Sales forecasting is

1. A presentation by
Frank Rumbauskas
New York Times Best-Selling
Are You Forecasting
Your Way To Sales
Failure?
© Copyright 2012 by FJR Advisors. All rights
reserved.

2. If there's one thing salespeople can't seem to escape,
it's the drudgery of forecasting. Sales
organizations almost universally forecast sales, at the
request of upper management, or to satisfy their own
curiosity about next month's numbers.

3. In my experience,
forecasting is not only
useless - because it's rarely
accurate - but it's
detrimental to sales
results.
The reason is simple:
Any time that is taken
away from actual selling,
and devoted to non-
productive activities
instead, is going to cost
sales.

4. Throwing a useless activity like forecasting
into the mix only serves to waste even more
time.
1. Salespeople have enough
burdens on their time as it is.
2. The job of selling, alone, is
very time-consuming and
demanding for most.
3. When you add in all of the
extraneous activities that go
with it - meetings, mandatory
training, commute time,
driving time, and more - time
management becomes a
crucial factor in success.

5. Sales forecasting is a masturbatory
practice - it causes one to sit around
trying to predict what he or she will sell,
instead of simply going out and selling
something! How the hell is that supposed
to be beneficial to anyone?
$$

6. I know the management types reading this are objecting right now, stating that
they need forecasts in order to tell their superiors what next month's numbers
will be.
And I can tell you right now that forecasts will never give you an accurate
picture of that. Here's why:
No salesperson wants to submit a forecast that falls short. So what do they do?
They leave accounts on the forecast that have already said "no" or have stopped
returning their calls.

7. They add accounts that have shown the
tiniest amount of interest, but are nowhere
near being truly qualified prospects.
• In my own experience, I used to leave good
accounts off the forecast because I got sick and
tired of sales managers, who had nothing better to
do, asking me five times a day when those accounts
were going to close.
• Regardless of whether forecasts are artificially
inflated, or left unrealistically low to avoid
managerial pressure to "close more," the bottom
line is that they're never correct. And then you as a
manager have to answer as to why your forecasts
are way off the mark.

8. Here's a great way to forecast future
sales: Base it on your historical sales
data. Barring any unforeseen economic
disasters or huge changes to your
products or pricing, it's a pretty safe bet
to say that next month's sales will equal
last month's, plus your average monthly
growth.

9. And here's where
it gets even better:
If you stop asking
them to magically
predict their sales,
they'll suddenly
start selling
more!
This is a lot more reliable and accurate
than asking sales reps, who already
have enough pressure and stress, to
predict what they're going to sell next
month.

10. There are two reasons for this:
1. Recovering the lost time that was previously
wasted on forecasting opens up more free time
for your reps to actually do their real jobs:
Selling.
2. Removing the burden of forecasting and
the pressure and stress associated with it will
brighten their attitudes and their disposition.
This enables them to be more favorable with
prospects, and we all know that a positive mental
attitude in selling, alone, can spell the difference

11. So give up the sales forecast
addiction, and begin focusing on
sales results - because results
are the one and only thing we're
paid for.

12. Thank You For Reading!
For a FREE 37-page PDF preview of the
Never Cold Call Again system, please
visit
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© Copyright 2012 by FJR Advisors Inc. All rights reserved.