Rebuilding Trust in Your Forecast

Revenue is your company’s most critical business process. You, your team, and your board have to be able to trust that process and one of its key outputs: the forecast. The past few quarters have been stressful for revenue teams, who are now resetting targets, questioning assumptions, and losing confidence in the forecast along the way.

The worst thing you can do is nothing. The impulse to sit on your hands and “wait out the downturn” is understandable. But while the macroeconomic environment may be out of your control, there are plenty of things you can influence. It’s time to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.

What real forecasting actually looks like

Here’s how to rebuild trust in your forecast. First, let’s get on the same page about what forecasting is and isn’t.

• It’s not: Simply a rollup of bottom-up rep calls or top-down aspirations.
• It is: A combination of art (human judgment) and science (revenue data analysis).

An accurate forecast relies on a well-executed revenue process. The better instrumented your process is, the more trust and confidence you’ll have in your predictions. In many ways, this is a “back to basics” exercise: 2023 is forcing leaders to re-examine the foundation they’ve built and revenue moments they’ve implemented. Leaders question previously held assumptions, are open to new data and inputs, and make necessary adjustments with agility to make sure they’re meeting the moment.

Getting back to basics: aligning your process

By strengthening the upstream processes and inputs, you’ll be able to put far more stock in the literal forecasting process your team is running. You’ll know that every rep is operating by the same manual — the same stage definitions, entry and exit criteria, and conviction on committed deals. And you’ll know that your team is collaborating effectively to run the right play at the right time, giving every deal the best possible chance to turn into revenue.

Moving beyond spreadsheets and clunky CRMs

While the bottom-up rollup isn’t the only thing that defines “forecasting,” it is a critical input for leadership. Things are moving so fast and changing so frequently in 2023, you don’t have time to wait for custom builds in your CRM or for mind-bending spreadsheets. You need to see the complete picture — in real time — to confidently run your revenue process. You need a solution that was purpose-built to make forecasting as painless as it is trustworthy.

Toss out the guesswork, ditch the spreadsheets, and put a stop to unwelcome end-of-quarter surprises with Salesloft's forecasting software.

Total visibility across all revenue streams

Salesloft provides a dynamic view of your various forecasts — new logo, churn, expansion, consumption — all the key revenue drivers of your business. You get an aggregated view of your team’s calls and leader’s judgment and you always know if their submissions are up-to-date or overdue. From there, you can quickly and easily drill into any call or any deal cohort. 

Data-driven deal inspection

Salesloft allows you to pressure test and validate inputs by providing the most complete and comprehensive deal data on the market. Salesloft pulls in signals from dozens of revenue and marketing technologies and automatically appends your CRM with contact creation and activity syncs. This complete view allows you to eliminate the guessing games that often come with a spreadsheet or CRM-based forecast. Your forecast is built and validated on this foundation of data and deal inspection.

Built to scale with your business

No matter how complex your business is, Salesloft can be configured to meet your needs and scale as your team grows and changes. You get automatic and continuous roll-ups of real-time forecasts across all the geos, segments, and verticals that make up your business. You always have a finger on the pulse of your business and a reliable read on the present state of your revenue. 

AI-powered predictions you can trust

Executing effectively in the present gives you future forecast predictions you can actually trust. Salesloft's machine learning and AI algorithms offer their own predictions that you can compare against the human call. Instead of spending precious time and energy interpreting stale spreadsheets or swimming through a thousand CRM tabs, you can focus on the deals that need your attention most. 

This is how you regain control. This is how you recreate a process. This is how you rebuild trust.

Salesloft is the only predictive revenue platform and the only partner with the capabilities and expertise to help you make this happen. We’re trusted by thousands of the world’s leading revenue teams, running their key revenue moments, and delivering reliable, accurate forecasts. 

Book a demo to learn more.