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Sales Managers: What are your most pressing challenges when it comes to sales forecasting?
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Accuracy!
Seriously, though, accuracy on what you'll finish a selling period with is what the forecast is about, and you can't really get there unless you have standards that everyone on the team is using. When you create an opportunity, what are the common criteria each new opportunity needs? Budget, established need, mutually agreed-upon timeline, decision-maker involved, etc.
Also, if there's a close date, what's the confidence in that close date? Is the confidence baked into the sales stage the opportunity is at in your forecast?
The last think you want is 1) a sales forecast you can't believe, 2) different standards and definitions across the sales floor and 3) a forecast that needs an explanation for every possible deal.
The more you have standards, processes and clearly-understood definitions of what is what, the more accurate your sales forecasts will be (and the less time you'll spend building and interpreting them).
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