Sales forecasting has come a long way in the last decade. Heck, it’s come a long way in the past 24 months. Leaders now have access to AI and revenue intelligence tools that bring so many additional insights to the table. It’s actually quite amazing.
But let's be honest, even with the latest advancements, most sales teams still hate forecasting. The main challenge I see today is ensuring that the tools and services you’re using to improve forecasting accuracy are interpreting all the inputs correctly. To do that, capturing essential data is pertinent.
There’s an art to forecasting that often gets overlooked. Yes, using the right tools is part of the equation, but what’s more important is how you’re using them. Your team needs to be properly equipped, and you need to know how to ask the right questions. Because at the end of the day, what you really want is answers. Answers to how you can support your organization, answers to how the business is doing, and answers to how to better coach your team. Forecasting can help you get those answers if you do it right.
As you read on, I’ll be helping you explore ways to improve your forecasting process. At the end, I’ll even give you the one magic question you can use to improve your forecasting every day, week, month, quarter, and year. Let’s get started by reframing how we think about forecasting.
What is Sales Forecasting?
Sales forecasting is an attempt to understand the viability of each deal in a sales funnel and its probability of closing within a certain time frame. It’s been a vital part of every sales routine for eons, and I might venture to say that it’s been a pain in the you know what for just as long. That’s mainly because we’re thinking about forecasting the wrong way. Here’s what I mean, there are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to forecasting
Sales forecasting is simply an attempt to determine revenue reality. How real are the deals in our pipeline? How much can we plan for the future of our organization? Companies set goals to foster growth, and we all need a measuring stick to see how we’re progressing along.
Forecasting is that measurement. It’s always nice to feel like we’re hitting a specific goal, but too often we get caught up in the numbers and inflate our pipelines. This breaks the reality we were aiming for. That’s why accuracy is so important. To truly support our organizations, we owe them our best efforts at calling the right number.
With that said, I want to emphasize that sales forecasting isn't perfect. We’re better off assuming that it won’t be. There are tools out there that get us close, but that’s not the ultimate goal. What you want to aim for is improving your forecasting over time. Your forecasts should become more accurate and more reliable every month, quarter, and year-end review.
Why Sales Forecasting Matters
As humans, we like the comfort of accurate predictability. And this goes beyond sales and business. Most people want to know what's coming, when it’s coming, and how it will affect them. Whether that’s the weather, how long it will take to drive from Point A to Point B, or how long the wait will be at the DMV. We like simple, we like predictable, and when the forecast is accurate, it helps calm the nerves.
In sales, forecasting matters because it’s an indication of the health of the business. Frankly put, will the business survive? It’s designed to focus on the present while helping us plan for the future. The more we understand about our current revenue stream, the more we can proactively use forecasting to help achieve business goals. From projects and product roadmaps to headcount and the services we need to support them, our forecast number gives us a stronger grasp on that revenue reality we talked about earlier.
Richard’s 4 Tips to Improve Sales Forecasting
This is by no means an exhaustive list of best practices to improve sales forecasting. I simply want to help you stay on the right track:
1. Garbage In, Garbage Out - This is still as true today as it was when I was selling in the 1900s (Late 1900s). Data matters here. It matters a lot.
When you enter incomplete or outdated data into your sales stack, you’re doing yourself a disservice. There’s just no way that you can pull an accurate forecast from bad data. And yet, I see it all too often.
Before you can improve your forecast, you have to nail down a process that improves your data input. I’ll talk more about this in the next bullet.
2. CRM Engagement - This is the twin of Garbage In, Garbage Out. There are two parts to CRM Engagement in sales forecasting. One part is at the ground level with reps, the other part is at the leadership level.
In my experience, I’ve found that 99% of the blame for poor CRM engagement falls on sales leaders, not the reps. Activity data like emails, phone calls, Zoom meetings, and text messages have to be input into the CRM somehow.
If you’re still relying on your sales team to do any of this manually, then you are never going to get a strong sales forecast. There are just too many key details missing for you to get an accurate view of your pipeline this way. Nowadays, there are tools that can automatically capture this information for you and integrate it into your CRM. Some are better than others, but the fact remains the same: manual data entry is killing your forecast accuracy. My advice, stop blaming your sales reps for inaccurate data when you aren’t fully supporting them with the tools they need to succeed.
On the flip side, bad CRM Engagement can also happen when leaders ask for information that has already been entered into the CRM. Yes, I am looking at you, sales leaders and executives. You want all this information in the system, but it’s rarely easy to upkeep, and when data is up-to-date, you’re not taking the time to look for it yourself. It’s the sales leader’s job to make sure the forecasting mechanism works, not the reps. They have better things to do with their time than data entry and answering questions you can find yourself.
3. Missing Info- There is a crucial piece of information missing in every sales forecasting approach I see. And in reality, even with all the tools and data you can get into your CRM, you’re only getting about half the story. The external half.
In most cases, you are only capturing the data that’s happening between your sales arm and the prospect. That’s not enough.
What are you doing with all the data and conversations that are happening internally about each deal? Are you actively recording and adding the conversations from internal pipeline reviews? Are you making sure the emails between executives, product marketing teams, or even the engineering team are being captured and added to be utilized in the forecast? What about tracking special pricing or discounting so you can see how much it actually affects the forecast and closed revenue?
If not, why?
This is a critical part of understanding the forecast. It really isn’t that hard to do, especially with AI and automation. It’s time to start adding this motion to your calculation. This is an example of what “Better” looks like in the Better, Faster, and Cheaper approach.
4. The Right Tools- Okay, this one is gonna sting a little, and that is on purpose. This is clearly a very important part of improving your sales forecast. Everyone wants things better, faster, and cheaper. Sadly, many people convince themselves that cheaper and faster is better. But it’s not. I am willing to bet that as you’re reading this, you can think of at least 3-5 times in your life that you’ve made this mistake.
Slow is steady, steady is smooth, and smooth is fast.
So, here’s another best practice for getting your sales stack right when choosing a sales forecasting tool. You need to answer these very honestly:
1. At the end of implementing ____ tool, we expect to be better at ___, ___, and ___.
If you use buzzwords, you need to go back and define each buzzword in relation to your specific use cases.
2. We will define success as an increase (or decrease) in ___, ___, and ___.
Remember, sometimes a decrease in something is actually an improvement.
3. True/False - We have baseline numbers supporting the metrics we want to increase / decrease.
If it is false, then you must answer the following… “We will allow ___ months to help establish a baseline from which we can build upon.”
If you think a short time frame is going to give you the information you need to start making decisions, then you just failed at Better, Faster, and Cheaper. You are 100% a Faster and Cheaper type of leader.
Once you answer these questions, you can use them in meetings with potential vendors to showcase their value. Hold them accountable and have them explain how they will solve your problems better than any of their competition.
The Magic Question
Earlier, I promised you that I’d share the one question that brings humanity and reality back into your sales forecasting approach. Yes, you can have all the tools and all the data you want, but it still comes down to this one little thing.
For every deal and opportunity that you are working on, ask this simple question:
What’s the one thing preventing this deal from moving forward to the next step?
Generally speaking, the true answer is never just one thing. The reason this question works is because it helps the human brain zoom in and focus quickly, while also making way for the bigger picture.
Compare these questions with an alternative, “So, where are we on this deal?”
The answer to this question is so large and robust that it causes confusion. For many people, a question like this sends about 30 things through their minds in about 5 seconds. We are humans, and we often pick the answer that gets us in the least amount of trouble. But that’s rarely the right solution for us to fully back.
When you get an answer with that one thing, simply go deeper: “Okay, what else?” or “Okay, what’s the process to get that done?”
Your sales reps can ask very similar questions to their prospects. Here are a few examples:
- “What’s the biggest hurdle internally you’re facing in getting us to the next step?”
- “Who else can still say no?”
- “What other projects are happening internally that could delay this one?”
- “What’s the one thing preventing us from moving forward?”
I’ve talked a lot about equipping your team with the right tools and leveraging AI, but humanity will always play a crucial role in the forecasting process. That’s the art of forecasting that I was talking about earlier. These discoveries are only made with a well-thought-out human-to-human connection. Yes, these tools are very helpful to have in our everyday practice, but they can never replace the best part of selling: relationship building. In fact, they should be used to enhance your output and strip away the manual processes that keep you from doing this in the first place.
Whether you take it slow or go all-in, these actionable steps will help you achieve forecasting accuracy. The key is using AI along with timeless sales tactics to guide your next call.
About the Author
Richard Harris is a multi-award-winning GTM strategist, sales leader expert, and sales trainer who has fundamentally reshaped how modern companies approach sales conversations and customer engagement using his N.E.A.T. Selling™ sales strategy. His approach to sales leadership emphasizes both high performance and human-centric values, making him one of the most respected voices in modern sales transformation.
As the founder of The Harris Consulting Group, he has earned recognition as a 5-time Salesforce Sales Leader and 5-time AAiSP Top Sales Leader for his innovative "Earn The Right” methodology, which transforms how sales teams navigate customer relationships and drive revenue.
Harris's client portfolio spans Fortune 500 and Saas enterprises like General Electric, Visa, Zoom, Salesforce, and Gainsight to early stage and high-growth start-ups such as Dusty Robotics, Lattice, and Second Nature, demonstrating the versatility and effectiveness of his approach across different business scales.
Beyond his consulting work, Harris is the co-founder of Surf and Sales Summit. His thought leadership and expertise have made him a sought-after guest speaker on numerous business and sales podcasts.
A passionate advocate for mental health awareness in sales, Harris balances his professional achievements with his role as a husband and father of two sons.