The current exponential growth in the number of forecast meetings is triggered by 2 main objectives:
– being able to project revenues as accurately as possible by constantly revalidating the status of the sales opportunities,
– identifying changes that may have occurred and could provide a better assessment of the chances of winning within a given time horizon.
The constant need for reassessment comes in part from the subjectivity inherent to every appraisal.
Sales Managers who, rightfully, try to understand the core motivations of the prospects (what do they want to buy, why, when, why from us) often lack the right tools to make those assessments with the adequate level of objectivity.
CRMs can be part of the answer but to this day, forecasts mostly rely on someone associating a subjective status (Certain, Likely, Contigency, Stretch) to each opportunity. Sounds familiar?
Things can be done differently.
