Welcome to The Sales Forecaster. I am happy that you are here, and I’m looking forward to an interesting and fun dialog on sales process, sales forecasting, and the implications of inaccurate forecasting.
Have you ever wondered how, or even if, you could improve your sales forecasting? What would it be like if your forecast, month over month, was 95% accurate, plus or minus 4%? In other words, you were right on the money each month with your forecast. How would that affect your business? What would you be able to do or do differently with a much more accurate forecast?
Let’s look at the typical results that can come from a solid, reliable forecast. My experience has been that the first result of a good forecast is directly tied into the overall business growth of the company. When sales forecasts are inaccurate, the inaccuracy impacts all aspects of the business. Think about the allocation of resources, the investment in capital, the effectiveness of the supply chain, and the impact on inventory. At a minimum, poor forecasting impacts the expense level of the business which, in turn negatively impacts profitability.
So, can you really build accurate forecasts? My simple response is – YES, absolutely! But, to do so, each business needs to look at their own sales approach to determine how they can best define their Sales Process so that the accuracy, or predictability, percentage goes way up.
Through this blog, I plan on sharing insights on how various organizations are improving their sales forecast accuracy and how it is positively impacting their business. I will be discussing how you can build a Sales Process model that significantly improves your sales performance and forecast accuracy. I will also be sharing insights from a number of companies on how bad forecasting hurts them. Key to this blog's success will be your feedback on ideas to improve sales forecasting so that business can run more efficiently and profitably.
I look forward to your active participation and your comments in the days ahead. I am planning on posting new ideas about twice a month. I may do so more frequently as we get more participation. Stay tuned! Stay focused! Good Selling!
Your point in the second paragraph underscores the importance of forecasting. Do you endorse Assessments as part of the evaluation process leading up to the forecast? If so, are there specific Assessments Model that zero in on the forecast process?
ReplyDeleteSo far, so good, Don. I'm listening. Will post as I have questions and comments. Ray
ReplyDeleteLook forward to a bit of science on this. As a consumer of sales forecasts, most are a mix of hopes, dreams and black magic -- thus not very useful in planning for products or support.
ReplyDeleteAs an engineer - I am a true believer that if create a system, we can accurately report on anything. I would like to understand how to create a metric by which we can take the mystery out of sales forecasts!
ReplyDeleteMarge,I agree with you. What I plan on doing is sharing ideas on how to more clearly define the sales process to dramatically improve results. It is all about putting the proper definitions and measurement criteria in place. Check out my next post for an example.
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