometimes be difficult for them to determine how close they are to achieving their monthly or quarterly goals.

At many firms, employees spend several hours each week compiling reports that are out-of-date by the time they are distributed to other members of the team. Even worse, this highly manual process frequently leads to reporting errors that prevent sales organizations from optimizing their performance or accurately forecasting their sales totals. With so much riding on the bottom line, this simply isn’t good enough.

By working with a real-time data platform like the Domo business cloud, sales organizations can get the information they need to confidently predict whether they will hit their targets. And with up-to-the-minute insights into their most important metrics, sales teams can even make critical strategic shifts that improve performance moving forward.

Here are three ways better data analytics can make your sales team more effective than ever before:

1. Real-time data analysis helps you forecast sales with accuracy and speed.

With the right data analytics, you’ll finally be able to rest easily, secure in the knowledge that you’re where you need to be in order to meet your sales goals.

Once you connect your sales data sources to the Domo platform, you’ll see a series of real-time data visualizations projecting your performance over the time period of your choice. Because the platform continuously uploads information from your CRM and other services, you’ll know where your organization stands at the exact moment you’re looking at the data.

Meanwhile, Domo’s complex data analysis algorithm creates a hyper-accurate sales projection by comparing your current sales pipeline (i.e., the number of opportunities, average deal size, days to deal close, etc.) against your historical performance. In fact, you can even customize your forecast to see how changing circumstances could affect your ultimate outcome. With just a few clicks, you’ll be able to understand how your sales will be impacted if you increase your marketing budget by $100,000 or hire five new sales representatives.

2. You’ll be able to spot red flags before they hurt your bottom line.

Too often, B2B firms don’t find out about problems in the sales funnel until it’s already too late. But with the right analytics tools, you’ll know immediately when parts of your sales strategy aren’t up to snuff. In fact, the Domo platform even allows you to set alarms that send you a notification when one of your key metrics dips below a threshold of your choice.

This means you’ll have the power to course-correct before things get out of hand. For instance, if you notice one of your representatives is having trouble closing deals, you can arrange a skill-sharing meeting with one of your higher-performing employees. And if a deal is taking an unusually long time to close, you’ll know that the opportunity is at risk in time to salvage it. With real-time monitoring throughout the funnel, you’ll always have the information you need to nip potential roadblocks in the bud.

3. Granular insights will empower you to maximize sales over the long run.

A fully customizable data platform allows sales organizations to filter their information in a variety of different ways, enabling them to uncover valuable insights they otherwise never would have found. As a result, B2B firms can make strategic shifts that bring their sales effectiveness to new heights.

As an example, if your data tells you that you’re generating higher conversion rates when you pitch your product to a company’s CIO instead of its CEO, you could begin focusing your next round of pitches on those executives. When used correctly, Domo’s data visualizations can also help you establish best practices for contracts and pricing, as well as reduce your cost-per-lead by allocating your resources more intelligently.

Ready to learn more about how Domo’s real-time data analytics can take your sales organization to the next level? Click here to see a demo.