As a fan of Asterix the comic* book as a child, I grew up with much of my fascination with ancient history coming from exploring some of the wonderful comic adaptations of historical events and characters. It was particularly so with a specific Asterix comic adventure where the indomitable Gauls were up against the fearmongering of one of the most influential characters of ancient times; the soothsayer. In real life the soothsayer back then, and even today in some quarters, was someone who could predict the future by reading signs in various different media. Thousands of years ago it could have been the entrails of a sacrificial animal or analysing the flight patterns of a flock of birds. Soothsayers were employed by the mighty and powerful to read the signs, predict the future and to advise accordingly.

“What does the next three months hold for me, O Soothsayer”, the mighty ruler would say and the soothsayer would read his signs, that only he as a learned soothsayer can read. “O mighty ruler, the signs are good. You will be victorious in battle and will sack your enemies city’s and earn riches for your kingdom”.

The problem, of course, is when three months later those things don’t happen. The same soothsayer is hauled up in front of the mighty ruler to explain just why those predictions didn’t happen and why in fact the mighty ruler had been roundly annihalated in a series of battles and contrary to sacking city’s, his own had been plundered and the treasury depleted. “O mighty ruler, recent readings of the tea leaves suggest those victories you were looking for have slipped back a few months etc. etc.”

Sound familiar?

When it comes to predicting next March’s sales forecast, some – not all – seem to look to the soothsayer gods of sales for the divine insight into knowing how healthy their pipeline is. It is strange that in a modern society, confident in the scientfic knowledge that we possess, that mentioning the word ’sales forecast’ can at times conjure a mysticism totally unplaced in the 21st century.

Yet, predicting with some degree of accuracy how well your March sales are going to be isn’t very difficult at all. Ironically, this actually involves history – though a much more immediate history. Yes, it is quite possible to measure sales data over the past months and years in sufficient terms to analyse trends and patterns so that you are reasonably certain about where you stand today in respect of what happens in March. If for instance the trend of your pipeline over the past few years is that you make between 50-70% of a three month projection then you can reasonably predict how healthy your sales pipeline is now. If you have forecasted $100,000 in march and your target is $95,000 then you can reasonably suspect that you have an issue, without having to fall back to explaining why and how you are going to make 95% of the forecast. Similarly, opportunities in the pipeline that are slipped from one forecast to the next can also be analysed as well as the harder issues of sandbagging where sales people hold the proverbial card up the sleeve.

Adding up this history so that you have a realistic picture of the sales forecast means that you get past the sparring that inevitably happens in sales meetings between sales managers and sales people who need to justify their forecast and explain their past performance. What does it require? Simple….. honesty. Not only from the sales person but from the sales manager. Innaccuracy in forecasting, I think, is primarily down to the way that forecasts are used by both. If the forecast is used as a tool to improve as opposed to a measure of performance then issues can be worked on and data can be collected in a more accurate way with less of the sparring, sandbagging, slippage etc. Inaccuracy in the forecast then can be used to identify issues that both manager and sales person can work on ie. if opportunities are slipped constantly is there an over-optimism in the sales persons expectaction? What is leading the sales person to make the forecast date for that particular time? Is there something the manager and sales person can do to rectify this and improve this?

How are your March sales? I would like to think that this is relatively easy to predict but I am constantly surprised at how many organisations and people leave it down to pure gut feel. I say consign the soothsayer of sales to where he belongs – in ancient history.

*For those who haven’t read Asterix, the comic book is about a village of Gauls in France holding out against the might Roman Empire of Julius Caesar with the aid of a magic potion that makes them invincible.