Now more than ever, it is critical that every revenue moment is captured and discussed at every level so that your organization can minimize revenue leak as much as possible. I have the amazing opportunity to work with some of the biggest and high growth organizations in the world, and there’s one topic in particular that always comes up as we begin to build out their revenue workflows in Clari:

Should sellers/individual contributors submit a forecast call?

Many organizations struggle with this as they want to be mindful of impacting selling time and also have uncertainty that the judgments at the seller level can be trusted or make an impact on the overall forecast. 

Below are a few reasons why companies should consider including the reps into the forecasting submission process:

• Encourages sellers to take ownership of their overall number. Even if your organization has extreme rigor and mandates the forecast match the opportunities they are calling in through forecast categories or stages, it is still a great way for sellers to have one last confirmation and truly own their call.
• If your organization is struggling with consistency in the front line manager/seller forecasting process, having sellers submit a forecast helps to align the FLM and seller to review and discuss the seller’s forecast call and how their deal inventory supports it each week. It is an excellent way to coach and gain even more confidence in the overall number. 
• Sellers are always the closest to the customer and always have the first-hand account of how the opportunity is progressing. The foundation of forecasting accuracy depends on the rollup and layering in each person’s perspective in that build up to a bottoms up forecast.

These are just some of the reasons why having the seller submit a forecast can be critical in any revenue cadence. It may require a bit more rigor and consistency in building that process, but it will be worth it in the long run. Clari makes it so easy for all roles to submit a forecast, and the benefit can be game changing! 

I would love to hear the community’s thoughts and perspectives on this. Does your organization have seller’s submit a forecast, or is it just manager’s and above, or only ops teams?