chrisbijou – The CEO Magazine

The 10 Essential Elements for Accurate Sales Forecasting: #2 Understanding the Funnel

Pipeline Inversely Proportional to Performance One thing I’ve noticed that I’ve always found fascinating is that often the size of the pipeline displayed is inversely proportional to performance. Over and over we see completely underperforming reps who report 2 to 5x the pipeline listed by the quota busting reps. It’s as if they believe they […]

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Sales is a Marathon

Sales

Consistent preparation requires consistent scheduling and execution.

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7 Imperatives for Developing Corporate Communication

Management, Sales

As executives we often have a plan. A quick new vision to execute. Seems simple enough. We explain it. Our smart employees nod their heads, taking the assignment with perceived understanding and we move on to the next order of business. But, then the outcome somehow leaves us…well, wanting. The following example illustrates why. When

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The Magic of Crawling in the Dirt to Build a Loyal Team

Management, Sales

People are often surprised to learn I have nine children. And that they’re all from the same amazing woman I’ve been married to for 24 years. Even more amazing is that she’s stayed in great shape, wakes with a smile each day and still greets us with a sense of love and humor. We live

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The 10 Essential Elements for Accurate Sales Forecasting: #3 The iDeal

Sales

Step 1: Understand the 3 Overriding Areas of the 10 Elements Over the next 10 blogs in this series we will look at 10 basic elements that should be considered as you forecast. But, they are more easily understood if grouped into 3 areas: #1: Trust What are the best measures that show they trust

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Sales unlike Golf, is a Zero Sum Game

Sales

Last week at the Players Championship, Tiger Woods played 275 shots over 4 days. He won by only 2 strokes over 3 other world class golfers. That means he was less than 3/4% better. He only played 1 in 137 shots better than the others. He only had to play 2% better than the next 13

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The 10 Essential Elements for Accurate Sales Forecasting – #1 Guestimating isn’t forecasting

Sales

Universal Problem… As I’ve been invited to speak and work with companies over the past two decades, one of the reoccurring thorns in the side of every executive is the difficulty in forecasting accurately. 59% the percentage Bloomberg reported of the S&P 500 companies who missed their sales forecast in Q3:2012. I was asked to speak to

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The Embarrassment of Improvement

Self Governance

Why is it so embarrassing to admit we need help? Don’t we all need help every day of some kind? We ask an executive assistant for help calling someone back…or setting an appointment. We ask someone to make us lunch at Arby’s. We ask the pilot to fly the plane and flight attendant for a

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Invisibility Cloak Management

Business Ops., Sales

Reality (in business) is often looking in the mirror but wearing an invisibility cloak. We look straight past our current situation without seeing what we’re doing in our daily role. Because we’re invisible (going through the motions), we often miss what’s really going on. This story is specific but in reality it’s more common than

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