Empower your Technology Industry business with b2b sales forecasting for technology industry

How to create outlook signature

you you want answers I think I'm entitled you want the truth you can't handle the truth hey everybody's Brian burns and welcome this episode of the brood truth about Zeldin selling podcast hey it's getting that time that critical time during the quarter we're forecasting is a critical issue because all of a sudden next month the deals better close or people are in trouble so I got my buddy Brian work back on the show today we're gonna be talking about it and we've been some war stories that are both funny entertaining and lessons hard-earned this episode was inspired by pipe drives blog I'm telling you you got to have the right tools for the job and sales and if you say well my company's got this CRM thing yeah but the focus pretty much the number-one thing that's coming out from the great sales reps that I'm talking to is focus you know once you have the skill once you've been doing it long enough that you understand about how to talk to the other person and what they care about focus on outcomes what I'm hearing constantly is that laser focus on the deals that will close and being able to get the resources you need to make have them close close maybe I'm gonna sum up at the end kind of my lessons about forecasting it's a critical part of the job if you do it right you get the the right amount of leeway if you do it wrong what happens is you get too much roof knee and all of a sudden kind of the the overhead the management doesn't know what to do and all of a sudden inserts themselves into your deals at inopportune times and it goes from a team based sale to I'm taking this over sale make sure you're also checking out nudged AI their team approach to using relationships to get into accounts I remember when I be the startup what we would do is just send around a list of accounts and we would just get our network to find out somebody who was out there to come today it's all done with AI all you have to do is have everybody on your team using no day I just go to their site schedule the demo for you and your manager and the other members of your team and tell them Brian sent you from the podcast and they'll give you the best feel out there here we go with my buddy Brian Burke hey Brian welcome back to the show hey today let's talk about forecasting this is something that pipe drives been writing a lot about they did a great blog post on it on the elements of it and that I've always found that there's kind of two sides of it there's the management side of it where they want to project up up the organization you know the deals that are going to close when they're gonna close and how big they are and then as a rep you've got you kind of cut for forecast to see how much you're gonna get paid and what you should focus on and the signals that you should be looking for and prepared for and the things that you need to prevent what's your experiments been well the latter yes I as a senior manager it's always important to have accurate numbers to pass upstream and sometimes to reflect to Wall Street but as a rep where we're trying to manage a pipeline with multiple clients and multiple deals at the same time and to capture it as accurately as possible and to make sure that I haven't left any step unaccounted for so that I don't get down to you know three quarters of the way into the sales year and find out that oh I was supposed to talk to a couple of purchasing people and get a check off to close this deal and I haven't done that so knowing the steps in the forecast is is critical yeah and I think clearly we typically have happy years we typically send in a proposal and we assume it's just gonna slide right through the organization and depending on the size and the sign-off of the managers that typically doesn't happen and we often find that is no decision but what ends up happening is that there's no justification for the actual purchase there's no reason that the managers are gonna move forward there's no ROI there's no justification the outcome and the implementation dates really haven't been looked at or thought about and people are just kind of overly optimistic about it and we underestimate the number of people that are gonna get involved in this right and that may be because after an initial meeting you know the customer is excited about what you're talking about or what the company is talking about and saying yeah I really need this I need this and and you want to move forward and of course you're excited because you're the salesperson you communicate that excitement to your boss but as you saying if you missed an understanding of the customer environment or the fiscal year date or any of these other elements the deals not going to happen or it's going to slow down you can correct it but it might slow it down yeah yeah and typically we don't understand all the steps and we really even may not have even gotten the technical sale where we've proven to the customer that the product does what they want and we are both optimistic because we're typically dealing with end users of the product and not the business owners of the problem and isn't that great that's a great point because as you're saying we're talking to the end users and their other perhaps technical influencers that say hey yeah that's great that this end user wants this and they may even have a departmental budget but I have other considerations much broader considerations yeah and and we have to talk with those people in it and it's not easy to gain access and I think we have to prepare for that to happen that the typical thing that I see with almost all my clients is they go in or they do a presentation online and everybody's happy and excited and they ask for a proposal and not the worst thing you can do is give it to them right once they have it then what do you do you follow up you forecast it for 30 days you have an expiration date at the last day of the quarter or the month like every other vendor and there's no next step there's no real due diligence there's no business justification or approval or insight into what their legal process is where does this fit in the stack or priorities of what they want to do and you might find out that oh yeah well what we're going to do this next year right so you're following your own enthusiasm and maybe even the clients enthusiasm but you may not have all the data and you're running down a rabbit hole that isn't going to come to fruition because you didn't follow all the steps that perhaps you normally follow yeah and what you want to do is slow it down know what has to take place know that there is a business sale know that there is a complete technical sale because what they may do is just take your quote and compare it against your competitors quote and go with the lowest price and not understand the full issues and you're losing opportunity to have influence and some involvement you know maybe control is too strong of a word but that the ability to get involved in that decision on their side okay in a hurry to get to the deal we have perhaps skipped over a few steps and perhaps lost our ability to effectively compete and somebody else could come in and and who's more thorough and get the deal yeah yeah because I mean if you if the next competitor comes in and they and they say well what kind of price did you get well well knock five points off of that if you go with us now and you're losing you know kind of engagement with that the account you're not building a coach or what I call a a crime and partner a partner in crime where you're open and honest about what's going on what needs to be done what your managers care about what what will excite them how do they make decisions where does this fit in the priority list all of this stuff in and it's just that you think it's rookie issues but I talked to a lot of people been doing it for thirty years and they still do the same thing and it's like the first time every time I hear oh I Capra pose alone it's like yeah let's sit down and work through that you know I was like what's he know come you want when's the deadline and and once you start getting into that and then if you give it to what if I give this to you I mark it as draft and I say well I give a real short deadline and you get agreement before you send it and then you get an agreement to talk about it at at a future time so that you can get control in a sense of exactly what's gonna go on and you just brought up an excellent point many excellent points but one point you brought up was you have to put a time limit on your quote I mean because everybody's making assumptions along the way I'm assuming a certain technical detail certain financial health of the company I'm assuming that this person is a decision maker and will stay a decision maker so you have to put a time limit on on this quote that you're talking about and you better hope that you captured enough information and knowledge about what the impact that this is going to have on the organization so that it can sail through the process yeah and when you do that time thing you know typically people give 30 90 days and that's the worst thing you can do the best thing you could do is like well how long is this going to take and make put conditions on it that you know you know what we'll throw in a free day of consulting or give five points off or we'll guarantee you this or or something and you know they're all going to give you an optimistic date put that on there because then you hold it to them to it and it forces them because you know it's that's too fast and people underestimate the purchasing approval that managers have and you know having done you know anything from tiny deals to huge deals you know what a huge deal I did with this application service providers one of the largest ones here me and my CEO were sitting in the office with the CEO of the company the last day of the quarter at 9 p.m. and he's going I better call couple members of the board before I sign this and we both looked at each other I mean gonna get any higher than the CEO like apparently you can well right and sometimes customers as you know use that end of quarter to twist to get conditions that are more favorable to them and other times you have less organized people with smaller deals that just forget certain steps because they're you're not the you're not the only salesperson they're dealing with so you know they're juggling a number of other activities just like you're juggling a number of sales opportunities so it behooves everybody to have the most accurate information about where this is in in the in the process do I have all the information for this person I'm across the desk from so that we can transact this right now and if not what do I need to do to get to a transaction and now let's take that that we've been talking mostly about the process but let's talk about the forecast because what do we do there's two sides of it right because we have to forecast enough business to keep our managers happy and we have to you know if you do too much then we're going to disappoint and people are going to be upset and then then there's the pipeline of like next quarter and the quarter after that which is a lot easier to do because you get the typical companies want to see three times the pipe as your quota so and we both worked at a company that you know that was all manufactured and believed all from the very bottom all the way to the top and you're not really sure why anyone even played that game but that part has to be played right there's some companies as you mentioned the standard that I've seen just like you have seeing like well we want to see 3x your quota in the pipeline and then there are other companies that for some reason I'll say no I want to see 5x of your quota in the pipeline so you'll go through the CRM that you have and let's face it if you're a new rep in a new territory it's it's extremely difficult to come up with 5x your pipeline with credible information so it really depends on the situation but everybody's looking to fulfill what they need to fulfill and we do the best we can to do that with accurate information and it's obviously you know you get the person who's either put on a plan or been told you know this is your last quarter and they and they always go to the quarterly Business Review and they put up you know 1 or 2 million dollar deals there their way of saying please keep me another 90 days and it's so transparent and then they get on the other hand the sandbag or who will you know not tell anybody about any of the deals and you know my point here is anticipate it's going to take longer anticipate the deals going to come in smaller than you think it's gonna be and if you can manage that expectation well with your manager that's helpful and it depends on your manager you know if your manager is a value-add person that that you have good rapport with that can help you with deals then the openness is great but if you have a manager who's gonna end run you and call into the account or you know pull some shenanigans around you and muck up the deal you have to be conscious of that as well right you have to in that case you're gonna have to do a lot on your own and I hate to say this but maybe not be as transparent because you are trying to protect the pipeline for your pocketbook and also for the company but sometimes there are some managers as we both know that are out there and they get overly eager and they jump right into your deals and sometimes that delays the deals transacting and sometimes it kills them and I think we both had that yeah well that they get desperate right because the only person more desperate than a salesperson at the end of the quarter is a manager the manager know their life side lifeline is not that long if things were going great they're fine but if if they're behind their number they may do things that they would not normally do and I've experienced it I had a deal it was in procurement I had very good control over it and my manager didn't believe me and went and called somebody at the account that wasn't really involved but had a big title and mucked it up and you know then all the people in the account that were involved start calling me saying who's this person and I go well he's my manager what happened oh he was calling around trying to understand where this thing was and you know he started calling people that just aren't even involved in this project and when you get that then then that it just MUX up the deal so you know if you properly forecast it relative to the current context that you're in you're much better off so that you can kind of bring in the deals and I always had to say I go people love to be surprised they hate to be disappointed as you said before having a good rapport with your manager and having a good rapport with a technical manager if there's a technical manager involved in the sale as well is critical and as they see you accomplished sales along the way and they watch you progress then they'll have more confidence and be less willing to just jump in and lets you take the reins and run with it because you're a professional yeah and I think even when you have your weekly reviews with your manager you've got to be prepared for the classic questions it's okay down where exactly is this and if you say while I sent the proposal and then they're gonna say well who did you send it to I sent it you know Joe the developer well you know your managers gonna say well Joe developers sign off is what zero so he's just there he's just an influencer he's an influencer and Joe developer's gonna send it to Mike the manager Mike the managers sign off is probably five K or your expense report you know Harry the VP who has probably got a 50 K sign-off phrase and so you gotta understand it it really has to go pretty high in the organization as the dollar amounts go like the one with but even at the CEO level it was it over two million dollar deal you know we would literally the last day of the quarter it was a make-or-break deal for the company in the eyes of the investors you know and of course you got to understand managers are not always great sandbaggers either some of them are you know talking to the CEO oh yeah we're gonna do this we're gonna do that and if you disappoint people people that's the worst that right you surprised people people like you I mean they're looking for dependability they're looking for a dependable forecast those does Brian deliver what he says he's going to deliver that's what every sales organizations looking for otherwise you know what am I looking at I mean his forecast and dependability is impossible it's like predicting the weather right you know I can be right nine out of ten times but once in a while it's gonna snow in August and and you look at the weatherman you go hey hey what the hell and you go so you better off you know saying there's a chance of it's snowing in August you know not a chance but you're better off surprising not too much you know and I guess I probably had a reputation as a Sandbagger just because I'd like control over my deals I liked not having to sit through you know deal review after deal review and I literally would have a a manager call me at 9:00 in the morning asking me about the status and before the end of the call go is there any update on that deal like oh I haven't been off the phone yet well again you know you know if as a rep we have a reputation for accurately forecasting and explaining hey this is where the deal is in the cycle this is what could go wrong this is how we could speed it up if I had additional resources perhaps or perhaps an executive visit these are some things that they may ask at an executive visit like they may arm twist for additional discounts or terms and conditions but being able to just like that be able to explain those things to management is is what differentiates a good from a bad sales person yeah and I had a great manager who once said hey if it's gonna go down don't go down alone what he meant by that is if you feel like it the deals gonna go south bring us in because you don't want to be the only person you know because you know victory has a thousand fathers and failure is an orphan it's always been that way you know and a big deal comes in and you want to give credit one of the big deal comes in and if you lose a deal you you want to make sure that you know all the people are gonna be pointing fingers have their fingers touching that deal so that you're not the one that they all go oh you know that's the guy who lost the deal and and I think being cautious with your forecast because most salespeople are not most people way too optimistic and you know when I was a manager I always liked this there's no way on earth this is even a deal nevermind this month you know for it to close this month it's got to be in procurement exactly yeah and and when he did you try and explain that to people it's just hard and and even as you go up the org um you know I'd see managers just pass up the reps forecast up the org I go no I would I would scrub my reps forecasts and make it much at more accurate and put some surprises in there remove any disappointments and let it flow up and I'd rather take the pain at the beginning or in the middle of the quarter then at the end of the quarter because I know what happens that's when everybody's expecting it to come in and if it doesn't as you said before then a lot of fingers get pointed and how come you didn't know about this we don't like those kind of surprises you know what happens you have a bad quarter yet the next month of the next quarter is spent doing account reviews planning sessions everything that's going to reduce the likelihood of you selling that quarter right all of those activities that you just mentioned that are trying to explain what happened in the last quarter now you're taking time which is our most critical element in sales this is taking time away from how I can kind of make up for that and and establish some maybe new opportunities close things that are in the middle of the next sales cycle for the next and and and by doing so you know have a put a smile on people's faces because hey I actually delivered yeah because it just count the days you could twenty days and a month to work so that you got sixty days and a quarter if you spend two or three of them going through a QPR and then do an account analysis and forecasting and updating you take you know five or ten percent of that and no value you know it's one thing if you've got a great management team and they're there at your beck and call unfortunately that's rare you know it's mostly people who are trying to evaluate you and trying to insert themselves into the deal trying to shortcut the deal based off of their sales experience which may be all over the map that they may have never even sold the current product that you're selling they came in from the outside so as reps we've got to own this right I was working for a very large company one of the same ones that you work for an hour tomorrow with that at a fiscal year ending in December and I remember I was trying to close a big deal that had multiple divisions associated with it and there was a sick one of the calls was to a decision-maker out in Hawaii so I thought well do I really have to go out there to do this but yeah I'll do what I have to do if it makes sense because we need to close this deal and then what happened was it went up the chain and somebody heard that I was having a sales call in Hawaii and there were about two senior execs it said no I'll take that call for him because it's December and it's a white so they get on the plane to go through there and I'm saying at my boss there's no value out here they don't even know what I'm working on so he said well you know put together brief for them brief them and all that so I did and then when when that had happened I said on Monday or Tuesday what what were the results what did they say and I got next to no feedback it was almost like you know they just wanted to shake hands with the execs and it didn't do anything to further myself so but of course I couldn't interfere with it so those things happen yeah I mean on the inverse of that I kind of differentiates maybe our styles but I had a customer a real qualified customer in and Maui and they were doing a trial and you didn't call me for that and our policy was both the rep and the engineer went on every trial and it was in Maui and I'm in Chicago getting a connection to Maui and I'm talking to my boss and he goes where are you oh I'm in O'Hare he goes were you heading to we're going out to paccom or whatever it was called yeah because where are they they're in Maui you're going to Maui and I go yeah and he goes why did you tell me I would have taken that and I was like you know I go that's why I didn't tell you you know would he have spent the time on the site the way we did no you know it takes a lot of fun out of the trip you know when you're working and you really you pick up at it a little bit but you can't pad it that much and but that's just a funny story about how these things work out but again you know understanding that hey this could happen for this executive in this other location might demand you know an executive presence or somebody there to either discuss the financials or technical or some other issue again you know that can influence your forecast and you have to know that ahead of time it was a fun conversation and brought up some good stories but the key lessons that I've learned and I become kind of a scientist of forecasting because I really didn't like people digging into my deals meaning you know diving in coming in unprepared coming in with their own agenda coming in not understanding the political situation and the background and just trying to get the deal because the company is desperate for the revenue that quarter you know these are things that we have to manage and we have to also understand that our managers really just want the outcome that you know and their managers want the outcome and the CEO just wants the outcome and the investors just want the outcome and what happens is when they don't get the outcome they start to put in what they think will work and and it may work but usually it's a little outdated it's a little you know ineffective and it you know we used to call it a goat rodeo where you know people would run around with the chickens with their heads cut off activity versus accomplishment and I'm all about accomplishment sales is all about accomplishment the only metric that matters is w2 1099 and if you're outside the US that means income and what how you get income is by basically closing deals for SDR sales development reps it's getting meetings and we got a focus on that so first of all a surprise is better than disappointment people every manager was to tell you I don't like surprises they love surprises good surprises a surprise is good everybody likes a surprise right a deal is comes in Baker it comes in a day early they like that right they do want to know about it and you may you may want to stand back a little but if what are the most sales reps to just the opposite they're bragging about a big deal that's imminent and hit what happens it doesn't come in as big doesn't come in as soon and guess who gets blamed it's always the sales rep right because victory has a thousand fathers and failure is an orphan remember that that's human nature I put out a video on Jocko Willick the Navy SEAL and it was just talked about extreme ownership extreme ownership is what we have to have with our deals with our time and forecasting is you know in our forecast to ourselves about what we're gonna do has to be laser-focused because we got too many distractions today I've got an upcoming episode on this with Chad and if you do not laser focus you're gonna get distracted with that little device that little rectangle in your pocket with the latest social media this or that with BS news and this thing and that thing and some webinar and somebody who's never sold trying to tell you you'd do it differently practice look at the science what I do is I look at the science and I build my art around the science and that's what I teach in the course the courses are rocking because the people who embrace it who take it apply it ask for feedback I take feedback there all of a sudden get meetings and companies they never could of before why because it just works it's based off of science this is how people think this is cold outreach this is not when somebody calls you and they're looking at you and five other people I get it you you can handle that you can hit most likely keep that deal going but then how do you handle that's why you need closing the complex sale how these deals really work internally now I got a free e-book on b2b revenue calm to sign get on the email list and it gets sent to the link gets sent to you not the book so the link is at the very bottom of the email to click on it and you can download it off a box the PDF it's a 40 page book it's a summary of basically how companies make decisions now you have to understand this it's not about bringing insight that builds interest that's useful that's a skill right that's like saying questioning is good or storytelling is good or workshopping and whiteboarding it they're all good I love them all I do but they're not the whole game play the whole game no one talks about the whole game because nobody knows the whole game because nobody's played the whole game you know and I had this argument with another podcaster and why I don't have more sales authors on the phone on the podcast and most of them I delete after I've interviewed them because they're total empty suits they've never sold right they've have been blogging for eight years and they work for a parent or something but they've never sold and what they're telling you is how bland goodness it is goodness and if you apply it it's good but it's not telling you exactly how companies make decisions you know and arguing about whether the phone is better than email it's a it's a stupid argument do what works but you got to understand what works for them so check out the original blog on pipedrive com about forecasting they're putting out great content Gong's putting out unbelievable content discover org i'm telling these people bring out the science and let's talk about it on the podcast so it's been a great partnership with them I really appreciate it make sure you get your team get the team version of nudge get your manager to just pay for it you know there's a free copy of it that's very useful but once you get your whole team and you get a whole company everybody and all of a sudden you know in your pipeline you can see how everybody's connected that is how you get that's the easiest way to get in is by showing you are already a member of the tribe just an extended member of the tribe that's it thanks for listening I really appreciate everybody who's talking about the podcast sharing it on LinkedIn and Twitter or wherever you live on social you know I'm putting some energy into Facebook I don't know if that's the right thing to do but I've got an Instagram acquittal to quote out every day nobody wants to see what I'm eating or what I'm doing because I'm busy here selling and teaching you and helping you sell more so you make more money this year