How do you forecast without inflating the number?

Answer this from your own closed work. A stage needs evidence: a reply, a meeting held, a proposal, or a date they gave you.

Answer this from your own closed work. A stage needs evidence: a reply, a meeting held, a proposal, or a date they gave you. Interested is not a stage, and a ratio copied from a blog is not a forecast. Say the period and the count, or do not quote the rate.

A stage is a fact, not a mood

Name the evidence that moves a deal forward: a reply, a meeting held, a proposal sent, a date they gave you. 'Interested' is not a stage. If two people on the team would file the same conversation differently, the stage names are too vague.

Coverage and win rate are ratios from your own closed work. Do not paste a multiple from a blog and call it a forecast. A small sample swings wildly. Say the period and the count, or do not quote the rate.

What a review actually looks at

Walk the stuck deals. Leave the dashboard until the next actions are written down.

Then read the list back. A deal that fails any of those lines is not in the forecast, however keen the note sounds.

• One next action per live deal, with a date and an owner.
• The evidence that put the deal in this stage.
• The lost reason, written when you lose, so next quarter can see it.
• Anything with no date, taken out of the forecast.

The review

A pipeline review is a look at stuck deals and next steps, not a tour of the dashboard. One next action per live deal, with a date, is enough. Deals with no date are not in the forecast.

Lost reasons belong on the record when you lose. Otherwise next quarter's list repeats the same mistake and nobody can see it.

Name the evidence, then the stage

A stage is a fact: a reply, a meeting held, a proposal sent, a date they gave you. Interested is a mood, and two people on the team will file it differently. If the names are that vague, the forecast is a story.

Coverage and win rate come from your own closed work. Say the period and the count. A small sample swings, and a multiple copied from a blog is not a forecast. Deals with no next date are not in it.

A forecast you can defend

Take the deals with a next date and an owner. Leave the rest out, and say so. A number that includes every card marked interested is a wish, and the review should be able to tell the difference.

When a deal is lost, write the reason that week. Next quarter's list will repeat it if the only record is a stage someone moved in a hurry.