Early Warning
My clients are good people. As a result, I think I have one of the better jobs on the planet. Even better than the Life Guard and Ski Instructor positions I served in during a previous career. But, recently I ran across a client that I must admit is also quite smart. Pretty much all of my clients use some form of salesforce automation software, and most of them have had their share of difficulty making it work for them. This really smart client of mine was no exception. But they persevered and got it to work the way they expected. And then they went one step further.
I suspect that most companies that utilize an SFA system try to track their deals using some form of pipeline method. If for no other reason this aids the business with producing a forecast. In my opinion there are two primary reasons for building a forecast. A big reason is that it enables you to tell your stakeholders how you are doing and what to expect at the end of the period. But, a second, and more important reason, is that it enables you to take action in the event that you determine your forecast is off from your expectations.
It is the action that matters. Many of the companies I have witnessed have a tendency to run around like a chicken with its head cut off when the forecast is below expectations. This is not necessarily the action I would encourage. Rather, this smart client of mine has built an early warning system, which enables them to take useful action when there is a gap. Pinpointing the action is the key – being concise like a rifle shot, not a big scattered shot gun blast that you hope just hits something, anything.
So, what this smart client of mine has done is to go a step beyond just getting good at predicting how sales are going to end up, but also correlating sales results to activities associated with the pipeline stages. What they have been capturing for a couple of years is information regarding what type of sales call activity is happening at each stage of the pipeline, and correlating that activity to the likelihood of deal advancement through the pipeline. For example, they can see if there are enough second time prospect visits to advance the deal to proposal, and they can see if there are enough proposals delivered to reach the number of closed deals required for quota.
And, most importantly, they can see this all unfolding long before the end of the quarter. It is truly an early warning system. If a territory is behind on the number of second calls, this is going to end up with a lower number of deals later in the pipe. To prevent that from happening, a push for more calls can be made – putting priority there over other meetings that won’t produce the required results. This is a rifle shot – it will lead to the needed results.
I hear a lot of reps complain that they have to capture sales activity. Worse is the laborious weekly activity report. This sacred report is more like an empty shot gun – it gathers a whole bunch of information that nobody has time to review anyway, and the data is not easy to analyze even if there were time. However, capturing activity in the SFA system and connecting that activity with sales results allows for system generated reports to serve as that rifle, fully loaded.
Let the technology work for you, but put the right information in. If you do, you will be able to see in advance when the numbers are not coming in correctly, and know exactly what action to take. No need to run for the shelter