Faced with investor deadlines and headcount growth, the CEO asked for quarterly forecasts that were predictable, explainable, and fast to produce. The work began by defining what a defendable forecast needs and then building the pipeline and operating rhythm to supply it consistently.

From my experience, the most basic forecast report requires at least three components - an estimation of every opportunity’s value, an estimation for when they will close and an estimation for the opportunities’ probability to close. Working to bring these three estimations as close to reality as possible would be key for robust forecast reports. 

I joined the company for a fractional position, two days a week for the span of four months. I teamed up with the VP of Sales to construct a proper pipeline, including all the fixings - deal stage automations, data gathering, tasks and reminders, document generating, integrations with outreach and data enrichment tools.

By doing so we didn’t only substantially enhance the sales execs performance, but also formalized the sales process, allowing us to gather data more consistently. 

With the infrastructure in place to accumulate data and hone it down as we go, we could gradually transfer more weight from the sales execs’ hunch (subjective) forecast to the data driven (objective) forecast.

For a young start-up that attempts to expand their sales team rapidly, making sure that they’re working in the right direction can be critical.