You’ve worked incredibly hard to get the deal to this stage. You’ve been really creative and tenacious. So it’s only natural to want to share a blow-by-blow account of your hard work and progress, right? Unfortunately the last thing your Sales Director needs from you on the forecast call are long, drawn-out stories. If you want to be respected, and help your boss in the process, you need to make your forecast update succinct, precise and evidence-based.
A good approach is to use the qualification elements in sophisticated sales methodologies like MEDDPICC or TAS20. Avoid using overly simplistic methods like BANT as you are likely to get caught out missing key deal elements and risk factors. You might want to consider the extended version of MEDDPICC outlined below. It contains 13 deal elements to help you qualify each deal as input to a professional and well- considered forecast.
Extended MEDDPICC
- M: Metrics, ROI, Value. This is the “Why” of the deal and is linked with (6) below.
- E: Economic Buyer. Do you know the decision maker is? Do they have funding?
- D: Decision Criteria – Are the decision criteria defined? Did you influence them?
- D: Decision Process – Do you know the steps and people required to make a decision?
- P: Paper Process – Do you understand the procurement process and contractual construct?
- I: Implications – What are the implications of delay or no decision?
- C: Champion – Do you have an internal advocate?
- C: Competition – Who are your competition? Are you in front or behind?
- T: Technical Approval – Have you received technical approval?
- T: Timeframe – is there mutual agreement on timeframe?
- A: Aging – Has the deal been in the CRM for an unusually long period of time?
- S: Slippage – Has this deal slipped from a prior month or quarter?
- S: Sentiment – What is your gut feel, having considered 1-12 above?
