pirate

🦜☠️ Account Executive

Forecast dilemma - building territory from ground up

Intro

I've been searching with few different phrases on SalesGPT but didn't find any posts that were really satisfying my curiosity. But it might be a user error...And some answers said you could get fired for bad forecasting... Does that actually happen? What kind of figures are we talking about? Anyone been through that?

My scenario question

What do you forecast if you're building something from ground up as essentially an Enterprise rep? Any best practices?

General forecasting curiosity

How often do you give your forecast? My org is asking for a weekly ones.

What do you do vs the other people in the organisation? What's your accuracy?

If you commit too high, how do you communicate this? Or what low ball it all the time?

Does org hit every quarter or miss, by how much?

I normally am at 85-100% accuracy. But people don't do it at all and pop in deals on the same day for between 30k-100k and management doesn't like that.

Background

I always keep very detailed notes and I don't get warm or cold leads from marketing or BDRs or anything like that. I am building territory from scratch. We use Clari. Deal cycle is usually from 6-9+ months if not longer. So I create pipeline actively. Deal size average on minimum 100K. Product is quite complex so POC could take a long time and takes a bit of time to build trust. I have a case where I likely committed too high due to a very tricky procurement process.

My current strategy is that I am showcasing the deals (5/6 figures) I'm working on and have them in the quarter but I always give them a confidence rating and actual Q when I think it will close / if I'm finding out the procurement process. My management says that they expect more of me next year but for now they see great traction. I'm a stress head though and when deal cycle is long it's just easy to lose myself in it.

Thanks,

—☠️🦜

👑 Sales Strategy

🎱 Sales Forecast

10

16 comments

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Pachacuti

Politicker

5

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Where are you at in the funnel building stage? How many weeks/months/years have you been at it?

What I read is that you’re just starting out. So instead of forecasting what you think the % likelihood of it closing, you should be steering the conversation to what you need from the business to actually close it. Otherwise the likelihood is 0.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

3

🦊

Yup. Normally ENT opportunities are 12-18 months out too.

GDO

Politicker

1

BDM

For sure! Could be up to 3 years depending on the sector

pirate

Big Shot

0

🦜☠️ Account Executive

I started at the beginning of this year so I have been in the position for a bit. Funnel is getting a lot better than what it used to be when I started but long deal cycles are frustrating. Your second paragraph has really solid advice thank you.

3

Retired Sales Professional

There is a thread connected to your question named,"How do you build a new territory from the ground up?" (By bigtuna) which has some good ideas. But it seems like you have a good handle on what your being asked to do. All I would try to figure is what is management looking for when they say, they want more from you next year. Your past the half way point of the year, so there should be some indication of what the company is looking for in 2024.

pirate

Big Shot

0

🦜☠️ Account Executive

Thank you! It popped up for me as well and have read it but was looking for more specifics on the forecasting. Appreciate your point. I think 2024 is starting to look a lot better.

3

Co-Founder and CEO Akiva Immersive Learning for Special Education

It is excellent that you are curious about forecasting, especially in your role as a net new accounts enterprise rep. First things first... you have to find a will and stop being stressed. Nowadays, anyone can get fired with or without cause.

Focus on things you can control. Schedule a strategy meeting with your management. This would accomplish several imperative objectives.:

1. Demonstrate your leadership skills
2. Show your sales IQ to the management
3. Understand the priorities of your management
4. Prepares you to have an outstanding 2024
5. Find out which sales methodology management prefers - MEDDIC, for example.

In preparation for this strategic meeting, you can use different methodologies. One that I like is called GOST - Goals, Objectives, Strategies, Tactics. In your Goals, for example, you would list three goals - 1. achieving your 2024 quota with a (stretch), 2. Create a CAB that will help you close deals in your territory faster; 3. Build 4 Champions within your customer base. The strategies and tactics will provide a bottoms-up approach to getting to your quota. Forecast accuracy would typically be in Tactics, but you can bump it up to Strategies if your management is very focused on it.

Let's assume your quota is $1.5M for a new territory SaaS product with an Average size deal of $100K. That means you need to close 15 deals with that average size. As you mentioned 6-9+months sales cycle, closing 5 opportunities in Q3 and 10 in Q4 respectively is difficult, that is probably the reason why management asks for weekly forecast accuracy.

Ideally, with the assumptions I made, you need to prioritize and create 4 opportunities with $500K+, 8 opportunities with $200K+ and 16 opportunities with $100K+. Thus, you will aim for a pipeline that is 3x-5x your quota minimum. Given various factors, including the procurement process, you should be able to produce a forward-looking forecast for 2024 given the current leads and information you know. It will not be 85%-100% accurate, but it will show to your management that you have a great handle on your territory. You should also consider asking for their input/feedback, and more importantly, take an opportunity and ask for a few needed resources to help you over-achieve your quota, for example - automate POC to reduce the sales cycle or assign a SE that will work with you to develop account Champions.
Finally, once your management is on the same page with you, and you have a better understanding of their expectations of you, you get on these weekly calls, focus on your:

1. Quarterly commit deals - 100% rev commit in Q
2. Most Likely - 70-90% rev commit in Q
3. Upside - potential rev in Q or plan B for #2.

I hope this is helpful.

pirate

Big Shot

0

🦜☠️ Account Executive

This is an excellent response, thank you for your help! Processing your advice.

1

Co-Founder and CEO Akiva Immersive Learning for Special Education

I'm glad you find it helpful. Good luck!

Sunbunny31

Politicker

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

What are your forecast rules? Are you using stages?

Your plan to be forecasting based on procurement process is good, and in addition, you should be understanding timeline/compelling event and their decision process to get you to selection as a vendor even as you’re working through their onboarding/legal/procurement process.

I have things in my forecast slated for when I believe they should close, with my confidence in whether or not we’re in position to win the deal. Those are things I actively manage as I work with the customer and their decision process.

This is a bit rambly, sorry. But I hope it is helpful!

pirate

Big Shot

0

🦜☠️ Account Executive

My question was rambly so appreciate your response. Well for me it's my best guess at the beginning of the month, halfway through and at the end. I always update my deals once a week and we have a forecast call or bug deal review. Deal stages yes prospecting, qualified, solution defined, technical win, business win and closed lost, closed won. That's helpful that you just base it on your confidence and your advice on timeline. Thanks so much!

Sunbunny31

Politicker

1

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Well, we still have stages I hit at certain milestones along the cycle, but fortunately there's room to have notes on confidence regarding our position in the deal and the steps to close. Our SFDC is set up to capture what we know about their procurement and buying process, and when the info in those fields is light, you don't know as much about the deal as you'd like. That's a big sign to find out about the gaps.

ThatNewAE

Big Shot

1

Account Executive - Mid enterprise

I’d honestly just talk about my efforts so far and only the responses/ deals that are going in the right direction. No forecast in terms of revenue yet.

pirate

Big Shot

0

🦜☠️ Account Executive

Good one, thank you. I guess as someone else said steer the conversation to what you actually doing and how it takes time.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

1

Sales Rep

Connect with your top performers
how are they utilizing product knowledge to build their territory

pirate

Big Shot

0

🦜☠️ Account Executive

Thanks! I have done, though feel like they've been there for years and had sone traction in the patch. They've been helpful though

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