Is it a Pipeline or Forecast Review?

Having been a frontline sales manager at Gartner years ago, this article is written to all of those currently in the role and hopefully reflects the sentiment and experience from all 2nd, 3rd, and beyond-line managers.  

Let me get right to the point, while most frontline sales managers may academically know the difference between running an effective pipeline review meeting and conducting a forecast exercise, pragmatically we more often than not jam these two settings together in what turns out to be an agenda-less, preparation void meeting, absent any reconciliation of your prior time, driven by dictatorial questions around vague data points that you hope maps back to a forecast submitted weeks ago, that typically ends in:

1. “Great, let me know where I can be helpful”
2. “Hey, I need to push our time today...let’s get it back on the calendar”
3. “Sounds good...don’t miss your number”

While this may be a slight exaggeration, perhaps it’s not too far from the truth. With the end of another quarter upon us and weeks away from the end of the year, we need to do better. If however what you really enjoy doing is taking over sales calls and closing deals, there’s a role for you...it just isn’t as a sales manager.  

If you’re still reading (and I hope you are), becoming an effective sales manager takes time and discipline. Let me offer some practical guidance around two key managerial ceremonies that with focus and attention, can have an impact on how you finish the quarter and set yourself up for the year.  

First let’s get clear on the difference between the Pipeline Review and Forecast, yet I’ll spare you the academic diatribe of each event and try and extend value by sharing with you a practical set of characteristics that you can cut and paste with your team as agenda items in advance of your upcoming meetings this week / month.

Quick disclaimer - each of the below meetings is the responsibility of your seller, it is their meeting. Your job is to hold them accountable and look for ways to add value as they navigate their way to goal. A helpful frame for every point below is to:

• Be clear in the specific objective (in bold italics below)
• Understand and outline root cause for the variance
• Explore tactical ways to close gaps   

Please also take the liberty to adjust / personalize based on your own sales cycles, ASPs, etc.

Pipeline Review

• Prior Period and Progress Across Stages - look for progress across sales stages from your prior meeting.
• Early Stage and New Pipe Create - arguably the most important aspect of the event is to understand the volume and behavior of the top of the funnel. If you do nothing more, spend time understanding how this is behaving, what’s working (and not) to drive new pipe, and develop concrete actions to adjust.
• Pipe to Quota Ratio (this Q and next) - look for your seller’s understanding and actions to build the right ratios - not just for the current quarter, the best sales managers will get at least another quarter out.  
• Calendar Mngt - inspect calendars for dedicated time to prospect. While this may seem like an invasive practice, it’s not (especially with your middle and under-performing sellers). Look for ways to help sellers optimize their time on what’s most important. I can guarantee you that if it’s not on the calendar, it’s not going to happen. 
• Key Account or Top Prospect Focus - understand the quality and progress of the plan to penetrate key / top accounts in the territory.  
• CRM compliance - you’re either working in the system of record or you’re not...this is a reflection of your management approach.

Forecast Review

• Command of the Metrics - we are in a ‘make or miss’ business; therefore ensure your seller outlines their Goal, Actual, Delta, and is prepared to profile the key deals to discuss in the forecast review (typically 3 - 5 deals).
• Reconciliation of Prior Period - look to understand how well your seller understands both their positive and negative variance. The quality of their answers will provide insight into their sales skills and where you can identify gaps.   
• Sales Methodology / Process Based - probe your sellers with questions that are grounded in your organization’s chosen sales methodology. These frameworks are designed to be repeatable and help to identify buying patterns amongst your prospects and customers.   
• Outline Fundamentals in Commit Deals - look to inspect alignment against your sales methodology.
• Outline Fundamentals in Best Case Deals - look to inspect alignment against your sales methodology.
• Resource Requests - great sellers are typically very resourceful. Look to understand their request, allocation, and sometimes over-reliance on organizational resources.  
• CRM compliance - you’re either working in the system of record or you’re not...this is a reflection of your management approach. 

I’m hopeful the above characteristics expose the fundamental difference in these two events. My personal bias is to run each of these events every other week for 45-minutes each. The more preparation, rigor, and discipline you put into these settings the easier they will become and the better you will finish. Keep in mind, you set the standards - your team is a reflection of your management approach. 

Good Selling - pi