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Why Tracking Time in Sales Is the Key to Better Performance Metrics?

Why Tracking Time in Sales Is the Key to Better Performance Metrics?

  • Kate Borucka
  • January 23, 2025
  • 8 min read
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In today’s competitive world, every business wants to attract as many potential customers as possible. Closing deals has become more challenging, and even with the best sales strategy, it may not be easy to acquire new clients. According to a report by Salesforce, 67% of sales reps didn’t expect to meet their quota in 2024, and 84% missed it last year.

Sales activities require proper time management to ensure all sales processes go as planned. Fortunately, the right time tracker can help you better oversee your work to gain more leads and clients.

Check our guide to see how sales time management can help you grow your business!

Why Use Time Tracking Software for Sales?

Time is a valuable asset for all, including sales professionals. Effective time management helps to increase productivity so sales teams can achieve better results.

But there are many more benefits to using time management tools. Here are some of the most important:

Why Use Time Tracking Software for Sales_

  • Automatic time tracking helps to stay focused on work and eliminate time consuming office work and repetitive tasks.
  • Better decision-making with data-driven insights, reports, and analytics.
  • Time tracking, such as TimeCamp, allows you to monitor sales performance with statistics and figures. That results in improved sales productivity and consequently—increased revenue and closing deals.
  • The right time tracker can help in better customer relationship management and pipeline management by providing you all the data on your clients.
  • It allows for tracking project progress in real-time and setting realistic sales goals.

Poor time management can be a source of frustration and stress. That’s why it’s so important to effectively manage your workday, especially if you want to grow your sales career. Ultimately, it’s a demanding and challenging job.

How Time Tracking Improves Performance Metrics

The success of TimeCamp is backed by the sales team, who works hard to help our clients deliver the perfect solution, tailored to their needs. Not only do they know their own struggles, but also the needs of the customers.

I’ve talked to our fantastic sales team for valuable insights to help you improve performance. Check how time tracking with TimeCamp can help you reach higher sales targets!

 

Tracking sales processes

The first and the most important aspect of using a time tracker is to track sales process, from start to end. That includes monitoring how much time is being spend on internal bureaucratic work and how much on contacts with clients.

Tracking sales processes is of the utmost importance as it creates a basis for further actions. When you track what’s happening, how, and when, you can focus on building an effective strategy for a sales funnel.

Process optimization

Time tracking can reveal where and how you waste time: top-performing activities and underperforming tasks, wasted time, and repeatable tasks.

Time tracking enables you to identify areas for change. The timekeeping records help easily streamline processes and determine which activities lead to sales and which add to unnecessary work.

What’s more, since TimeCamp automatically generates reports with all valuable time tracking data, your sales professionals can eliminate tedious paperwork and stay aligned with performance goals and KPIs.

Powerful data for analysis

TimeCamp offers a variety of reports with insights into every aspect of work.

Tracked data can be used for analysis. For example, a company can compare the time tracking data with sales results to analyze performance. You may have 90% of performance but don’t have good sales results. Or you may have 30% performance, but you may be the top sales rep spending much less time on sales calls than the rest of your team.

The performance analysis can help you understand how your team members spend their time and accurately measure all the key performance indicators (KPIs). This data can later help to improve processes and boost team performance.

Prioritizing high-value activities

TimeCamp provides not only reports and analytics but also real-time dashboard. So you always see what’s going on up to the minute.

You can use time tracking data to spot productivity patterns so you can focus solely on revenue-generating activities that directly impact sales metrics, such as closing deals or lead follow-ups.

That way, every sales representative can dedicate time to higher-priority tasks (e.g., prospecting calls, closing deals) and automate work (e.g., preparing reports, logging work hours into timesheets) and delegate unnecessary tasks to other team members.

Employment optimization

Time tracking helps to identify areas for employee optimization by revealing inefficiencies, highlighting time-consuming tasks, and pinpointing opportunities for skill development or resource allocation

Based on tracked time, the company can determine whether it needs so many employees. New tasks may lead to either a reduction in staff or an increase in the workforce.

With all data in one place, you can see the big picture, who’s working on what, and what’s happening in the company. That way, you can adjust the workforce and workload accordingly.

Better estimates

To improve time management for sales professionals, you can analyze collected data to better understand customer acquisition cost. You can check project profitability and whether the client is beneficial. This helps in creating better pricing plans but also aiming at specific clients that you know will bring value.

You can also leverage time tracking to estimate deal cycles and close rates better. Accurate forecasting can influence overall sales strategies.

Realistic goal-setting starts with accurate assessment and estimation of sales opportunities.

Effective planning

Time management is about proper planning. When people on your team know how they spend time, it’s easier to plan and organize work.

For example, TimeCamp offers a calendar view. And you can quickly fill the time between meetings with tasks in the calendar view. Based on activities, salespeople can choose specific tasks to fit perfectly between the meetings.

Since sales professionals spend a lot of time on calls and meetings with clients and prospects, proper time management can help schedule meetings and make work easier.

Centralized place for client management

Customer relationship management is also an important aspect of sales. Hence, it’s also a good idea to invest in a good CRM tool that will be dedicated solely to managing clients, such as Livespace.

It’s a CRM system that you can perfectly combine with time tracking. It can help with the organization of customer contacts and sales processes. This way, you can create a balanced and successful sales pipeline.

It’s especially helpful for sales managers who need to oversee all activities within and outside the team. Such a combination provides a centralized place with all customer information and lets you have all sales efforts stored in one place, backed up by realistic time-tracking data. This helps to keep everyone on the same page and ensures transparency.

Employee satisfaction

We all know that a productive employee is a happy employee. How does time tracking help to increase performance metrics? By promoting a culture of transparency and accountability.

You can easily build trust within the team by sharing insights rather than micromanaging. This will motivate employees and improve their performance. And the better the performance, the higher the sales results.

Ready to start your time tracking adventure? Reach out to our sales team to know more.
Schedule a demo!

How Time Tracking Improves Performance Metrics

How to Implement Time Tracking in Your Sales Team?

Implementing time tracking software in your sales team can be challenging. Especially, if you’re new to the concept of time management. Luckily, it can be done without problems if you follow a few simple steps:

1) Choose the right software

There are so many options available on the market that it may be difficult to choose the right one. Luckily, there’s TimeCamp. It’s a free time tracker for sales professionals that offers all the necessary features for salespeople: automatic time tracking, billable hours tracking, reports and analytics for performance reviews, budgeting, invoicing, attendance tracking and many, many more.

Additionally, TimeCamp provides real-time visibility into workflows and progress. And thanks to numerous integrations, you can easily connect it with all your favorite tools and apps.

It’s easy to use, with no steep learning curve. You don’t need any onboarding or additional training to use it. All you have to do is sign up and start tracking time.

2) Set clear goals and expectations

To improve performance metrics, it’s a good idea to know where you’re going and what you want to achieve. You need to be very specific about how you’ll use a time tracker to streamline and optimize your sales process.

Here are a few questions worth asking your team before implementing a time tracker:

  • How do you want to track your time? Would you prefer to log your activities automatically, manually, or both?
  • What insights about your time usage would help you perform better?
  • How do you currently measure success for your daily or weekly efforts?
  • What tasks or activities should the time tracker focus on to provide meaningful data?
  • What concerns do you have about using a time tracker in your daily workflow?

These can help you better understand your needs so you can set clear goals and expectations for your sales team.

3) Communicate

Communicate the importance of time tracking and its benefits for sales performance. If you need to, set a time tracking policy outlining all the rules, expectations, and best practices for using the tool effectively.

Let your team members express concerns and provide feedback. Be open to suggestions and all critical voices. This will help you align time tracking practices with current sales processes for better results.

Need help? Our sales team will clear all the doubts. And support people will have your back! Chat with us!

4) Regularly review and adjust time management strategies

Regular check-ups are crucial for maintaining high performance. After all, you can’t know how you do without tracking your progress and measuring results.

Make sure to regularly review and assess your data and time management strategies. This will help identify areas for improvement and adjust the processes accordingly.

Timekeeping software can help you effectively monitor sales performance and make data-driven decisions.

Effective Time Management Strategies for Sales Success

To use time tracking even more effectively, you can use a few easy tricks. Check a few of the best time management tips to help you boost your team’s KPIs.

Eliminate administrative work

Reps spend 70% of their time on non-selling tasks — a figure that is virtually unchanged from the 2022 State of Sales report by Salesforce, when reps spent 72% of their time on non-selling tasks. And most of these are administrative tasks.

And one of the best sales time management tips is to eliminate administrative tasks. Activities like paperwork, data entry, and file organization often take up a substantial part of the day.

Thanks to the automation that time tracking offers, you can automate administrative tasks to focus on high-priority activities and maximize productivity.

Use the right tools

Working without tools as sales professionals is impossible. It’s a demanding job that requires constant contact with people.

What tools can you use? Sales reps use a variety of tools to streamline their work, including CRM systems, email marketing and automation platforms, lead generation tools, and sales engagement platforms, along with document management, communication, and scheduling apps.

On top of that is a good time tracker. TimeCamp will help you collect and compare data from all your favorite apps to give you insights for better business operations.

Follow a process to streamline sales activities

Establishing a clear and efficient process can help you improve sales time management. How to set it right?

Think about it as a roadmap that will guide you through each step of your work. From identifying leads to closing deals. So, define clear sales goals, identify the ideal customer profile (ICP), map out all your activities from prospecting to closing, incorporate necessary tools and practices, and you’ll reach peak performance.

This will keep you focused and avoid distractions.

Have a clear task list

To know what you really want and need to achieve and set realistic goals, create a list of tasks. You can do it in your favorite tool or directly in TimeCamp (we have a nice hierarchical structure of all your projects, tasks, and subtasks) to organize work.

Group similar tasks together to minimize time spent on unproductive activities and optimize workload.

However, don’t do multiple tasks at once, but do one thing at a time to avoid work overload and maintain focus.

Take care of all your customers

Nurturing existing client relationships can streamline workflows and improve time management. How?

Managing your existing clients is already half of the success (and revenue) as they’re familiar with your product or services, you’ve already built a good relationship with them, and you have a steady source of revenue.

New customers are important, but remember to keep in mind your current customers. Very often, existing customers can be a great source of new leads (word of mouth, positive reviews) but also inspiration for new ideas.

Conclusion

Sales rep has to deal a lot with paperwork, and bureaucracy, while the main focus should be placed on phone calls, meetings, video calls, and other forms of contact with clients. Time tracking can help cut the red tape. With the right CRM system and time management tools, you’ll quickly improve performance.

Track your time effectively with TimeCamp. Invest in your team and try TimeCamp for free!

Sources:

https://www.paceproductivity.com/single-post/2017/02/09/How-Sales-Reps-Spend-Their-Time

https://www.salesforce.com/in/blog/ sales-funnel

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Kate Borucka Kate is a professional freelance copywriter and translator with a niche focus on time tracking software, time management, and SaaS solutions. With a degree in English studies, she has a knack for turning complex technical topics into clear, engaging content that resonates with diverse audiences. When she’s not immersed in the latest software trends or navigating linguistic differences between English and Polish, she’s busy trying to master the art of squeezing more hours out of the day—juggling work, life, and embarking on new adventures with her endlessly curious daughter, discovering the world together (and loving every minute of it), always finding ways to weave the insights from their adventures into her creative work.

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