How do you train and coach your inside sales team on sales forecasting skills and best practices?

Sales forecasting is a crucial skill for any inside sales team, as it helps you plan your resources, set realistic goals, and measure your performance. However, sales forecasting is not a one-size-fits-all process, especially for service-based businesses that have complex and variable sales cycles, customer needs, and revenue streams. How do you train and coach your inside sales team on sales forecasting skills and best practices? Here are some tips to help you develop a consistent and accurate sales forecasting system for your service business.

1 Define your sales stages

The first step to sales forecasting is to define your sales stages clearly and consistently across your team. Sales stages are the milestones that indicate how close a prospect is to buying your service, such as initial contact, discovery call, proposal, negotiation, and closing. Each stage should have specific criteria and actions that qualify a prospect to move to the next stage. By defining your sales stages, you can track your pipeline progress, assign probabilities of closing, and identify bottlenecks and opportunities.

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Thomas Bradshaw

Director of Sales @ Allstate | Client Onboarding Expert Womble Insurance Agencies
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The use of historical data is importrant for trends and metrics such as closing pcts.It is critical for the use of the CRM to have the most up to date and accurate information, such as conversations with prospects, this helps me to coach salespeople to increase their close pcts. The alignment of the customer service and sales shows up in data for upselling and cross selling. It is critical to keep the sales team sharp and up to date and one way to do that is with regular meetings, role playing as well works wonders. Remember sell yourself!!!

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Braidan Beck

Asset & Wealth Management Goldman Sachs | Start-Scale-Sell Entrepreneur | Sales and Marketing Expert | Business Consultant | Speaker
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Just making sure that the team and the company are on the and page is a big deal. Clearly defining the bounds of your material is very important.

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2 Use a data-driven approach

The second step to sales forecasting is to use a data-driven approach that relies on historical and current information, rather than gut feelings or wishful thinking. Data-driven sales forecasting uses metrics such as conversion rates, average deal size, sales cycle length, and win rates to calculate your expected revenue based on your pipeline. You can use tools such as CRM software, spreadsheets, or dashboards to collect and analyze your data and create forecasts. By using a data-driven approach, you can reduce bias, improve accuracy, and adjust your forecasts as new data comes in.

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Braidan Beck

Asset & Wealth Management Goldman Sachs | Start-Scale-Sell Entrepreneur | Sales and Marketing Expert | Business Consultant | Speaker
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When you have accurate and up to date data, you can better plan and forecast properly. A lot more can factor into it like experience and the current economy, but accurate numbers help.

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3 Align your sales and service teams

The third step to sales forecasting is to align your sales and service teams to ensure a smooth handover and delivery of your service. Sales and service alignment means that both teams have a shared understanding of the customer's needs, expectations, and value proposition, and communicate regularly and effectively throughout the sales cycle. Sales and service alignment can help you avoid scope creep, reduce churn, increase referrals, and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

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4 Review and update your forecasts regularly

The fourth step to sales forecasting is to review and update your forecasts regularly to reflect the changing realities of your market, customers, and pipeline. Sales forecasting is not a one-time activity, but a continuous process that requires constant monitoring and evaluation. You should review and update your forecasts at least monthly, or more frequently if you have a fast-moving or volatile sales environment. By reviewing and updating your forecasts regularly, you can spot trends, identify gaps, and take corrective actions.

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5 Train and coach your team on best practices

The fifth step to sales forecasting is to train and coach your team on best practices and provide them with the tools and resources they need to succeed. Sales forecasting is a skill that can be learned and improved with practice and feedback. You should train and coach your team on how to define their sales stages, use a data-driven approach, align with the service team, and review and update their forecasts. You should also provide them with the tools and resources they need to collect and analyze data, create and present forecasts, and handle objections and questions.

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Karl Hudson

Client Account Director - Bank of America at Salesforce
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One way that I have used successfully in sharing your top performers knowledge, practices and strategies with the greater team is to do the following: 1. Hold monthly meetings with the team 2. Have one of your team comment on something that went well in the last month (get them talking) 3. Then they discuss an area they struggled, might be an objection they didn’t know how to address or a prospects hiding, etc. 4. Have the other team members talk about how they approached it before and if it worked or not. This will achieve two things, It might help define the more nuanced parts of the process. It will also show you on your team who will listen and grow, and who will just do the same old regardless of what advice or coaching is given.

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6 Celebrate and reward your team's achievements

The sixth and final step to sales forecasting is to celebrate and reward your team's achievements and recognize their efforts and contributions. Sales forecasting is a challenging and demanding task that requires hard work, discipline, and creativity. You should celebrate and reward your team's achievements, such as hitting their targets, closing big deals, or improving their accuracy. You should also recognize their efforts and contributions, such as sharing best practices, helping others, or overcoming obstacles. By celebrating and rewarding your team's achievements, you can boost their morale, motivation, and performance.

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7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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How do you train and coach your inside sales team on sales forecasting skills and best practices?

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1 Define your sales stages

2 Use a data-driven approach

3 Align your sales and service teams

4 Review and update your forecasts regularly

5 Train and coach your team on best practices

6 Celebrate and reward your team's achievements

7 Here’s what else to consider

Inside Sales

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