Stop 7 of 9 · Weekly
Forecast and CRM hygiene
Ninety open opportunities cleaned before they are forecast, a commit list with a named event behind every deal, and the Monday message the manager can act on.
The forecast is only as honest as the rows under it
Wael carries a quarterly number against ninety or so open opportunities, most of which he inherited or opened months ago. Every Monday he is asked what will land. The honest answer takes an hour of reading he does not have, so what actually gets said is the stage column read out loud.
The artefacts here are the hygiene edit list and the commit list with evidence. Both go to the manager, and the second one is what the regional forecast is built from.
Three passes, in this order
| Pass | The test | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Stale | No stage movement in forty five days | Move it, close it, or write why it is parked |
| Next step | No event, or an event with no date | Add the event and a date, or downgrade it |
| Arithmetic | Remaining stages will not fit before the close date | Push the date, with a reason in the field |
Run all three before anything is forecast. Roughly a fifth of the pipeline usually fails at least one, and every one of those rows is inflating a number somebody is planning against.
Attached is my open-opportunity export from Salesforce: [attach the CSV]. Do the hygiene pass only, no forecast. Return three lists: stage not moved in more than forty five days, no next step or a next step with no date, and close date inside the quarter with more remaining stages than the days left allow. For each row give me the account, the field that failed and the single edit that fixes it. Sort each list by close date. At the end, tell me how many of the ninety rows failed at least one test and which failure is most common.
The commit list
Once the rows are edited, the forecast is a reading exercise rather than a guess.
Here is the cleaned export: [attach the updated CSV]. For every opportunity with a close date in this quarter, give me: the account, the named event that has to happen for it to close and whether that event has a date, who owns that event, and a call of commit, best case or unlikely with one sentence of evidence taken from the row itself. Rules. An opportunity with no dated event cannot be commit. Total the commit calls only. Then list the three best-case deals where the fastest move is mine rather than the customer's, and say what that move is. Do not include any contracted rate or billed figure; use the size band in the export.
The Monday message
Managers do not want the pipeline. They want the number, the change since last week, and the two places they can help.
Here is my commit list and last week's version: [paste both]. Write the Monday message. Four short paragraphs: the commit total by size band and how it moved since last week, the two deals that changed call and why, the two places I need my manager or the sales engineer, each with the specific ask and the date it is needed by, and one line on what I am doing about the accounts that failed the hygiene pass. Under 200 words, no adjectives, no rates.