Ideas!

Forecasting consistently tops the list of activities that sales reps despise.  "It's a waste of time."  "Things change so quickly in my business, that you can't forecast what will happen tomorrow - forget about the whole year..."

"Forecasting is difficult... especially for the future."

If you are among those who feel that forecasting is a waste of your time, answer the following questions.  Do you consider your territory to be your own business?  Do you consider yourself to be an entrepreneur within the context of your company?  Are you the CEO of your own "Me, Inc."?  If you think like 99% of the world's successful sales reps, you just answered, "Yes", three times.

OK, Mr./Ms. CEO, picture yourself in a venture capitalist's office looking for some investment capital.  The VC asks how much revenue and profit you expect to generate over the next twelve months.  You explain that for your business, forecasting cannot be done.  Things change too rapidly.  You don't waste your time trying to predict that sort of thing.

How would you rate your odds of getting a nickel of that VC's investment cash?  Would you invest your own money with no clue at all as to the potential return?  Hmmmm...  Maybe the exercise of forecasting does have value.  Maybe the ability to forecast well is a prerequisite to being a truly professional sales rep.

Here's a three-step process to execute every month that will produce a good forecast:

Step 1:  List every opportunity you have at every account and prospect.  Assume that you can close them all, note the earliest month each could close and add up the possible revenue/profit per month for he next twelve months.

Step 2:  Now - assume the worst - and revise the list from step1.  (Some closes will move out in time, some will become smaller, others will get crossed out.)

Step 3:  This time, be realistic.  Revise the first list once more by noting the most likely outcome based on what you know now.  Commit to make it happen.

Chances are, you will find that thoughtful forecasting focuses your attention on the critical subset of your opportunities.  That is, those most likely to produce the best results.

Think about it…