Are Your Sales Reps Prepared for Their Forecast Review Meeting?

One of the most important factors in running a productive forecast review meeting is preparation.  The purpose of the forecast meeting, after all, is to dig into every opportunity in the forecast. So, in order for the meeting to be productive, the manager must be prepared to ask tough questions about each opportunity, and the sales reps must be prepared to answer those questions.

Here’s an example of a forecast review meeting agenda:

• Review the forecasted numbers
• Best Case, Worst Case
• How do they compare to last week’s forecast?
• Review opportunities from last week’s forecast review
• What progress was made?
• What has changed?
• Review any new opportunities in the forecast
• Review pipeline for next month/quarter

The sales rep and their sales manager must come to the meeting prepared to discuss each of the items on the agenda. For sales reps, that means bringing the forecast they submitted, along with the list of opportunities that make up the best case and worst case forecasts. Sales reps should be prepared to discuss the opportunities that they are forecasting, along with anything else in their pipeline.

Sales managers, on the other hand, should come to the meeting with their notes from the previous week’s forecast review and the sales rep’s new forecast. That way, they can accurately follow-up on forecasted opportunities from the previous week and confirm that progress is being made. It’s also a good practice for sales managers to briefly review other opportunities in the pipeline prior to the meeting, rather than just the opportunities in the forecast. This will give sales managers a view of other opportunities in the pipeline that look good, but may not be in the forecast.

Why is it important to be so prepared? Some sales reps may not be well-trained on your forecasting process, leaving them unaware of what’s expected of them. By setting those expectations ahead of time, you can communicate how critical it is that they are met. As a best practice, you should build forecast review meeting training into your new hire onboarding process. Have new reps sit in on multiple forecast review meetings so that they acquire a feel for the agenda and the kinds of questions you’ll ask them about their forecast and opportunities.

Quite simply, if reps are not prepared going into the forecast review, the meeting will not be productive. If the opposite is true, you’ll ensure that the meetings run efficiently, allowing managers to give a better forecast, and reps to spend more time on the phone.