When the end of the year is just a few days away,what would you discover if you did a quantitative analysis of the data for every single deal that your sales people worked on during the year? What actions would you take to produce a different outcome as we turn the corner and begin anew?
Sales is all about numbers. For valid reasons, it is a profession focused on tangible results, quota attainment, metrics and weighted pipelines. However, failing to look beyond what we can easily measure and report on won’t help us evolve. To understand what we do well, and what we need to change in order to improve, requires a better understanding of how we arrived at the end result.
Yes, CRM systems have evolved. Now they are drawing on sales staff emails, calendars and databases to offer tips on how to best interact with specific customers. They’re trying to incorporate more analytics, provide more data and incorporate social media as sales organizations move to become customer-centric.
There’s nothing more frustrating for a sales leader, a CEO or a Board of Directors than a continued inability to come up with a revenue forecast that consistently hits the target numbers. But - as anyone who has had the responsibility knows only too well, accurate forecasting is a tough task.
Yesterday I was looking at the dashboard in my new car and noticed that one of the gauges could be swapped out. There aren't any fixed gauges on this dash because the gauges, ranges and needles are displayed digitally. I can even change their color! The thing that caught my interest though, was the flashlight effect where the ticks to either side of the needle are brighter and bolder to draw attention to where the needle is pointing.
Get your spreadsheets out! Or, use this template. We created it to help our clients answer a very important question:
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