How To Create A Sales Forecast

A sales forecast is a projection of what your sales performance will be, at the end of a monthly or a quarterly period. It facilitates business planning, budgeting, goal setting and risk management for the organization. An effective sales forecast can have a positive impact on sales and operations as well as the financial health of the organization.
Instead of relying on poor pipeline visibility and your sales reps intuition-based guesses, you need to use historical sales data for an accurate Sales forecast. No sales leader should settle for anything less.
What can you do? How do you create an accurate sales forecast?
A reliable sales forecast is not only a powerful tool for achieving results; it is also an indicator that your sales team is data-driven, process-oriented, and forward-looking.
Why do you need a data-driven sales forecast? Having an accurate data-driven sales forecast can help you determine the best pipeline-to-quota ratio for your company. You also get:

• Better accuracy
• More effective sales reps
• Improved conversion from opportunities to sales
• Faster revenue growth
• Better business decisions
• Better visibility and planning

InsightSquared is the #1 Salesforce Analytics tool for small- and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) that helps to maximize sales performance, increase team productivity and close more deals. With InsightSquared you can forecast using historical monthly or quarterly data and byweighting the opportunities currently in your pipeline. InsightSquared Sales Forecast stages include:

• Win rates by opportunity stages – Define and document your entire sales process to make sure that the sales team clearly understands the stages through which an opportunity moves to close
• Identify Must-Win Opportunities – Identify which new leads within sales funnel are most likely to convert, and predicts when opportunities will become customers. This also helps Identifying potential risks that could affect the accuracy of your sales forecast that can be filtered out.
• Forecasted Bookings vs. Historic Average – Analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about the future. You can measure what percent of opportunities make it to Closed-Won based on historical data.

Hundreds of companies and thousands of users around the world use InsightSquared’s award-winning analytics to maximize sales performance, increase team productivity, and close more deals. Interested in learning more about our Sales Forecasting process? Schedule a free trial today.