Imagine the Weather Channel forced Jim Cantore to tell us what we wanted to hear about the forecast rather than allow him to give us his real, educated predictions? All sorts of things would happen – The Sales Guy may skip out on a trip north for a bluebird ski day, I would take our dog for a walk and be greeted by a funnel cloud, a 747 could take off from Logan Airport on a transatlantic flight and get caught in a storm, etc. If Jim is anything like the quality chap I think he is, he would never ignore data and would never do this to us. Forecasting is part of Jim’s job – the good, the bad, the ugly.
I hadn’t realized until recently how many Sales Managers and Execs may have “happy ears.” It’s one thing for the ungroomed, inexperienced Rep to mess up a quarterly commit or forecast but good Sales Managers are not supposed to let this happen. After all, they are the coaches! And, certainly, you have to trust your well performing Reps when they are committing and they have data to back it up.
The Sales Guy is having an interesting quarter. Remember the whole territory and combined role shift that happened at the start of the fiscal year? Well, he’s still working on his forecast and he’s a pretty realistic guy. However, seems like he may be in this very situation of being forced to be a bit unrealistic about his forecast. I don’t get it. Why would a Sales Manager want a Sales Rep to over commit? I understand there are “upside” deals but I’d like to think there’s nothing The Sales Guy is withholding for fun if he does the usual hourly mental calculation of what his commission is going to be for the quarter. Yet, the manager just doesn’t seem to get it. Wants him to commit more. For the sake of what? For reality to hit on June 30? I guess if your boss doesn’t believe you the only option you may have is to invite him to customer calls for the straight skinny.
It’s nice to be on the buying side for once. In my own situation right now, I’m in the “buyer’s” seat for services for a big project. We must be making the life of the Sales Rep on our deal a living hell because, honestly, we didn’t have a clear timeline or project definition. How the heck is she forecasting her deal with us? The good news is we have budget. I almost feel bad knowing exactly what we are doing to this person and her earning potential. But, we’re moving at the pace we need to move at as a business and that’s the whole point. I wonder what her manager is doing to her? If her manager is forcing her to commit on our deal, I honestly believe that manager is operating under the same silly model as The Sales Guy’s manager. And, as a buyer, that’s not going to help me move faster. What the manager may recommend is something that could actually move the deal along further… like help us build the project plan.
I wonder what the dynamic of Sales would be like if Reps could operate more like Jim Cantore. It’s a forecast – he makes his prediction based on the data he has at hand and then leaves it to Mother Nature to let the rest play out.
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