Compelling Events

In all likelihood you've been living with these issues for years. These are the events that might cause you to change:

Investor Fire Drills

When investors demand answers, your forecast needs to deliver clear, accurate projections.

Consecutive Bad Quarters

Two disappointing quarters in a row signal that what worked in the past isn’t working anymore.

Outdated Methods

Every year, your buyers world becomes more complex and their behaviour becomes more inscrutable. Internal politics and priority initiatives have replaced pain and the ability to take unilateral action. You might be beginning to see the consequence in declining forecast accuracy quarter over quarter.

Forecast Accuracy

What's the Problem?

Hope vs. Data

Too often forecasts are driven by wishful thinking instead of data about the buyer's reality. Hope is, as the saying goes, not a strategy. Hopeful forecasts lead to embarrassment at the next board meeting.

Symptom vs. Cause

Visible forecasting issues are rarely where the real problem lies. The root cause is often much higher up in the funnel, where earlier activities fail to deliver outcomes that close deals or fix relationships.

Timing Matters

Forecasts won't be accuract if all you know is when the customer intends to buy. You need to know when the customer needs to feel the impact. Without this, your deals are anchored in thin air.

A Deeper Symptom

Poor forecast accuracy isn’t an isolated problem. It’s a symptom of deeper issues in your sales process such as misalignment with the customer's buying process, inadequate pipeline management, and ineffective account planning.

This is a simple framework for recovering from declining forecast accuracy:

Foundations

  • Target Your ICP: Ensure you have a current and clearly-defined ICP, and that you are targeting only accounts that match the ICP.
  • Plan Your Accounts: Engage in strategic account planning that looks for compelling accounts and multiple stakeholders.
  • Prospect and Nurture: Invest in nurturing leads that aren’t ready yet. Avoid writing them off too early.
  • Pick Deals You Can Win: Be ruthless in choosing opportunities where you can drive the customer’s outcomes.
  • Get SMART with the Customer: Define clear, timebound goals together, so expectations and timelines are aligned.
  • Win the Right Deals: Execute on your strategy to win the deals that matter most.

Rethink your Funnel

Undo the Bowtie: You might have an old sales-centric funnel based on key sales activities, perhaps based on the Bowtie Model:

  • Marketing: Awareness → Education
  • Sell: Selection → Commit
  • Post-Sales: Onboarding → Adoption → Expansion

Adopt Buyer-Centricity: A more modern buyer-centric funnel will allow you to easily evaluate the buyers' jobs-to-be-done.

  • Nurture: Status Quo → Problem → Pain → Priority
  • Sell: Initiative → Verifying → Consensus Creation → Approving
  • Gain Critical Investment: Deploying → Changing → Enjoying Better Outcomes

Identify The Problem

  • Work from the Bottom Up: Identify where you’re losing deals (for example, at the “approving” stage).
  • Clarify the Symptoms: Ask, "What behaviours does the customer show that signal a problem?"
  • Dig into the Causes: Investigate if your team adequately enables the customer at each stage. If not, work upward in the funnel. If you struggle at the “approving" stage, ask if you help the buying team build consensus and overcome internal hurdles.

Execute

  • Focus on Root Causes: The real cause is often far removed from where the symptoms appear. Use these insights to drive the most valuable actions.
  • Use MEDDPICC or PRIORITY to monitor opportunities and relationships so that next quarter's forecast shows improved accuracy and control.

Conclusion

By addressing forecast accuracy head-on and linking the visible symptoms back to the root causes in your sales process, you can take targeted action that drives better results. This strategic approach ensures that every forecast is grounded in reality, and will quickly get you back on track.