SLED forecasting...

Hey team,

Curious about how sales managers are factoring random deals that pop up and close in the middle of a quarter? For context, I am not sure if this is SLED specific or not, but if a grant is approved, which can be erratic, I really have no way to forecast accurately. Is this common?

A couple of ways I have been trying to figure this out:

Looking at SFDC to see what opps were created and closed within a day.
Looking at opps that go from early stage (demo) straight to close. (hard to figure out if the team has bad SFDC hygiene.

🎱 Sales Forecast

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Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

You can't really forecast SLED, or at least you need to be VERY flexible when attempting. Even the best companies out there in terms of SF upkeep have trouble with SLED because the sales cycles are horrendously long and they have a "run fast and wait" mentality.

SLED don't care about fiscal years. And grants monies REALLY don't care. SLG agencies may have money to burn at the end of THEIR FY (which may/may not coincide with a calendar year) - so you have to be ready when they call you with some "use it or lose it" monies.

So do you best. Communicate up to your mngt about what's going on. And cross your fingers.

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

Great take, strongly agree!

CPTAmerica

Opinionated

President/CRO

I call those "icing deals." We forecast on what can be quantified and these become the icing on top. Learn your averages and you might be able to forecast X amount of icing deals a quarter but it will be very tough to identify which ones it will be, when they'll come, why, etc.

Armageddon

Opinionated

Enterprise Account Executive

glad I found this post. Ive had the SLED team at my company ask me if I'd like to interview, and now im thinking it might be best to stay in the private sector.

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SLED forecasting...

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