I’ve discussed how critical accurately forecasting sales is to a company’s success before.  In short, I think that companies that have the skill to accurately predict how much they will sell and from where those sales will come have a substantial advantage over those that don’t – they can grow faster and often [...]

Any reasonable direct selling process involves establishing a specific set of milestones to help track how far along a prospect is on the path to making a purchase.  These usually include one or more of the following steps:

Lead found/created Opportunity qualified Prospect visited/contacted Product demonstrated/Eval in the hands of the prospect Follow-up [...]

Inevitably, after each fiscal quarter, a couple (or few, or many, or most) of the companies I work with inform me that their sales results for the quarter were below expectations. By itself, of course, this is usually not a catastrophe (although it sometimes can be) and leads to some reflection about what [...]