Sales forecasting can sometimes feel like playing a game of Hangman – you think you guessed the next letter correctly, but it actually takes you one step closer to losing.
What’s worse, it’s nearly impossible to take out the guesswork from the game unless you’re approaching the end.
However, unlike Hangman, forecasting shouldn’t be all guesswork. With continued innovation, Forecast by Salesloft is an effective and data-driven way to approach sales forecasting.
Keep reading to learn how Forecast by Salesloft continues to evolve as part of the industry’s most comprehensive sales engagement platform.
Deals Flow Chart
When you’re given visibility into your past, you can build a window to look into the future.
Deals Flow Chart in Forecast allows you to take data from your previous opportunities and lay it out in a way that clearly shows your team’s historical pipeline performance – helping you to plan ahead.
Above is a snapshot of a potential Deals Flow Chart. You can immediately see how much revenue came from your open pipeline, best case pipeline, and commit pipeline.
With a click of a button, you have the ability to dive deeper into each of your pipelines to see the underlying opportunities that are related to the particular deal flow. You can ask questions like:
- What percent of Best Case or Commit turned into closed revenue?
- How many deals were left idle?
- How many committed opportunities did we actually end up losing?
- How many deals stalled and got pushed forward into future quarters?
Answering these questions based on your own detailed, historical revenue performance provides you with the insights you need to unlock incredible confidence in triangulating to your next forecast number.
Multiple Submissions
Forecasting is rarely confined to one scenario. Instead, it often requires you to think about multiple outcomes in any given quarter.
Multiple Submissions in Forecast makes sure you no longer need to feel confined. Whether you’re predicting a best case, likely, or worse case scenario, Multiple Submissions allows you to create Forecasts that address every scenario.
What’s more, each forecast submission can be edited to the specific niches and needs of your business, such as the language you use or the frequency you want to follow.
Once forecast submission types are created, sales leaders can head over to Forecast and review each submission. They can also drill-down into the corresponding deals themselves.
Different submissions make it possible to inspect your pipeline from whatever perspective you choose. Whether you’re looking for a high-level view or to get down into the nitty gritty details, Forecast is a reliable, configurable, and flexible way to track your revenue team’s performance.
Opportunity Alerts
Imagine yourself as a seller, managing x amount of deals.
Now, imagine yourself as a sales leader, managing x amount of deals for y amount of sellers.
That’s a LOT of responsibility, not to mention time.
Opportunity Alerts removes some of the pressure that could result from having so many eggs in so many baskets.
Delivered right to your inbox on a daily and/or weekly basis, Opportunity Alerts are automatic emails that notify you of improved (or at-risk) deals – without ever having to dig through your pipeline or badger your RevOps team.
To manage your alerts, you can set specific trigger thresholds. For example, you can create an alert for deals that have changed stages, or ones that have been left idle for too long. You can also set alerts based on how often you’d like to receive them.
Receiving alerts on a regular basis gives you more time to address any risks and reduce the element of surprise. Knowing which deals need your attention provides you with the best, and most effective, way to focus and prioritize your time.
These are just a few of the many innovations we continue to make to Forecast by Salesloft.
Already loved and used by many, Salesloft Forecast can help you create an action plan for your sales future.
Click here to see Forecast in action.