As you might expect, these three properties are

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Second, a feeling of safety needs to be created between the rep and their manager. Sales reps need to feel that their managers won’t pass undo judgment on these secondary deals as long as they’ve applied a consistent set of rigor and risk analysis to their forecast.

3. Defendable
As a final check, it’s helpful for the rep to imagine they’ve been called into their CEO’s office for an impromptu sales forecast review (pretty much the best way for any rep to spend an afternoon!). Would they be able to successfully and accurately explain, using evidence, why each opportunity was going to close in that period? Would they be able to defend their position with conviction, balancing data and experience? For me, the spirit of defendability is simply about knowing which opportunities we can reasonably expect to close, removing all ego and false bravado from the exercise.


If the deals are large and numerous, great! If we’ve had slovenia telegram data some bad bounces and the rep’s contingency plan to make quota involves shaking the loose change out of sofa cushions, I want to know that too. When reps feel pressure to overstate their forecast because “something” is better than nothing, no one wins. Like a defense attorney attempting to vigorously uphold their client’s innocence in court, full disclosure is required. Running your business on painful truths is always better than making decisions based on beautiful lies!



If we do a good job of maintaining an accurate sales pipeline, have knowledge of both our and our customer’s business, and have working relationships based on safety, trust, and transparency, we’ll naturally be in a better position to produce a highly defendable forecast. However, when one of these underpinnings erode, so will the others and along with it, the quality of your forecast.