How Sales Executives Can Start a Data Analytics Career in 2026

Funnel sheet (one row per stage)
Stage        Count   Conversion from previous
Leads        1200    -
Contacted    =B3     =B3/B2
Demo         =B4     =B4/B3
Proposal     =B5     =B5/B4
Won          =B6     =B6/B5
(Replace counts with your own data; format column C as %)

Business questions sales people already ask:
- Which lead source converts best?
- How long does a deal take to close?
- Which products are bought together?
- Which region is behind target and why?
- Which customers have not ordered recently?
Each one is an analytics project waiting to be built.

-- Monthly revenue and orders by sales rep
SELECT r.rep_name,
       DATE_TRUNC('month', o.order_date) AS month,
       COUNT(*)                          AS orders,
       SUM(o.amount)                     AS revenue
FROM orders o
JOIN sales_reps r ON r.rep_id = o.rep_id
WHERE o.order_date >= DATE '2026-01-01'
GROUP BY r.rep_name, DATE_TRUNC('month', o.order_date)
ORDER BY month, revenue DESC;
-- PostgreSQL syntax; in MySQL use DATE_FORMAT(o.order_date, '%Y-%m-01')

Revenue = SUM ( Orders[amount] )
Target = SUM ( Targets[target_amount] )
Achievement % = DIVIDE ( [Revenue], [Target] )
Gap = [Target] - [Revenue]
Revenue LY =
CALCULATE ( [Revenue], SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR ( 'Date'[Date] ) )

-- Customers with no order in the last 90 days
SELECT c.customer_id, c.name, MAX(o.order_date) AS last_order
FROM customers c
JOIN orders o ON o.customer_id = c.customer_id
GROUP BY c.customer_id, c.name
HAVING MAX(o.order_date) < CURRENT_DATE - INTERVAL '90 days'
ORDER BY last_order;

# Sales Performance Dashboard (Power BI)
Data: anonymised sample sales data (orders, reps, targets)
Questions:
1. Achievement vs target by rep and region
2. Monthly trend vs last year
3. Top lead sources by conversion
Key insights: (write 3-5 in plain English)
What I would recommend: (2-3 actions)

While working full-time (8-10 hrs/week)
Phase 1: Excel advanced - pivots, XLOOKUP, charts
Phase 2: SQL basics to joins and dates
Phase 3: Power BI - model, DAX, dashboard
Phase 4: Two sales projects + one general project
Phase 5: Resume, LinkedIn, applications, mock interviews
Use weekends for projects, weekdays for concepts.

Sales Executive -> Data Analyst (switch)
- Built a Power BI dashboard tracking revenue vs target
  across regions with month-on-month and last-year views.
- Wrote SQL queries to analyse lead source conversion and
  identify inactive customers for follow-up.
- 'X years' of B2B sales experience: CRM, pipeline
  management, target tracking, client presentations.

To your manager or sales ops team:
'I have been learning Excel, SQL and Power BI and built a
dashboard that shows our target achievement by region.
I would like to help with reporting for the team, and
eventually move into a sales analyst role.'
Internal moves are often the fastest switch.