You are a CEO, or a Sales leader and would like to have your sales team deliver on their sales commitment, to have forecasts you could rely on.  If this is your case, this blog might interest you.

Statistics show that to consistently achieve sales budget, each sales person should have between 2 to 5 times their sales quota in qualified opportunities..

You might recognize the following :

On a regular basis, you ask your sales team to provide a sales forecast for 1, 2, 3 maybe 4 quarters. However strong a commitment to deliver on their forecasts, it seems that some key deals seem to be pushed from quarter to quarter. Always with a good explanation. So, planning resources becomes more and more difficult.

Here are a couple of efficient tips:

• The value of the qualified opportunities in the salesperson pipeline, should be 2 to 4 times his or her quota :
  • In other words, if the sales quota is $100,000, then the total value of the qualified opportunities should be between 200,000 and 400,000$. A qualified opportunity is an opportunity that is answering a problem or a need from the prospect, where a budget has been set aside, a closing date within the year, and a key influencer or decision maker somewhat friendly to our cause.
    • Quarters are not equal throughout the year:
  • Historically, the first quarter is about 10% of the year (fiscal year), the second and third around 20 to 30 % of the year and the lion share goes to the last quarter of the year with roughly 40% of the potential. The percentages may vary, but the concept remains.
  • In other words, a salesperson needs enough qualified and in closing mode, enough opportunities to meet the quarter percentage. Otherwise, it becomes a catching game with more chances to miss the yearly assigned quota.

• Meaningful questions at the sales meetings:
  • What is your commitment for the quarter?
  • What opportunities will make that number in the current quarter?
  • Should one or two slide to the next quarter, which opportunity will you be able to bring forward?
  • How long is the signing process, do you have enough time to go through every signing step?
  • What is our strategy if our main competitor comes back with a drastic price reduction?
  • What help do you need from management?
  • Why us, why now, Why not us, why not now?
  • Etc.