“Ring, Ring, Ring”
Caller ID revealed the GM’s extension. The sales manager’s stomach took a whirl because he knew what the boss needed; projections for Q4 across the 4 product lines. He picked up the phone.
“Hi, Boss”
“Hi Jeff, I know you are busy, but I do not see the Q4 forecast in my inbox, and I need it now. Have you had time to put this together?” The division GM asked.
“Working on it now, Sir, and I will have to you by end of day.” Jeff said.
“OK, thanks for the update. Please make this happen, I need the forecast for my board meeting tomorrow at noon.”
“Yes, sir.

Now Jeff’s stomach churned. He spend most of Saturday rolling up rolled up the spreadsheets his guys sent, the regional sales managers, but the data was lousy, showing close dates that have passed, zero descriptions or next steps and a black hole where the dealer projections should be. He needed to be heads down now: this task would take several more hours.

This is a slow time for most companies. The market is unforgiving and makes deals hard to win and leads hard to convert to business opportunities. Marketing and sales strategy may be realigned for better results if the path can be set. Data, sales information, is the building block of a plan yet accurate data is hard to get. The sales data is trapped. Isolated in sales people’s laptops, and not accessible to sales management.

Rolling up simple sales forecasts is not brain surgery. Hours do not have to be eaten away just aggregating deals. Web based sales management tools can automate the chore. The best sales software tools automate the forecast roll up as sales people edit and enter sales data. This makes the forecast report a dream to get, easy to view, and cuts the need to shuffle spreadsheets.