Marketing Rx
MARKETING RX
Shouldn’t our board consider our own sales forecast?
By Ardy Roberto, Ned Roberto
Philippine Daily Inquirer
3:03 am | Friday, June 28th, 2013 1 26 9
Q: By November of each year, our Board tells those of us in Sales what would be our sales quota for the following year. In good times and bad, the quota is communicated in the same way. It’s so many percent higher than the previous year. There have been years when we met the sales quota but over the past six years, we’ve been below quota. Our own forecast is that this year, we again will be below.
In our recently concluded mid-year sales conference, our CEO tells us that it looks like the economy will continue to do well if not even better. So, he says that for next year, there’s every reason for us to be able to meet our sales quota. He adds that we should start setting up our sales campaign for this.
We do our own sales forecast after the Board gives us our sales quota which they say comes from their annual business planning. For our sales forecasting, we use the “building block technique” that we learned from attending your Accountable Marketing seminar. So we ask our seven sales district managers to make an estimate of each district’s likely sales for the following year based on the estimated likely sales from each sales territory of a district. The total sales forecast is the sum of the following year’s estimated sales from the seven sales districts and their territories. The Board and our CEO allow us to present to them but all we hear is that our presentations have been “noted” but we have never seen the sales quota revised to reflect what they claimed to have noted.
How can we convince our Board that they should consider our sales forecast and make the necessary revisions in their sales quota setting?
A: In helping several companies develop their marketing plan, we have often come across situations similar to yours. In most cases, the Board speaks through the CEO or president. It is also
Shouldn’t our board consider our own sales forecast?
By Ardy Roberto, Ned Roberto
Philippine Daily Inquirer
3:03 am | Friday, June 28th, 2013 1 26 9
Q: By November of each year, our Board tells those of us in Sales what would be our sales quota for the following year. In good times and bad, the quota is communicated in the same way. It’s so many percent higher than the previous year. There have been years when we met the sales quota but over the past six years, we’ve been below quota. Our own forecast is that this year, we again will be below.
In our recently concluded mid-year sales conference, our CEO tells us that it looks like the economy will continue to do well if not even better. So, he says that for next year, there’s every reason for us to be able to meet our sales quota. He adds that we should start setting up our sales campaign for this.
We do our own sales forecast after the Board gives us our sales quota which they say comes from their annual business planning. For our sales forecasting, we use the “building block technique” that we learned from attending your Accountable Marketing seminar. So we ask our seven sales district managers to make an estimate of each district’s likely sales for the following year based on the estimated likely sales from each sales territory of a district. The total sales forecast is the sum of the following year’s estimated sales from the seven sales districts and their territories. The Board and our CEO allow us to present to them but all we hear is that our presentations have been “noted” but we have never seen the sales quota revised to reflect what they claimed to have noted.
How can we convince our Board that they should consider our sales forecast and make the necessary revisions in their sales quota setting?
A: In helping several companies develop their marketing plan, we have often come across situations similar to yours. In most cases, the Board speaks through the CEO or president. It is also