I’m having a moan and it’s only the 7th January!… and it’s all to do with inputs and outputs. If any of you are practitioners in Neuro Linguistic Programming you will know one of the presuppositions of NLP – if you want a different output, then you need a different input… however having thought about what I have just written for a few moments I realise this law is so fundamental that you don’t have to know anything about NLP to realise the same input will produce the same output and if you want something different then change the input.

This thought process started because I’ve just got back from visiting a colleague from another sales training organisation where part of our conversation was about how ineffective CRM was for field sales people and the upshot of the conversation was that everyone knows this, but nothing is done and so these expensive systems keep going in with the same input expecting a different output.

The problem as I see it, is that CRM is such a large purchase it’s the guys at the top who make the decision to purchase and expect the guys at the bottom to run it. The guys at the top know that the guys at the bottom need improving and are sold on the fact that CRM can introduce some form of command and control that will keep everyone in check. “They can be assigned tasks… and we can see what goes into the pipeline… we can see their activities and their email…. there will be no hiding!”

However, CRM companies know their systems don’t work that well with sales guys and its seems that conventional wisdom from those who like to think they are in the know is that the problem with CRM is that it is content free… no process behind it… just a well structured database, and therefore the conclusion has been that CRM needs a sales methodology integrated into it. So, we now see CRM systems integrated with the well known sales methodologies and guess what?… little improvement.

Conventional wisdom also tells us that if we want to improve sales we need to introduce a strong sales methodology and there are plenty of them around to choose from. They may have different names, but they all do essentially the same thing… help manage a sales opportunity. They don’t actually directly help a salesperson manage their core task. Most methodologies are also too complex… they are fine in theory, but out in the battlefield, in the heat of the moment, just too complex to fully apply.

CRM is also too complex… it just needs too much information, it’s not that user friendly and does not provide the sales guy with anything that will help him achieve their core task. Therefore, integrating methodology with CRM is not going to help sales guys achieve that much more than they already do.

So what’s the core task?… above all else the sales guy needs to make, or preferably exceed, his number. He needs to be able to manage his portfolio of opportunities so that he can make his number. This activity is commonly known as pipeline management and this is one of the main reasons CRM is implemented… to get control of the pipeline. Most, if not all, organisations think pipeline management is the prerogative of the organisation and it’s the sales guy’s duty to fill the pipeline for all those to see it, ask questions about it, poke it, throw out deals, question why deals are not moving and generally use it against the sales guy… or at least that’s what many of them think! So, guess what?… not all deals are put in, it’s also not updated with the truth if the truth is going to be used to beat up the sales guy and therefore everything else falls by the way side… and no conventional sales methodology integrated into CRM is going to solve this problem… therefore, the core task is not addressed.

Let’s recap… the top guys in the organisation want to see the pipeline. They Implement CRM to get a corporate view of the pipeline. CRM companies don’t understand pipeline management and provide very poor functionality, but it looks good to the organisation who does not know any better. CRM is implemented and the returns are poor. Everyone realises something is wrong. It is thought the guys at the bottom are not doing their job, they can’t be… they don’t use the CRM system… so CRM companies introduce command and control functionality to help management keep these wayward sales guys under control. The guys at the top love it and more CRM is sold. Nothing improves… something else needs doing. CRM companies look around and see companies implementing sales methodologies and realise methodology is missing from CRM. However, it’s the wrong methodology, but no one knows this and it’s integrated. We now have a data hungry system even more hungry… and still no help with the core task.

To help overcome this problem we have come up with a solution. We have developed a sales opportunity tool that combines a personal sales pipeline with full deal plans. The tool follows a very simple pipeline methodology that works on the two outcome method of forecasting – win or lose – it is very visual and very quick to maintain. Sales people love it. Sales managers love it. It gets results and helps sales guys to overachieve. It does the core task… it helps the sales manager with the core task… they can see exactly how each person will be making their number. Each sales guy can also see how much commission they will be earning, particularly the effect of the accelerators if they overachieve… it’s amazing the focus this brings!

The system is run standalone and the sales guy has complete control over who sees the information. They see this as good… the guys at the top see this as bad. It’s not part of their corporate faith and therefore it’s bad… the guys at the top believe it’s going to take away from their beloved CRM… the CRM that’s not working nor providing the correct return on investment! Now, with our system, the one that the sales guy has complete control over… it has all opportunities in it… everything… and it allows the sales professional for the first time to start planning for the future sales periods… they can build their funnel of potential opportunities safe in the knowledge that it won’t be used against them. The result… forecast accuracy increases, they make their number, the sales manager is in better control and… interestingly enough… the corporate CRM becomes more accurate, because it is fed with accurate information.

Our systems are not sold to the guys at the top, we sell to the sales manager and those who have control over their budget will buy. We look to replace all the individual systems that sit outside of CRM and are developed because the sales professional needs a system that helps them control their business. These systems are invariably Excel based. We replace all these different Excel based systems into a single pipeline methodology that is common across the sales team. The price of our system is negligible and is often expensed on credit cards. We get in under the radar and have done more to get CRM accurate than CRM has ever done for itself.

The colleague I went to see was very impressed with our solution, he could see why sales guys would use it, could see how it would help them achieve, but he also knows that those at the top would not entertain it as they have too much invested in CRM and would not want to change faith… and that’s the moan… the problem seems too big and too cumbersome to introduce to the top guys for appears to be a different faith… however, it’s not about changing faith, it’s about introducing something that makes a difference and will make the CRM system more accurate, but it’s not linked directly to it and the sales guys controls what is seen, knows he can trust it, sees how it can help him achieve and wants to use it… the upshot… CRM becomes more accurate, but then we would have a different input and we can’t have that can we!

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Great sales people hit (and exceed) their target.

Great sales people maximise their commission.

Great sales people stay great by constantly looking to expand their knowledge.

Focus - our opportunity management software, has always helped sales people achieve the first two points. Now we have developed a series of videos and slide shows to help you better understand how to maximise the value of Focus, and achieve the third point!

Our Learn more about Focus area shows you how to get started with, and the most from, Focus, as well as teaching how to apply our sales-methodology. The training videos are free to view, and we have more advanced subjects planned for the near future.

Check out all the focus & sales methodology videos here

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Normal sales convention allows us to have a Funnel and a Pipeline. The Funnel is used to maintain Sales Leads (potential sales opportunities) and the Pipeline contains the Sales Opportunities - those which we believe the customer will be buying from someone. It is important to distinguish between the two criteria – those in the Funnel have not yet committed to buying, whereas the ones in the Pipeline have committed – as far as we can tell! You therefore have two conversion rates to calculate – How many Leads convert to Opportunities and how many Opportunities convert to sales.

However, pipeline management is not a numbers game; it is what the wording suggests: “…facilitating an automated process that creates deep visibility into the sales process flows inside each opportunity, leading the sales professional to discover how they will make their quota, how to maximize their commission, leveraging the commission accelerators over a defined time horizon”. For those looking to manage their Funnel and Pipeline effectively, there are three principles we follow and teach that are different to most of the sales convention.

Follow the Buying Process
Firstly, you do not follow the sales cycle; rather you follow the buying process. Many sales professionals can get ahead of the buying process as they eagerly follow the sales cycle. They propose and think the next step is close. However many customers use the proposal to help clarify their requirements and they are nowhere near to closing. Management often gets excited – look at all these opportunities we have proposed and expect to see closing. Track where the customer is in the buying process.

Never Factor the Pipeline
Secondly, never factor the pipeline; never look for the weighted average. There are only two outcomes for opportunities – win or lose – there is no 10%, 20%, etc. Probabilities are misleading and designed to provide comfort. You do not want a comfortable sales team, quite the opposite. If your target is $5m and you have $15m in the pipeline which is weighted to deliver $7m then these figures show you are going to make your number. However, in order to do it you have to work on all $15m – there is no focus. Selling is all about focus and therefore name the deals that are going to close. To be able to name a deal for closing the Business Imperative must be understood, by you and the customer. The value you are delivering has to be valued by the customer above your competition and thirdly you must be able to influence the customer – have the right relationships. Throughout this process you must be consistently qualifying. Understand where the customer is and then decide if the deal is upside (not in your control) or commit (you are in control and can forecast it). The value of your commit opportunities should be equal or greater than sales quota – these deals are therefore your focus.

Make it Personal
The last thing to do is make it personal. Make sure anyone who has a target is showing how they will achieve it by naming the deals that will close. If they do not have enough ask to see the plan that recovers the gap. If the plan is showing the number then the only deals for focusing on are the commit deals. You will be amazed at how accurate your pipeline becomes if you adopt these simple steps. Manage the opportunities that will make the target, rather than manage the number of deals required at each stage.

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In the desire to find ways of generating more sales we have seen large corporations over the last few years respond by introducing commission plans to pre-sales. However, although the incentive is given, the tools to help maximise their earnings are not. Pipeline management remains the prerogative of sales and in large corporates is often a political game played out at the unfortunate expense of pre-sales. It is one of the reasons why corporate forecasting is such a challenge.

Our response to the politics is to provide the sales professional with their own personal opportunity management tool. Sure, they still have to maintain the corporate pipeline, but they also maintain their own personal tool which is never diluted by sandbags and rarely sees a bluebird. Their personal tool is so quick and easy to use they spend no more than 15 minutes a week maintaining it. This makes sure it is used. They other incentive in making sure it is used is that we link the opportunities to the commission plan. We get them forecasting commission and when they do this the emotional commitment to close is made.

Pre-sales is often a scarce resource and if a consultant is asked to work on two different deals, by different sales professionals, at the same time, how do they choose which one to work on? Do they work with the sales professional who shouts the loudest or the one whose deal has a better chance of closing? Who should make that decision? In many cases it should be the pre-sales consultant. So, now have a commission plan and they must make sure that they bring their number in just as much as the sales professional. Therefore, our response to the extension of the commission plan is to provide each pre-sales consultant with their own personal opportunity management tool. The reality of the situation is that a pre-sales consultant often works with different sales professionals within a single vertical or across multiple verticals and therefore they will have a different view of their pipeline, than those maintained by individual sales professionals.

Therefore, by following the commission plan you can create separate pipelines for each person who earns commission. Each individual, whether they are external sales, internals sales, pre-sales, product specialist or whatever will be working on a slightly different views of how they will be making their number. However, as they will be maintaining their view of the world they will be able to see what they have to do to make their number. Now instead of one group of people making sure the pipeline is accurate, there are several groups and their interest is making sure they earn their commission. With different groups reporting how their sales target will be achieved there can be different checks and balances put in place – this all helps increase the accuracy of the forecast and increase the volume of sales.

Personal pipelines help keep people honest and increase the accuracy of the corporate pipeline. The appointments that contribute to activity rather than deal closure are often questioned by the pre-sales consultant. If it is not going to make a difference or has not been properly qualified then the consultant is often reluctant to attend. If the sales professional wants help, then they must qualify properly and cut down on activity for activities sake.

Those organizations that have introduced personal pipeline management have benefited from an increase of sales and accuracy of the pipeline in their area. For many of our customers we regularly see forecast accuracy greater than 99% quarter after quarter – forecast has to be called at week 5 of 13 weeks. This increase in accuracy also increases sales and flattens the hockey stick of sales income often associated with the quarterly grind. This in turn reduces the need to heavily discount at quarter end and therefore profit increases.

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I recently put up a post about the 15 Second Sales Review and I also put it together as an article and sent it out to a select group of people asking for their comments. What I wanted to find out was whether the outrageous claim would put people off reading the article – is it too outrageous to be believed and therefore will the message get lost. Well, I have not yet had responses from everyone, but those that have replied have followed a common theme… they liked it, thought it interesting, but wanted to know how we would back it up. It’s the so what and what’s next – how’s it achieved! This is good feedback so we have put up a page on our site to help answer this. Click here to see it. We have even more information on how we can achieve the 15 Second Sales Review going up next week.

I have had enough positive feedback to entice me to write more outrageous claims. The next one will probably be how to achieve 99% forecast accuracy. The titles may be outrageous, but all claims can be backed up!… I will only write about what we have achieved. However, this time rather going straight up on our site, I will write the article and send it out to my group of select readers for comments. After the comments have come back it will go up on site. If you would like to be considered for the select group then contact me or post a response to this post.

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It is quite an outrageous claim to need only 15 seconds to be able to conduct a sales review… what could you possibly ascertain in 15 seconds? To make things equal, and possibly more difficult, I would want you to do a review with someone you don’t know, so you have no previous knowledge to fall back on… and you can even have as much information to hand that is available about their current sales… but remember you only have 15 seconds to read it!

15 seconds is all the time you should need to determine how well the sales professional is managing their business. You should be able to clearly see what they have achieved to date, what their likely outcome will be for the quarter, the confidence level you should have in this outcome, how well they are building their pipeline, the confidence level they have in naming the ‘must win’ deals and how well they are managing these deals. 15 seconds is enough time to give you the pointers of where to do a deeper dive if required. Time is money, so don’t waste your time conducting deep reviews in parts of the business that aren’t broken.

The only thing your sales team needs to be doing to help you with this review is to use, and I mean use, our Opportunity Management tool… Focus. Therefore before sharing with you the review process I will provide some background to the tool and methodology behind it.

Background
Focus is a visual tool and it is this aspect that allows the review to be completed very quickly. Focus is also built around a very distinct and powerful, yet simple, sales pipeline methodology, which I should just take a few moments to explain…

The methodology is based on a set of grids that are organised into 3 major vertical elements, Funnel, Pipeline and Outcome. The example I’m showing uses quarterly sales periods. There is a set of grids for each sales period.
The first element of the methodology represents the Funnel. The Funnel is for managing Sales Leads which are considered to be potential Sales Opportunities. It is believed the customer will want to address a potential Need and / or the customer already recognises they have a need, but have not committed to addressing it. The second element is the Pipeline itself. The Pipeline is for managing Sales Opportunities which are considered to be potential Deals. It is believed the customer has committed to buying a Solution for a Need. The third element is the Outcome. Opportunities exit the pipeline as being Sold, Lost or Slipped. Sold is hopefully self explanatory. Lost means you have not won. The opportunity has either been won by a competitor, or the customer has decided not to address the need. Either way, the opportunity is lost. Slipped shows the opportunities that have slipped to the next sales period. Slipped opportunities are the scourge of the pipeline – If you don’t record it you can’t manage it.

Now looking quickly at the methodology. The first thing to know is that it follows the customer’s buying behaviour. There are four behaviours which we label Need, Requirements, Solution and Deal. These can be seen as the grid labels for the top grids shown in the Funnel and Pipeline. If we are close to the deal the bottom grids represent the selling behaviours … we Explore the need, we help Define the requirements, we Propose a solution and then Close the deal.

In order to decide in which grid a deal should sit, first determine the close date and then where the customer is in their buying process – The close date will let you know in which sales period to place the deal. Where the customer is in their process will determine if they are at the Need, Requirements, Solution or Deal stage. The next thing to do is determine where you are… are you confident to commit to closing the deal? If the answer is no, then you are in the top grids – the upside. If the answer is yes then you are in the bottom grids – the commit.

The commit deals form part of the sales forecast for which we apply the two outcome forecast method – win or lose. Let’s face it, for any deal in your pipeline, you are going to either win or not win. There is no percentage winning, no factoring, you either win or lose – therefore forecast on that basis. The full methodology explains what you need to know in order to increase your forecast confidence but basically we look at four areas - the customer’s Business Imperative, your Value to the customer, your level of Influence and the Qualification… and now we know enough to start the review…

The 15 Second Review
If you are running quarterly sales periods then you need 3 basic reviews each period. You could have a month 1 review, month 2 and month 3. I am using a month 3 review as the example. The conclusions drawn would be potentially different if looking at the same data for a month 2 or month 1 review.

Step 1 – Dashboard - time required 3 Seconds
The first step of the review is to look at the results Dashboard. This will give you an excellent first impression on how the person is managing their business.

The visual indicator shows the Time Elapsed in the period, the Performance to date and the Predicted outcome. In the example shown the Time elapsed is 78%, the Performance to date is 16% and the predicted outcome is 114%.

At 78% through period the performance to date should be higher – deals are not closing. However the predicted outcome is 114%. Therefore, it is not due to lack of deals that the performance to date is poor.

Conclusion…this person seems to have a problem being able to close and also appears to be overconfident with forecasting – very little has closed during the quarter, but everything appears to be closing at the end! I would expect a more even closing pattern during the period. First impression is that this person is not managing their business very well.

Step 2 – Current Outcome - time required 2 Seconds
The second step is to look at the exit element of the pipeline. I am looking for evidence that the opportunities are being managed. For a month 3 review I would expect to see opportunities in all grids.

From our initial look at the dashboard we know that sales are not going to be high, however with nothing in Lost or Slipped I would be concerned that this person is only using Focus because they have been told to, and they are not using it to manage their business. With Elapsed time at 78% most people will have lost deals by now and other deals would have slipped.

Conclusion… this person does not appear to be using Focus to help manage their business and the results indicate this as well. This is the second piece of evidence.

Step 3 – Funnel - time required 2 Seconds
The third step is to look at the Funnel. This needs to be full; a full funnel is a characteristic of those that forecast accurately. It means going into a new quarter with most of the business already identified. It allows you to work with the customer early in the process to understand their business imperative, to help shape their requirements, to develop relationships and thereby build trust.

In this example the Funnel is well populated, so our subject does not appear to have problems identifying potential opportunities, but are they being managed?

Conclusion… It is not the lack of opportunity that is producing poor closure… you can’t make your number if there is nothing to close, but in this case there seems to be plenty building so the evidence is beginning to point at managing and closing skills.

Step 4 – Pipeline - time required 3 Seconds
The fourth step is to review the distribution of opportunities in the pipeline. In our example you can see opportunities in the Upside and opportunities in the Commit. Again this shows that there is no shortage of opportunities to close.

However, most of the opportunities are at the Requirements / Define stage… which is not what is expected at this time in the quarter. As time passes, so the opportunities should be moving from left to right. With 3 weeks to go before the end of the quarter I would expect the Requirements / Define grids to be empty. I would also expect not to find that many opportunities in the Solution / Propose grids, whereas the Deal / Close grids should have most of the opportunities.

Conclusion… There are more than enough opportunities to make the number, perhaps too many. Too many of the opportunities are at the beginning of the pipeline and therefore they have not progressed. For this time of the quarter not enough of the opportunities are in the Deal / Close grids. I would suspect that the deals are not being managed correctly.

Step 5 – Qualification - time required 5 Seconds
The final step is to have a quick look at the qualification details of a couple of the commit deals. You are looking to see how well the deals are qualified. The easiest way to do this is open the Qualification panel and click on one of the deals in the grid to view how it has been qualified.

The above shows the qualification details for one of the opportunities in the Define grid. This is an opportunity that has been committed to close and yet nothing is shown in the qualification. The view below is typical of what I would expect to see for an Opportunity qualified at the Define stage.

Conclusion… the opportunities do not appear to have been qualified. This is consistent with the irregular spread of opportunities in the pipeline and the current performance – the opportunities do not appear to be being actively progressed.

Overall Conclusion -

After this 15 second review I would conclude that this person does not have a problem finding opportunities, but they do have a problem with closing them. The evidence can be seen from the number of Leads in the Funnel and the number of Opportunities in the pipeline – there are plenty. The current performance shows a considerable gap and therefore with the number of opportunities in the pipeline this is evidence that they are not being closed. The other piece of evidence to support this is the distribution of opportunities – at this time in the sales period there are too many sitting at the beginning of the pipeline.

I would also conclude that this person is not managing their business very well. If they were, then opportunities would not only have been won, but also some lost and some would slip. The evidence showing this is a lack of won deals and nothing shown in the Lost or Slipped grids. The other evidence is a lack of qualification maintenance for the must win commit deals. The evidence shows the opportunities are not being progressed.

This person is using Focus to record Leads and Opportunities, but not using it to manage their business. They either do not understand or do not want to understand the benefit of the simple methodology. They may also not understand how to progress the opportunities. I would not trust the Predicted Outcome of 114% and therefore an action plan now needs to be put in place to secure the quarter for this person.

Of course, if you would have conducted the earlier reviews then things would have been picked up earlier. There are different conclusions to be drawn from earlier reviews as the distribution of Leads and Opportunities would be different, but the process of the review is the same. If you find you need a little longer than the 15 seconds, then 5 minutes per person would be able time to draw a number of conclusions about how someone is running their business. Do this for all your team and you will be able to quickly identify who needs your help and where they need it.

The beauty of the methodology is that they have to show how they are making their number. They have to commit to the deals that will be closing. Using Focus it is very easy to check the quality of their plan. There is nowhere to hide…
I don’t know about you, but I reckon that’s been a good use of 15 seconds of your time!

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For some time now our sales methodology has achieved outstanding results within the sales teams that have implemented it.

For some time we have passionately believed that our methodology could continue delivering outstanding results, if sales teams (or those entrepreneurial sales individuals) were to invest a little time on their personal development.

Why such outstanding results? We believe it is because our methodology is closely linked to the process that everybody goes through when buying - the Buying Process. Our methodology allows you to improve your sales results by mirroring your customers buying process. After all, if the customer isn’t ready to buy, you’re not going to make the sale. Understanding the way your customer buys is imperative to being successful in sales.

So, we have sales methodology that delivers great results in workshop format, sales tools available as software to download and implement our methodology and eBooks to learn more about our methodology and getting the most from our tools.

Well, we decided it’s about time we expand our outstanding sales results further - and so have been busy converting our workshop courses into e-learning based modules, available for the time being for FREE!

The first module we have developed is based on our Buying Process methodology. Our aim is to reguarly release these workshop modules so you can benefit from our sales methodologies in your own time and at your own pace. We believe that these modules will improve your sales results, and by giving them away for free, we hope you encourage your sales peers and managers to give them a try too.

We’ll post here when we have new modules available, or you may like to contact us and we’ll email you when they’re ready.

You can view our Pipeline Process module here.

(we’d love to hear your comments - good or bad - and any success you have using our methodology)

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Focus - our opportunity management software which helps you hit your target - has hit version 1.1.3. This new release of Focus has several enhancements designed to make managing your pipeline of deals even easier.

We have listened to your feedback and comments, and have responded by implementing your most common requests. The enhancements to Focus include:

• Increased flexibility for period dates. setting flexible period start and end dates allows for increased control over your pipeline. Feedback from our users was that periods are not always set to match calendar months, Focus is now able to mirror the way you need to work.

• Enhanced pipeline reporting. We have improved the reports found within Focus (select ‘report’s from the Focus menu) to be more user-friendly and more relevant. We have also resolved a bug within the ‘To-do’ reports. Available reports now include:
  • Summary pipeline report
  • Summary pipeline report (including lines of business)
  • To-do report
  • Deal profile report

• Revised qualification statements. We are constantly looking at refining the methodology which powers our Focus pipeline, and as such, have improved the quality of the built-in qualification statements. The result is a more logical flow to the qualification process, which results in a better quality of deal qualification for you. (Remember, you can always create your own qualification statements tailored to your exact needs by selecting ‘Tools > Pipeline Manager’ and clicking the ‘qualification tab’)

Click here to download a free trial of Focus 1.1.3.

Upgrading from version 1.1? We have improved the activation process in version 1.1.3 to make it simpler and resolve issues that users where experiencing with corporate firewalls. If you have Focus 1.1 and would like to upgrade to 1.1.3 - please contact us and we’ll be happy to send you a new activation key for Focus.

We listen to and enjoy receiving your feedback - please feel free to send your comments (good or bad) to focus.support@firstborder.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

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Ever wondered why forecasting in the corporate environment is so difficult. Well, have a look at these deadly sins that I constantly come across.

1. The corporate pipeline has been developed for the benefit of management, or even worse for finance, yet the people who are supposed to maintain it are the sales professionals who derive very little benefit.

2. Most corporate pipelines use factoring – each pipeline has a percentage against it and then this is multiplied and summed to provide a factored forecast. This is probably one of the biggest reasons why most people find forecasting difficult. Factoring is nothing more than a comfort blanket without the responsibility of forecasting deals.

3. Even more corporate pipelines make the cardinal sin of following the sales process. What’s the sales process got to do with anything?

4. The phrase ‘pipeline management’ within the context of corporate pipelines is an oxymoron. Corporate pipelines and especially those within the remit of CRM provide nothing more than a list of deals which roll up from sales rep to manager, to director and to the VP of sales. I have to say, I am really bemused why deals need to be rolled up, list after list to the big guns – what are they going to be doing with those lists?

Let’s say the average rep has 15 deals in the pipeline and the average sales manager has 8 sales reps – that’s 120 deals for the manager. Let’s say the average sales director has 6 managers – that’s 720 deals to have the pleasure of reviewing. Let’s also say the average VP of Sales has 5 sales directors – that’s 3,600 deals to review.

5. In view of so many deals to review sales management invariably look to focus on the large deals. The large deals will get their attention – their added value. However, why should a deal get top gun attention if it is not going to close?

6. Sandbagging and bluebirds – the reps response for unwanted attention from management who don’t know how to add value. It makes a mockery of the whole system.

7. More is more… reps are told to cram the pipeline with deals to cover at least 3 times target in the belief it’s a numbers game.

Recognise any of the above? I’ll post a response to these in the coming days and give you my view of the alternative that works.

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I’m looking to hear from sales professionals who have an interest in pipeline management and accurate forecasting and who would like to participate in obtaining some free training and software tools to help them achieve forecast accuracy of greater than 95%.

We specialise in personal pipeline management and have developed methodology, process and software tools to help sales professionals achieve outstanding forecast accuracy with minimal input of data and time.

With our corporate customers we have helped them achieve 99% forecast accuracy, quarter after quarter. Using a personal pipeline tool has also increased the accuracy of the corporate tool. However, we have achieved this using classroom based training to delegates in the same company. We now want to see if we can achieve the same results using purely remote training to a diverse group. Before we put together a commercial proposition we need to learn and gain some experience of remote learning. We are therefore looking for a group of people from 1 to 100 who would like to benefit from our knowledge. In return for your time and input we will provide our software tools, methodology and time for free.

The size of organisation you work for does not matter; all that is required is that you have the interest, desire and time to manage a personal pipeline in order to achieve your target and increase forecast accuracy.

If you are interested then please let me know, or if you know of someone else who maybe interested, please forward this on.

please reply to forecast@firstborder.com

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