If your CEO, head of marketing, and head of sales can all agree that the following information is known than step to the head of the class. However, I suspect that you won’t pass the test, meaning your company is like 90% of other B2B companies that are:
- Struggling to align marketing and sales,
- Struggling to hit their revenue numbers,
- Struggling to develop a believable plan and budget for 2010,
- Struggling to achieve a comfortable level of transparency into the sales forecast.
Often you’ll know:
- The size of your market
- How much revenue you need to generate out of that market
But do you, or the team, know:
- How many deals you need to close each month?
- How many proposals that will take – for each month of 2010?
- How about first meetings (you know the one, the “Hi, thanks for making the time, tell me about your business”)? How many do you need in month 1,2,3 and next year?
- And how many leads will that take from Marketing, and how many must Sales generate itself?
- How about the market? Do you know how much of that market you need, and whether (and how tightly) you can (or must) focus?
- Does everyone in Sales, Marketing, Finance and Operations have the same view of these numbers? Or are there disconnects?
- How do these planned numbers compare to your current numbers?
- Which of these do you know, and which of them are gaps in the understanding of your funnel?
So, how well do you, and your team know all of the numbers, and what does the future hold?
You need to have a simple, single model of your demand for 2010 (and beyond), outlining
your total funnel – top to bottom.
If you’re wondering where the gaps are in your ability to plan and execute a revenue plan effectively contact me. As a certified Funnel Coach in North America for MathMarketing there are many ways I can be of service to you this year, and some are even free.
My colleagues at MathMarketing in Melbourne have a nice habit of hitting the nail on the head when it comes to discussing funnel management, revenue planning, and marketing training, which is why I boldly lifted the above (in italics) from their literature. Thank you, mates.
