Business that don’t use sales forecasting always fail
At least 50 percent of businesses worldwide fail in their first five years of existence. If you closely examine government figures you will see the evidence
The authorities common reason for this tragedy is the failures simply ran out of funds. This lack of detail is not very useful and so I decided to seek out individuals directly and indirectly involved in failed businesses to see if I could discover the details, establish any common reasons for failure and present them on the web in the hope that my results would help others avoid a similar fate. I discovered eight common reasons for business failure. Here are three of them:
No Vision, mission or strategy
“If you haven’t a clue where you are heading for then how are you going to get there?” You must have a clear view of what you want to achieve and how life will be for your business if you achieve it. To achieve anything you need a strategy. Strategy is very similar to a route map it shows you how to get to your destination. It’s a systematic list of activities. Strategy is only effective if it is translated into a business plan which can be used as a benchmark for business performance. A key tool for monitoring business perfomance is the sales forecast.
Lack of a system for marketing or sales
Marketing is about discovering markets and testing strategies to position your proposition in the minds of prospects and directing them into your sales funnel. Sales is about engaging the prospect and getting them to buy your product or service. Marketing is a process of measuring and refinement of the tactics you employ to reach prospects. selling is the process of creating leads, forecasting sales and closing business. In well run organisations a decent marketing and sales system is consistently underpinned by a well designed sales forecasting software system. Systems like these enable you to track and measure the activity in the sales and marketing processes. Outcomes arederived from reports created by the software which can then be used to compare what was planned with what actually happened. The bottom line is what gets measured gets improved or discontinued. This is the essential formula for success.
Lack a system to get sales from their existing customer list
There is a common rule that eighty percent of your sales should come from twenty percent of your customers. Your task is to achieve or exceed this figure. Customers who have previously purchased from you are simpler and cheaper to persuade to buy from you than prospects that have not. A combination of effective web based crm software and sales forecasting software will give you the information of past activity and allow you to find opportunities in your existing customer lists.
