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6 Ways to Improve Your Sales Projections

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Measure sales carefully to be profitable.

Measure sales carefully to be profitable.

Your sales projection formula is key to more accurate financial projections and to the success of your business.

Sales projection formulas are always wrong. Here are six ways to improve them.

Sales projections are wrong because…

  1. Sales projections are not supposed to be right. They need to be relevant.
    They’re a snapshot. They are a specific point in time, based on relevant data and criteria and are defensible within limits. They give you an idea of what to expect each week or month or year. Improve your sales projections by making sure you don’t accept the projected sales numbers without question — including your own numbers. The answers you get from salespeople in terms of what they think will close have to be reasonable and with some sort of basis not just hype and hope. [Read more…]

What a CFO Can Do to Improve the Sales System

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Role-playing dice have nothing on the role-playing CFO when it comes to improving the sales system.Photo by cal-harding from flickr. Role-playing dice are like the role-playing CFO whose job includes improving the sales system. Photo by cal_harding from flickr.

Role-playing dice have nothing on the role-playing CFO when it comes to improving the sales system.Photo by cal-harding from flickr.

What can a CFO do to improve the company’s sales system? What do they even know about sales?  You’d be surprised.

If you’re the CFO and CEO, the following applies to you. If you’re both of these plus the Director of Sales and maybe even the Chief Salesperson, you still need to include the tasks below in order to improve the results of your sales system. [Read more…]

The True Value of 1st Quarter Financials

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Evaluate your 1st quarter financials to get higher profitability going forward. Image by Photosteve101 from flickr.com.

Evaluate your 1st quarter financials to get higher profitability going forward. Image by Photosteve101 from flickr.com.

The true value of 1st quarter financials goes way beyond just the raw numbers. Because of that, your monthly close out is more important and there are do’s and don’ts that are unique to this quarter.

Completing the prioritized tasks gives the owner or manager a perfect opportunity to refine their vision for the year. Using the resulting information can make the last three quarters more productive and more profitable. This will keep you out of the weeds and create the 40,000 foot owner/investor perspective you need to make a better future. [Read more…]