How good are your team’s sales forecasts?

Hello Sales Reset Leader

How good are your team’s sales forecasts?

Do you and your team have a reputation for rock-solid reliability in your sales forecasting?

In this week’s companion Weekly Sales Reset email for front-line salespeople, we focus on achieving forecast sales.

We explain the role of sales forecasts in business and cash flow planning. As they read the newsletter, your team members will be reminded about why everybody in the business is interested in knowing about expected sales results.

The rest of this email newsletter assumes you have read this week’s Weekly Sales Reset“:

• Title: How important is it for you to achieve your forecasted sales?

• Subtitle: What you can do to achieve your sales forecast more reliably and with growing confidence!

Let’s get into how you can help your team achieve their sales forecasts reliably.

How to improve your team's results this week

• Evidence of achieving forecasted sales

• Recommended coaching session agenda for sales fore …

• Expected pushback about sales forecasting

• Sales forecasting role-play recommendations

• Leadership Reflective Practice

Evidence of achieving forecasted sales

What level of forecasting accuracy do you seek to achieve with your team?

Do you and your team approach sales forecasting as a rough guess done to prioritise opportunities?

Or do you rigorously seek evidence in every sales opportunity with the goal of achieving very high levels of sales forecasting accuracy?

Before you lead a coaching session with each team member, examine the evidence of their forecasted sales in comparison with what they actually achieved.

In your market, with your sales process and business model, what level of forecasting accuracy should be achievable? What are you currently achieving?

Across your team, it’s likely that you’ll see significant differences in individual sales forecast accuracy. How much CORRELATION is there between sales forecast accuracy and achieved sales results?

In your data, can you see evidence that increased forecasting accuracy CAUSES improved sales performance?

Experience suggests that salespeople who manage their pipeline more effectively and rigorously spend their time more accurately and, therefore, achieve better sales results.

Recommended coaching session agenda for sales forecasting

Before leading your coaching sessions on forecasting and achieving forecasted sales, ask your team members to review the current edition of Weekly Sales Reset.

Give yourself time to reflect on WIIFM, “What’s in for me,”. Empathise with your team members about how they might be sufficiently motivated to forecast their sales more accurately and achieve forecast sales more reliably.

Here’s this week’s recommended coaching session agenda:

1. Start with a brief review of their experience and results from their previous coaching session.

2. Ask this team member for their observations about achieving forecasted sales.

3. Together, review the evidence you found in your preparation with each team member.

4. Identify and prioritise a small range of specific practical things that this team member can do differently and better to achieve forecast sales.

5. Spend some time role-playing (working with these guidelines).

6. Finish the coaching session with agreed and specific action conclusions.

Expected pushback about sales forecasting

So you know what to expect and can be prepared, here are three areas of possible pushback from your team members on the theme of achieving forecast sales.

1. “Predicting the future is hard”: You likely have team members who put dates, values, and probabilities into their sales pipeline without first seeking evidence from their customers. We know that predicting the future with accuracy is hard, but how much effort has been made to clarify the reality of the current situation, from which we can predict with greater confidence?

2. “I’d rather be selling than analysing”: Many salespeople work on the basis of putting in lots of effort in the hope that some of this effort will deliver results. As their sales team leader, you have a key responsibility to help your team members do sufficient analysis to enable them to spend their time most effectively.

3. “I’m limited by my current opportunities.” The single best strategy for achieving forecast sales more reliably is always to have a surplus of opportunities from which to choose. How can you help your team members do more and better prospecting?

Now that you know these potential pushback areas, what are your best responses?

Sales forecasting role-play recommendations

1. Conversation with your CFO: Explain to your team member how interested your CFO is in their most significant opportunity. Clarify that CFOs are trained in “professional scepticism.” Role-play a conversation with your CFO reviewing the current pipeline data on the opportunity.

2. Conversation with a customer: Choose one opportunity in their pipeline and role-play the conversation about dates, deal size and probability.

(You may find these recommendations about using role-play helpful.)

Leadership Reflective Practice

At the end of this week, ask yourself these key questions:

We hope you’ve found this edition of Sales Reset Leaders valuable.

Have a great week!

The Sales Reset Team

Here’s a link to a page explaining how these weekly Sales Reset Leaders newsletters are designed to help you improve your sales team's results every week with structured coaching and practice.

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