JBZ Consulting.

Have you ever had a great business concept but did not know where to start? Ask us about how we helped a small medical practice consulting firm create a vision and turn their business into generating $2.5M in annual sales in under 2 years! www.jbzconsulting.com

What are the keys to converting your leads into actual sales? We help businesses not only create a customized sales process to measure and track their Progress to Success but also help them uncover how to quickly qualify and drive prospects through the funnel, resulting in increased close ratios and revenue. Feel free to reach out to us to learn more!

Closely tied to the topic of forecasts, Pipeline’s are a key element in creating visibility not only for management and ownership but for each individual sales rep. It gives both the rep and the business a ‘real-time’ snapshot as to how they are trending towards hitting their targets. CRM (client relationship management) systems create the most ideal environment to view an individual or a team’s pipeline (vs. the old method of tracking everything in a static excel sheet). Th...e pipeline (or ‘sales funnel’) should be broken down into customized ‘milestones’ of your business’s sales process. There is no widget solution. Each milestone should have a ‘close ratio’ associated with it. For example, at the ‘Quote’ milestone, a percentage should be associated to how many Quotes will close (say; 50%). This will be identified through historical data. As the business evolves (especially with new companies) these close ratios will be adjusted to allow for greater accuracy in forecasting utilizing ‘close ratios’. As a result a business will then be able to run ‘Weighted projection reports’ based on pipeline dollar value and probability of close, as well as close dates; in order to best plan accordingly (either a need to boost sales efforts prospecting, follow-up, etc, or perhaps increase capacity due to a high volume of incoming business!) Talk to us about how we can help you create or strengthen your pipeline measurement tools and overall business visibility!

Forecasting Often when meeting with new clients one topic that we always discuss are forecasts. We will ask to see what the company’s annual forecast looks like and (often) after some ruffling through files, a piece of paper or (in rare instances) an excel sheet will be offered. This is not uncommon, and while it might be sufficient for a start-up, in order to create a scalable structure, proper forecasting tools and metrics are critical to a business’s success.... Each revenue generating resource should have their own forecast rolling up to a ‘master’ companywide forecast. Ideally a CRM (Client Relationship Management) system will be used to track and report on the forecast, but a properly structured excel sheet will also suffice, if diligently updated. From the forecast, targets should then be reverse engineered with some clearly defined KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) used to track progress vs. forecast in order to help tell the story of how each resource and the overall business is doing. For some more examples and to learn how forecasting is critical to your business, contact us to setup a free exploratory meeting.