Bruce Ellis, President and CEO of The Bee Group explores the complex landscape of sales forecasting by helping you to categorize and define how differently each Sales Rep might approach their forecasting responsibility.

1. The High Cost of
Poor Forecasting
Bruce Ellis | President | Bee Group

2. Introductions
Bruce Ellis
President & CEO
Bee Group, Inc.
© The TAS Group 2012

3. Poll #1
How accurate are your Sales Forecasts?
A: 80% +
B: 60% - 80%
C: 40% - 60%
D: Less than 40%
E: What’s a Sales Forecast?
© The TAS Group 2012

4. Romania may get even tougher on witches
© The TAS Group 2012

5. The Threat
A month after Romanian authorities
began taxing them for their trade, the
country’s soothsayers and fortune
tellers are cursing a new bill that
threatens fines or even prison if their
predictions don’t come true.
Would fines or punishment make Sales Forecasts more accurate?
© The TAS Group 2012

6. Sales Rep Response
• Dudley Do-Right
• Over-Achiever
• The Sand-Bagger
• Rebel Without a Clause
• Ghost-Rep
© The TAS Group 2012

7. Poll #2
How much time do you spend on your Sales Forecast?
A: Not very much – No problem
B: I wish I could spend less time
C: I spend way too much time
D: I try to get through it as fast as I can, but the data is not
accurate
© The TAS Group 2012

8. The Organizational Approach
• No Bad News
• Over-Assign Quota
• Feet-to-the Fire
• The Gambler
© The TAS Group 2012

9. The Excuses
Superstition, the Associated Press notes, is a
serious matter in the land of Dracula, and at
least one witch argues that practitioners
shouldn’t be blamed for the failure of their
tools.
“They can’t condemn witches, they should
condemn the cards,” queen witch Bratara
Buzea tells the AP.
She also says witches shouldn’t be blamed
for bad predictions if clients don’t provide
their real identifies or dates of birth.
© The TAS Group 2012

10. The Excuses… Continued
• Don’t Blame Me… Blame the Tools
• But, we have a CRM
• Blame the Customer
© The TAS Group 2012

11. Poll #3
How Confident are you about your Sales Forecast?
A: Our Forecast is Universally Trusted
B: Our Forecast is Not Universally Trusted
© The TAS Group 2012

12. Sales Forecast Confidence & Sales Performance
© The TAS Group 2012

13. Barriers to Effective Sales Forecasting
© The TAS Group 2012

14. Forecast Analysis is a best practice
© The TAS Group 2012

15. Predictive Analytics Increases Quota
Achievement
© The TAS Group 2012

16. What shall we do?
• Sales Process & Sales
Methodology
• You have to “Nail your Sales
Process”
• Map sales activity to buyer
behavior
• Identify “choke points” where
the sales cycle slows
• Replace intuition based
forecasting with fact-based
predictive analytics
© The TAS Group 2012

17. © The TAS Group 2012

18. Free Resources
• www.dealmakerindex.com
Score your sales effectiveness. Get advice. See how you compare.
• www.dealmakergenius.com
Create a customized sales process.
• www.dealmaker365.com
Read our blog featuring insights on sales effectiveness.
• @dealmaker365
@thetasgroup
Follow us on Twitter.
• www.thetasgroup.com
Learn more on our website.
© The TAS Group 2012

19. Where You Can Find Us
www.thetasgroup.com www.beegrp.com
• US 866.570.3836 • US 855.921.0022 | 720-921-0022
• UK 01189 253 251 • info@beegrp.com
• International +353 1 631 6140 • Twitter: @beegrp
• marketing@thetasgroup.com • Blog: www.beegrp.com/blog
• Twitter: @thetasgroup
© The TAS Group 2012

20. The High Cost of Poor
Forecasting
Bruce Ellis | President | Bee Group