A Visual Tool

Focus is a visual Opportunity Management tool. Deals are entered into the grids depending on where they are in the buying process. The methodology behind the grids helps identify those deals that you can close. The green grids are the deals you believe you can win. The yellow grids are the deals you do not have so much control over. The red grids are sales leads – potential opportunities. During the sales period the sales opportunities move from the left to right.

You can see at a glance, without looking at any numbers, the balance of your portfolio of opportunities. For example, If the red grids are empty then you are not building potential. If the green grids are empty you are not confident of forecasting deals closing. If the yellow grids are empty and green full you may be over confident of forecasting. If deals are still in the Requirements or Define grids towards the end of the period they will probably not have time to close.

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Dashboard - Visual Performance Indicator

The Dashboard changes when deals are moved to or from the Forecast grids (shown in green). This provides immediate visual and numeric status of performance against target and commission for both the current and potential outcome.

The commission calculator will accumulate various targets and accelerators to show your current and potential commission. If you drag a deal into or out of the forecast you will immediately see the impact it has on achieving target and commission earnings. Scenario planning couldn't be easier.

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Minimal Data Required - Quick and easy updates

The only information required to enter a deal is the customer name and the date the deal is likely to close. All other information is optional. Typically, most people can input all their leads and opportunities in less than 10 minutes. New opportunities can be added in seconds.

If you enter the value of the deal you can use the Dashboard to immediately see the impact that deal has on the outcome of your sales period. Also, further information can be added at any time, but only add further information to those deals that are important. Therefore, maintaining Focus is quick and easy.

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Drag & Drop - Quick and easy updates

Once a deal is in it is moved between grids by Drag & Drop... making it very quick and easy to move deals around. With the Dashboard open the Drag & Dropping of deals makes What If scenario planning quick and easy.

Focus uses Drag & Drop in other areas of the application. This helps make Focus quick and easy to use by reducing the number of key strokes required to maintain information.

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Optional Deal Information - For increased control

Additional deal information can be added to a deal at any time. When a deal is added only the minimal information needs to be entered. As the deal matures then further information can be added, if required, as and when known. Lines of business provide greater clarity

Lines of business provide greater deal clarity and provides the ability to track sales against detailed targets. Partners & Co-Workers provide the ability for filtered views of your information and if required make separate and filtered copies of your Focus data for sharing with relevant members of the team. Maintaining values for Revenue, Units and Profit provides further level of information and these values can be used for target and commission setting.

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Deal Plans - For total control

Focus allows you to maintain full Deal Plans for all your important deals. Qualification questions are built in and work on a traffic-light system for quick visual representation of qualification risk. These qualification questions can be amended or different sets maintained for different situations, for example, selling into different vertical markets may require different qualification questions.

Deal Plans help you think through the opportunity by developing a series of questions that need answering. These questions help you progress the deal by highlighting your risk of losing due to lack of knowledge of the deal. By finding answers to the questions you make the deal more robust and increase your chance of winning. Deal plans also make it easy to communicate the status of the deal to others.

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Reports - for easy sharing

Focus provides a series of standard reports for sharing of information. The reports can be saved in various formats allowing further changes to be made or adding the information to other documents very easy.

The reports most people work with is the To Do list and the Deal Plans. The To Do List can be printed in various formats such as by customer, day, week, month, period and Grid position. The Deal Plans can be printed individually, by selected group or all deal visible. They are ideal for sharing with those who have an interest in the deal and want to know the current status. Print the Deal Plans straight from Focus and hand them out in your next Deal Review meeting - it could not be easier!

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Filters - for easy review & sharing

Focus allows you to filter all opportunities across various criteria. You can filter by Customer, Private or Public deals, Partners, Co-Workers, Teams, Sectors, Close Dates and Sales Periods. Sales Period filtering provides consolidated view across different sales periods. Date filtering provides a view of all opportunities closing within a specific period. Any filtered view can be saved as a new file containing

Any filtered view can be saved as a new file containing only those opportunities that are visible after the filters have been applied. This allows for easy sharing of your opportunities. For example provide a view of only those opportunities that a particular partner is co-selling with you. They will be able to see all the opportunities and with their corresponding deal plans. You may also wish to set up lead generation labels as Teams. You can then view your opportunities by lead generation source and share the progress of these leads.

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Panels - for easy viewing & updating

Focus provides a series of panels for easy viewing and or updating of information contained within each opportunity. There are also panels for performance against targets, viewing filters, grid navigator and help. Each panel can be locked open to the sides, top or bottom of Focus, They can be locked closed and only open when the cursor passes over them or they can be open and floated outside of Focus and is ideal if using two screens.

All the information contained within an opportunity can be viewed and updated via a Panel. The example shows the To Do Action List locked to the right side of Focus. As each deal is clicked on in the Grids then the Actions for that deal are displayed in the Panel making it very quick to view all actions for all deals. New Actions can be added, existing ones deleted or checked as complete. All deal information can be updated in the same way. The floating Panel shows most of the Deal Plan. With Focus you do not need to click on a deal, click another screen and another to get to the required information only then to come out, choose another deal and do the same all over again. With the Panels the information is very easy to view and very quick to update.

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