Fuzzy, unreliable sales forecasts?
Know what to expect with FUNNELCAST.
Advanced pipeline analytics, informed decisions
Win-rates done right
Sales and marketing optimization starts with understanding your conversion rates. Ask "What's your win-rate?" and you will probably get a number. But think about it. Does it make sense to state a win-rate without saying how long it takes to get there?
Computing win-rates sounds easier than it is: won deals divided by deals worked. Long sales cycles complicate things because the denominator (deals you are working on) keeps changing and mature opportunities can't be treated the same as new ones.
Two approaches to this are to simplify: ignore open opportunities for which the ultimate won/lost disposition is not yet known (this approach over-estimates win-rates), or include all opportunities while ignoring their ages (which underestimates true win-rates). Both approaches also fall short because they are still a single number, ignoring the impact of time.
FUNNELCAST software learns from your historic data and takes all opportunities, stages, and time into account as shown below. This produces an accurate win rate as a function of time. Each line represents a stage. The vertical axis is the proportion of deals won, and the horizontal axis is days after entering the applicable stage.
A deep understanding of win-rates underpins all that follows.
Predict: Right-goal with win-rate powered forecasts
Win-rates combine with your open sales funnel and new opportunities to produce an accurate view of what to expect and when.
The first example below highlights how good these FUNNELCAST models can be. The chart is a backtests—showing a forecast made at the start of the period (blue) compared to actual results (black) over the same time period.
Check out our video below to learn how your open funnel and demand generation produce a combined forecast that can be updated periodically throughout the forecast period to show a track of forecast predictions compared to actual results.
Accurate forecasts tell you what to expect so you can avoid the overcommit underdeliver trap, set expectations, and allocate resources efficiently.
Plan: Right-staff demand gen and sales with gap analysis
WIll you meet your plan? Do you have enough lead flow and open funnel?
With FUNNELCAST gap analysis, you can change and lead the discussion. Instead of setting and staffing to an arbitrary goal, you can have an informed discussion about what you need to do, and what resources you need to meet the plan.
Balance lead gen and sales staffing with gap analysis.
Optimize: Right-focus with analysis by segment
How do you sell more with limited resources? Are you selling in multiple markets? FUNNELCAST identifies your most productive business segments so you can focus and sell more—without spending more.
McKinsey found in one study that businesses can double their value through better resource optimization.. We agree but our data say that doubling is conservative.
FUNNELCAST analyses the productivity of opportunities for different segments—reflecting win-rates, time, and average contract values. It's not uncommon to find substantial differences among segments. Check out our video here to see how this works. We have seen real-life examples with over 30:1 differences between two segments.