As the commemoration of the Battle of Waterloo comes to its climax I came across the quote of the Iron Duke
" All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called "guessing what was at the other side of the hill."
Sales Forecasting is an art even with help of Salesforce.com et al. You are often asked to commit to sales management your pipeline figures that focus on deadlines.
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| Probables and Possibles |
The following ten qualifying questions are useful in helping you predict when new business will likely to come in.
- What’s the business priority – the reason the buyer will spend the money? What benefit is (s)he going to get out of it? and does it justify the price?
- Who will make the final decision to buy, and who from? Beware, almost every buyer claims to be the decision maker, but is this really true. In our house typically I’ll decide whether we buy something, but my wife decides what we buy.
- How will the decision to buy be made – the decision process. Buyers rarely have only one option. How will they choose between the alternatives available?
- Have you agreed with your customer the buy/sell process – the way you’ll work together to make sure you both get the best deal?
- Who’re you competing with, and how to win against them? Can you repeat it?
- Do you have a “champion” – somebody on the inside who wants your offer, and will help persuade the other decision makers and tell you how to get the deal? .
- Has your prospect confirmed you’re the preferred vendor, provided you can get the financial submissions right.
- Has your prospect agreed a delivery or start date and committed internal resources?
- Has your prospect agreed the contract terms and conditions?
- Has your prospect signed the contract?
Wishing you all good luck in guessing the business prospects behind your hills as the Iron Duke might have said.
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