Nearly every business has done some type of ROI analysis at some point. Unfortunately, in sales, an ROI analysis is often reserved for big-ticket items. While it’s important to see how your large investments are working out, it’s also important to avoid “death by a thousand cuts.” This happens when you lose money in a lot of small, unnoticed areas. While your ROI analysis on large items may look great, you’re still hemorrhaging money from areas that you’ve never thought to analyze. There are many ways that an ROI analysis can help your sales, here are three to get you started.

Stop the Losses

You should know how you stand to benefit from every business purchase and investment you make. If you don’t know what you’re making back on your expenditures (if anything), how can you know if they did you any good? You may find out that several of your “can’t miss” purchases are actually costing you more than they’re worth. In that case, there are better investments that you could be spending your money on.

The only way to know if a particular expenditure is worthwhile is through an ROI analysis. Estimates and anecdotes will only get you so far-to justify the expenditure, you need hard numbers. The only way to get hard numbers is through a proper cost vs. benefit analysis.

Focus Your Efforts

ROI isn’t just about money, it’s also about time. You can use the same basic formula to evaluate how you and your sales team are spending your workdays. There are a lot of tasks that have to be performed every day that don’t directly earn you money. And there are some tasks that could be completely eliminated. An ROI analysis can show you which tasks to streamline, and which tasks to eliminate.

Once you see how much time you invest in tasks that have a low return, you’ll be motivated to find ways to streamline those tasks. Often, they’re the most tedious tasks in the sales office, so your team will thank you for making them easier. In the end, you’ll get more time to spend on making money, a happier sales staff, and greater focus on the customer.

Monitor Campaigns

To determine which campaigns are the most successful, you need good, solid metrics. A lot of businesses launch a campaign, and call it a success if sales increase. The question is: how much did they increase, compared to what was spent on the campaign? If you don’t know the answer to that question, there’s no way to compare the cost benefits of different campaign strategies.

An ROI analysis can tell you which campaign strategies give you the most bang for your buck. You can use the data to tailor future campaigns for maximum return. Without a proper analysis, you’re left with a guess-and-test system.