Clean Up Your Sales Forecasting With Sales Enablement Tools

Do you know your sales metrics? You may think you do, but reality might tell a different story. Your team’s sales success is contingent on the accuracy of your sales forecasting. Without accurate analytics, you’re wasting valuable time, money and resources.

Unfortunately, accurate sales forecasting is a weakness for the average sales team. Fortunately, you have the ability to break from average.

Numbers don’t lie.

• Only 46.5% of forecasted deals actually close.
  - CSO Insights: Proper Prioritization: Optimizing Revenue in 2013
  
• 24% of respondents stated that their sales pipeline is below forecast “always” or “frequently.”
  - Pragmatic Marketing: 2014 State of Product Management and Marketing
  
• Only 21% of companies achieved a 90% or greater sales forecasting accuracy level at 30 days out despite the hundreds of millions of dollars they spend on sales force automation tools and the (estimated) 2.5 hours per week that each sales rep and manager spends managing the forecast.
  -Sirius Decisions: The Sales Forecast: No Surprises, Please
  
• 90% of sales opportunities that are identified as “forecasted to close” do not close as originally projected.
  - CSO Insights, as quoted in 3GS’ Business-to-Business Sales Forecasting
  
• Over 35% of time allocated to business forecast reviews is dedicated to data integrity issues.
  - 3GS: Business-to-Business Sales Forecasting

So how do you close the gap between wayward sales forecasting and actual sales success? Bring in sales and marketing software.

Clean up the forecast with insight.

In order to successfully forecast sales, you need to accrue valuable insight about your prospects. Then you have to filter and understand it, attributing tangible meaning to abstract numbers. These days – with information on overload and sales analytics flying left and right – doing so is only possible with powerful sales enablement technology.

Sales enablement tools empower sales reps with everything they need to fine-tune forecasting and pump up performance.

The more you know about your prospects’ pains and needs, the more you’re able to achieve sales success: extracting a story from your numbers, using those numbers for prudent sales forecasting and leveraging those reliable predictions to enhance your B2B buyer experience.

Know the insight you need.

• Which contact methods are most likely to convert into a sale?
• Where are different prospects sitting within your sales pipeline?
• How quickly are prospects moving from stage to stage in your sales process?
• Which sales tactics are the most effective?
• Which sales strategies (approaches) simply aren’t cutting it?

Know how to retrieve it.

• A personalized sales portal
• Customer relationship management (CRM) software
• Communication tools
• Sales analytics

Without access to this insight – from your KPIs to your buyer engagement rates – your team is simply unable to make the accurate forecasts or informed decisions necessary for continuous sales performance improvement.

Get it all at once with sales enablement technology.

Don’t overload yourself with a web of unconnected tools and information. Get all your insight in one place with sales enablement software.

A powerful sales enablement platform makes things easier for sales reps, syncing with your CRM system and aggregating all sales analytics and internal/external communication in one accessible hub.

“The gut” only gets you so far.

Gut instinct and intuition have their place, but they shouldn’t be the only wind in your sails. Refine your team’s natural talents with precision sales forecasting and the evidence-based science of sales enablement.

Recruit Accent Technologies to help you forecast for sales success. Our sales and marketing software experts strategize and customize the optimum technology solutions to get that actionable insight your team needs.