Alan Greenspan, former head of America’s Federal Reserve, once famously confessed: “We really can’t forecast all that well, and yet we pretend that we can.” If the world’s top economists can’t get it right, then it’s hardly surprising that forecasting is a problem in business too.
Forecasting is at its most challenging in sales, where month after month, sales reps churn out their revenue forecasts for management teams that have little or no faith in their accuracy. CSO Insight’s 2016 Sales Performance Optimization Study shows that the average win rate of forecast sales deals is only 45.8%. Flipping a coin would provide better odds!
