Where do you get your Weather?

As leaders, it is important that we have an accurate and timely handle on our forecast. Whether it is budgets, expenses, revenues or profits - knowing where we are going is as important as where we are.

Whenever I start with a new firm or a new team, I ask myself the following:?

“Do you get your weather from The Farmer’s Almanac, or from a Meteorologist on the local news?”

The Farmer’s Almanac forecasts weather by evaluating temperature and precipitation deviations from averages. These averages are based on 30-year statistical variances.? Without detailed knowledge of key deals, relationships with senior Sales leaders, input from key partners and marketing plays… we are looking in the review mirror and basing our forecasts on historical trends.

A Meteorologist uses tools such as satellites, radar, and surface maps. Meteorologists look at patterns in the atmosphere, beginning with general patterns, then narrowing it down to the more specific details.?

I know we don’t always have the best data, but it’s coming and it gets better every day.? If you take into account daily bookings, invoicing, average daily sales, backlog, key deals, and all of the inputs listed above, you too can predict the weather (or your Region’s financial performance).

Often times, the best automated reports from your CRM tool or your knowledge of industry trends can put you in the position where you are faced with garbage-in-garbage-out. As leaders we need to have our fingers on the pulse of our business. Spreadsheets and reports don't give always give us the data we need.

Sometimes you are looking at weighted probabilities coming out of CRM, and that data doesn't seem to make sense. We need to be able to do a sanity check. Maybe we need to open the window and just look outside. Maybe we need to call someone upwind and ask them what is going on there.

Have you ever seen deals in your reports that are $1 GP, forecast at 50% to close in December. Historically I have found that members of our sales teams put deals in this way to avoid leadership calling them at the end of a month or quarter, asking for constant updates. Oftentimes I find (or suspect) that these are very large deals and the team is trying to keep them under the radar. Sometimes we need to pick up the phone and call the seller, hopefully we know our business well enough to know what the pipeline looks like in our clients.

Neither historic trends nor all the scientific data and human intelligence are necessarily the right way to approach things. As a leader we need to know that historically at the end of the quarter, half or year, there are external factors that typically impact the accuracy of the forecast; vendor pressure, client budgets, etc.

Sometimes we need to open the window and poke our heads outside.