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It seems that all is not lost and there is a great debate occurring about sales forecasting accuracy that gives me hope that the status quo ‘sales forecasting inaccuracy has always been like that’ is not acceptable anymore.

The tug of war is over the sales process. Two camps are claiming the right to the sales process. There are those that believe the sales process is a series of activities, Activity Based, and there are those that promote the sales process as the monitoring and managing of behaviour. Even within this group there is a divide as to what behaviour is being monitored, is it that of the sales person, the customer, the product in the market, the market itself, etc.

I believe that to obtain greater accuracy in the sale forecast one must understand all aspects of the sale whether it be the customer’s decision making process, the product suitability within in a market sector, industry performance, and economic, governmental and regulatory factors. Without monitoring all of them on a continual basis and maintaining the history of how each of the factors are behaving in certain circumstances it is nigh impossible to refine the criteria by which sales opportunities are scrutinised to gain an understanding as the probability of success of each opportunity.

There is another key factor, the behaviour of the sales person. Has he or she the experience, ability, motivation to succeed. I’ve left this factor to last but this is usually the first port of call for management when things are not going so well. In the inimitable words of Sir Alan ‘You’re fired’. Is that the easy way out? Have we looked at all the behaviours before coming to the conclusion that it is the sales person’s fault?

We need systems such as SymVolli that will allow us to monitor different behaviours and then we can decide what needs to be done.

Activity versus behaviour! Surely activity is a consequence of understanding behaviour. Once there is an understanding of behaviour one can decide what activity needs to be undertaken. Both have an important role to play, but not one at the expense of the other.

At least there is a debate and I believe it will lead to sales forecasting accuracy. What do you think?

It might seem that in a world of recession that business is slow. You might also get the impression that every business has battened down the hatches and are currently waiting for the media to tell us it’s OK to come out again. However, nothing is further from the truth. Business is flourishing and some businesses are taking a very positive attitude in developing and improving their business processes. This is exactly the case with TSSI, one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of biometric and document security solutions who a few weeks ago ordered SymVolli as their sales performance system.

TSSI are amongst a group of companies who have met the challenges of modern economics to expand and grow their businesses and as such required a system to help develop their sales process and manage their growth needs.

TSSI is a leading supplier of technology solutions for the verification of personnel and documents. TSSI offer security solutions for a variety of industries including the Police, automotive, healthcare entities, retailers, defence, public sector and financial services.

John Barker, General Manager and Head of Sales commented 'The sales team at TSSI have used a common sales tool that was perceived to be more than adequate, but once you questioning why a prospect has been sitting at 75% probability on a forecast sheet for several weeks it soon becomes apparent that a better solution is required. We appear to have found it and with excellent support from Nomis Ltd we are now able to match prospects against specific criteria to suit our business model. Being able to highlight issues on accounts early within the sales cycle means we will become more proactive and that in turn will lead to a much-improved movement within our forecasting. Being able to generate sales reports and produce proposals all on a standard house style from within the same product will make a significant difference to the efficiency of the sales department without damaging our brand identity.'

George Petri, Managing Director of Nomis Limited, the developer of SymVolli said "we are fortunate to have a company such as TSSI as a customer because they have such varied challenges from high product demand to managing the channel and are going to be using SymVolli not only to track their sales forecast but to manage their sales process and beyond. We look forward to working with TSSI in pushing the boundaries of SymVolli to help them achieve their objectives."

I have been a member of the IOD for a number of years now and have often found the help and support that underlies the philosophy behind the IOD as an institution a truly inspirational thing. It was this basis that I approached Chris Ragg, the Branch chairman of the IOD West Surrey Branch about setting up the West Surrey Sales Forum so that top level executives, managers and directors could discuss sales issues no matter the size of organisation or market sector.

It is no secret that I am passionate about sales as a subject and that I believe that above all ‘Sales’ is the life-force by which any organisation, whether it is non-profit, fortune 500 or SME, lives by. Without the ability to sell, a company flounders and many of the ideas that many in the sales world talk about with regards to changing attitude, improving processes, fostering different mentality and culture etc. cannot happen unless the top level company directors have themselves embraced the idea of sales into the organisation.

The West Surrey Branch Sales forum intends to be a platform where discussion and ideas about sales can be thrown around and mulled over. Like the philosophy that drives the IOD itself, I see the sales forum as a way of developing an atmosphere where individuals can explore their own ideas with others so that they can improve their business. The last meeting that was held was on 21st May and we had a very lively discussion on the theme of ‘What is stopping me selling more’ some great discussions.

The sales forum is open to all IOD members and will be held at the Y Centre, Guildford on the following dates:

• Thursday 16th July 07:15-08:45
• Thursday 17th September 07:15-08:45
• Thursday 19th November 07:15-08:45

For more information contact me directly or visit the IOD West Surrey branch website at www.iod.com/westsurrey

Following on from George’s post yesterday and the article that we released (which we have had a great response so far) I thought that I would add to the discussion on sales forecasting and my own view point on why some of the issues that George wrote 10 years ago haven’t been addressed in company practices today.

As is my take on George’s article ‘Sales Fact or Sales Fiction’, the potential that sales forecasting offers to the business as a whole is circumvented by the sales managers need to use the sales forecast as a sales activity tool rather than as a sales measurement tool.

Part of the problem, in my view, is that the culture of sales management (in some companies) in some way adds to this need by creating a vicious circle of pressure and interrogation. If the sales forecast is inaccurate then the sales manager has no option but to haul the sales executives over hot coals to get a clearer understanding of where the business is at. Consequently, the sales executive knows that the sales manager is going to interrogate further, even if the information inputted into the forecast is correct because there is no trust in the system. The sales executive knows that the sales forecast is going to be used to micro-manage their pipelines, to double check their figures and basically to be used as a benchmark in the next sales meeting to whether that data is actually true. In an attempt to avoid this, the sales executive may be tempted to be over optimistic…incredibly optimistic. And so the vicious cycle goes…

In the meantime, all this activity is happening re-qualifying data on activity that has already happened rather than concentrating on what, where and how to improve for greater sales success in the future.

About ten years ago I wrote an article about Sales Forecasting in the business world and the trials and issues that companies at that point were facing in establishing accuracy, consistency and the role that the sales forecast should play in the running of a business.

It was with great surprise that I re-read the article I wrote a decade ago and did a little research and figured out that those very same issues face businesses today. Can this be right? Have we really not progressed that much in ten years?

Sales forecasts have the potential to affect a great many areas of the business, not just cash flow, but the resources of the company, manufacturing, stock control, marketing. In fact, I would argue that there isn’t a department in the company that isn’t affected by the sales forecast. Yet, companies seem to tolerate inconsistency, inaccuracy, alterations, sandbagging etc. Why? Is it because the problem of fixing those problems is too difficult or impossible?

I didn’t believe it then and I certainly don’t now. In fact, the sales forecast issue was one of the principal drivers in creating SymVolli as a sales performance tool in the first place. Sales forecasting isn’t and shouldn’t be a major issue both personally for sales executives or the business as a whole and requires actually a few simple but fundamental changes to sales mentality. In the first article of our new ‘Sales Performance’ series, I have re-written that very same article I wrote ten years ago with a modern edge to it. It is with hope that I wish that the next ten years sees the changes in attitude that don’t appear to have gotten through in the last ten.