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    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

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    Is Your Sales Dashboard Showing you the Right Metrics?

    Is Your Sales Dashboard Showing you the Right Metrics?

    Why do I need a Compensation Plan Designer?

    Why do I need a Compensation Plan Designer?

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    7 Step Guide to Building a Profitable Sales Territory Plan (with Examples)

    7 Step Guide to Building a Profitable Sales Territory Plan (with Examples)

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    Introduction to Sales Operations

    US Tech Market Forecast Shows a Best-Case 5% Drop in 2020

    Forecasting in a Time of Uncertainty: Tech Markets

    It’s Time to Re-prioritize Accounts and Re-balance Routes to Market

    It’s Time to Re-prioritize Accounts and Re-balance Routes to Market

    Deal Optimization – Key to Survival

    Deal Optimization – Key to Survival

  • Sales Compensation
    • All
    • ICM Tools
    • Incentive Travel
    • Plan Design

    Sales VP Compensation – Sales Plan or Executive Plan?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    What is the Difference Between a Commission and a Bonus?

    What is the Difference Between a Commission and a Bonus?

    How much of our sales team should we include in our President’s Club?

    How much of our sales team should we include in our President’s Club?

    Sales Compensation Plan Templates

    Sales Compensation Plan Templates

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    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

    New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

    A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

    4 Keys to Successful Sales Management Meetings

    4 Keys to Successful Sales Management Meetings

    Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

    Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

    Sales Math – Pipeline Principles

    Sales Math – Pipeline Principles

    What’s The Purpose Of A Pipeline Review?

    What’s The Purpose Of A Pipeline Review?

  • Enablement
    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    The 5 Levels of Relationship in Sales

    The 5 Levels of Relationship in Sales

    What’s The Difference Between Sales Enablement And School?

    What’s The Difference Between Sales Enablement And School?

    Training Reinforcement: Is it Back to Business as Usual?

    Training Reinforcement: Is it Back to Business as Usual?

    Give your Sales People what they need!

    Give your Sales People what they need!

    Which Sales Methodology?

    Which Sales Methodology?

    The Rise of Virtual Selling and the Implications for Sales Enablement

    The Rise of Virtual Selling and the Implications for Sales Enablement

    A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?

    A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?

  • Technology
    Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

    Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

    Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

    Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    The Boom In Sales Technology

    The Boom In Sales Technology

    Setting your 2021 CRM Enhancement Priorities

    Setting your 2021 CRM Enhancement Priorities

    Do You Really Need Sales Automation?

    Do You Really Need Sales Automation?

    How the New AI – Authentic Intelligence – Can Improve Sales Productivity

    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

    “You Are Doing Everything Wrong!”

    “You Are Doing Everything Wrong!”

  • Performance
    What to Measure in Sales?

    What to Measure in Sales?

    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

    How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

    How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    On Measuring Sales Performance

    On Measuring Sales Performance

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

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Home Insights

What About The Forecast?

David Brock by David Brock
in Insights, Sales Ops
Reading Time: 2 mins read
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What About The Forecast?
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Forecasting is important to our business, we spend a lot of time (often too much) on forecasts. But too often, we get forecasting wrong. Some observations:

We strive for forecast accuracy, but we will never be perfectly accurate. Even the dictionary calls it a prediction or an estimate. Yet we waste a lot of time trying to achieve levels of accuracy that are unreasonable.

The forecast is a prediction of revenue/orders we expect to get in a period of time. Managers and others in the business are anxious to know where we will be in terms of expected revenue or orders.

The forecast is really about a deal, a specific opportunity. Too often, we focus on a certain total dollar value for the forecast. “We need to hit $100M this quarter…..” But the business needs more specificity, the business needs to know, “What are people buying?” Too often, sales people focus on the total revenue or orders that will be generated. But the business needs to know much more. The business needs to know, “What are people buying?” If you provide a product, manufacturing needs to know what parts to order and products that need to be built. If you develop services, the services organization needs to know what skills/resources will be required. If you sell software/SaaS offerings, customer experience needs to prepare to onboard customers in the right ways.

RelatedPosts

New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

We get this part of the forecast wrong, too often, in sales. We focus on the number and not the deals. If we forecast selling $100M of product line A, yet in the end get $100M orders of product line B, we’ve failed our company. Even though we have hit the number, we have absolutely failed.

The forecast is less about what we think and more about the customer need to buy. Ironically, when we forecast, we talk about what we think will happen or what we need to make happen. We’ve all been part of conversations like, “We need another $10M, what can you make happen?” Or those forecast meetings where we say, “Tell me what you need, I’ll make it happen.” We know these things seldom happen, but we’ve gotten management off our backs or given them the number they wanted.

Forecasts become more accurate if we use “customer verified forecasts.” We need to know answers to, “When does the customer need to have a solution in place? What happens if they don’t have it in place at that time? Does the customer have a sense of urgency around meeting that date?” But if we are managing our deal strategies correctly, we should already know this and be aligned with the customer in helping them achieve these goals.

Yet, 90% of forecast meetings I participate in never pose these questions. Instead we rely on the wishful thinking of sales people trying to keep managers happy.

Forecasting will never be totally accurate, even customer verified forecasts. But we can make them more accurate and more useful.

Tags: ForecastingSales LeadershipSales Management
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David Brock

David Brock

Dave has spent his career developing high performance organizations. He worked in sales, marketing, and executive management capacities with IBM, Tektronix and Keithley Instruments.

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