Today’s Pipeline is Your Q1 Forecast Paul Dilger Marketing Director, The TAS Group
Today’s Pipeline is Your Q1 Forecast
Paul DilgerMarketing Director, The TAS Group
© The TAS Group 20092
Agenda
What Makes Forecast and Pipeline Analysis Difficult
The 10 Truths of Pipeline Management
Getting Confidence and Accuracy into Your Forecast
What To Do Now
Q&A
© The TAS Group 20093
Poll 1 – Pipeline Accuracy
A: I’m feeling good about the accuracy of our pipeline today
B: I’m not feeling good about the accuracy of our pipeline today
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Poll 2 – Attitudes to 2010
A: I’m feeling good about our Q1 2010
B: I’m not feeling good about our Q1 2010
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The Difficulties of Forecast & Pipeline Analysis
• Confusion of pipeline and forecast
• Subjectivity
• Poor system compliance
• Lack of a sales process
• A sense of time
• Health of your pipeline
• Shape of your pipeline
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Sales Leader Challenges
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Sales Leader Challenges
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Sales Leader Challenges
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Ten Truths of Pipeline Management
1. A strong pipeline avoids the quarter-end crunch
2. Pipeline velocity is more important than pipeline volume
© The TAS Group 200910
Ten Truths of Pipeline Management
3. Pipeline is a better predicter of the medium to long term than forecast
4. Too many stages in the pipeline is counter-productive
5. You can’t measure pipeline using weighted average
© The TAS Group 200911
Ten Truths of Pipeline Management
6. Marketing can’t fill the funnel for you
7. A healthy pipeline has the right balance of deals, size-wise
8. Pipeline sales stages have no inherent value
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Ten Truths of Pipeline Management
9. You need an algorithmic measure to truly determine if you are going to make the quarter
10.Inactive deals give a falsely rosy picture of your pipeline health
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Accurate Sales Forecasts
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Accurate Sales Forecasts
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Accurate Pipeline
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Accurate Pipeline
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Accurate Performance Indicators
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Accurate Performance Indicators
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What To Do Now
• Qualify opportunities into the pipeline all the time
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
The Best Time to Prospect
The Best Time to Prospect
The Worst Time to Prospect
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What To Do Now
• Clearly understand your customer’s buying process
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What To Do Now
• Understand differences between selling activities and time management
Prospect &
Qualify
Develop &
Define
Prove&
Complete
Close &
Deploy
Priority #1Priority
#2Priority
#3
Pipeline
Forecast
© The TAS Group 200922
What To Do Now
• Understand differences between selling activities and time management
Prospect &
Qualify
Develop &
Define
Prove&
Complete
Close &
Deploy
TimeAllocation
2Time
Allocation 3
TimeAllocation
1
Pipeline
Forecast
© The TAS Group 200923
What To Do Now
• Focus on pipeline velocity, not volume
• Invest in Dealmaker now for 2010
40 x $200K x 25%= $1m
per mth2 months
44 x $220K x 27.5%=
$1.48m per mth1.8 months
44 x $220K x 27.5%=
$887k per mth3 months
© The TAS Group 200924
Summary
Forecast and Pipeline Analysis is difficult
Ten truths of pipeline management will help you
Dealmaker Sales Performance Automation will help you uphold the ten truths give you more confidence from accurate analysis and predictability
Act NOW to fix Q1 2010
Questions?
© The TAS Group 200925
Follow-up Resources
• www.thetasgroup.com• US 866 570 3836
• UK 01189 253 251
• International +353 1 631 6140
• White Papers and Archived Webinars
• Twitter id @thetasgroup
• www.sales20network.com• Discussion group on Sales 2.0 matters
• Twitter id @sales20network