Lagging Sales, Flawed Forecasts - 5 Steps to Reclaim Control

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𝐋𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬. 𝐅𝐥𝐚𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐬. - 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝐹𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑟?

Almost daily, someone asks me: "𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘰 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘤𝘺𝘤𝘭𝘦?"

Ah I wish there was a silver bullet, one-size-fits-all answer. Sorry, there isn't one...but there is a fix, and it's not rocket-science. However, you do need to do some work to understand your pain points and get real with your metrics.

This article gives you a 𝗳𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗶𝗽𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲. You'll learn how to convert your Sales Engine into a Sales Learning Engine for you to continually shorten your sales cycles, elevate your coaching tips and bring credibility to your forecasts. 

𝗕𝗼𝗻𝘂𝘀: Healthier Top Line --> Engaged Employees --> Happier Board

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I know, you're a startup. You're moving fast, wearing too many hats and sales ops is a luxury you can't afford. But there's a high cost when you ignore your role as a sales leader. 

If you're not tracking the details of real deals in your sales cycles, you're guessing at stage-level conversion rates, you don't know where the problems are so you can't possibly fix them and without hard data, your forecast isn't a forecast - it's fiction.

This is how startups stall. This is how boards lose confidence. This is how sales teams burn out. And ultimately, this is how you run into a cash-flow issue which results in the board demanding cuts and you starving the business. 

The Great News: You can fix it!

The Good News: It's not that complicated!

The Other News: Don't expect miracles from your CRM.

Pro Tip: Skip the CRM excuses. Most platforms won’t give you the analytics you need out of the box but they do allow custom fields, so you need to add in stage-dates. Analyze stage-by-stage conversion rates and durations in Excel. Start with assumptions, then incorporate the truths, then continually iterate from there.

If you read this far into this article, here's what you're going to do: You're going to turn your revenue engine into a learning system.

YOUR 5-STEP FAST START:

1. Define your expectations for each stage. 

Here's a baseline for B2B fintechs - Duration, Stage Conversion Rates and Probabilities:

2. Pinpoint your bottlenecks. 

Review your pipeline, even if you're not currently tracking stage-by-stage conversion rates and durations, you likely have a good gut indication, and that's enough to get started. 

Ask yourself, at what stages are your deals consistently dragging or dropping? 

Pro Tip: Start with just one or two stages. Nail those first, then expand. Tackling everything at once often feels too uncomfortable and overwhelming and usually triggers resistance instead of progress.

3. Audit best practices.

Odds are, you're skipping a few key steps - that's ok if things are going smoothly, but if you're stalled sometimes more is faster. Here's some ideas to help accelerate opportunities when they get stuck - stage by stage.

4. Get feedback from the front line - and from prospects.

Build a lightweight process to capture insights at relevant sales stages. Of course, you will want to do this on losses and stalled deals but also include accelerating deals and wins as you want to be sure you keep doing what you're doing well. 

Keep interviews sharply focused but invite open-ended responses. Limit interviews to five minutes max to respect time and encourage candid input. 

Pro Tip: Use a third party or someone outside the executive team to gather feedback - especially on slowed or lost deals. People are more honest when they believe feedback is really to improve your business and not a last ditch sales attempt.

5. Rally the team - and clarify the process.

Update your CRM with stage transition dates and then call a team meeting to explain why we're looking at these KPIs. Let's get every salesperson engaged and fired up - because with a clear process, tight data, and honest feedback loops, we will all win more deals and win them faster. 

Because data fuels your sales learning engine, quality is critical. Below is a sample Sales Stage Conversion Criteria. Tweak as needed for your business but keep it tight and actionable. 

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That's it. As I mentioned above, you can fix it and it's not that complicated but don't expect miracles from your CRM. 

Understand you are creating a Sales Learning Engine and as you and your team learn, you'll always be iterating. So don't strive for perfection - strive for action.

"Perfection is the enemy of progress." - Winston Churchill

Sales fuels the growth of your business - your product, your mission, and the lives of your team members and clients. You can't afford to hope that your salespeople will learn on their own or that their gut instincts are correct. Instead, build a culture of shared accountability: listen hard, coach often, and keep refining together.