BlogDelicious sales forecasting

“Leverage the past, visualize the present and improve the future”

 
This is a key idea in Aberdeen’s excellent report on sales forecasting. It matches our vision for SalesClic so well we decided to eat it!

 
Yummy…

 
P.S.: Our French pastry cook was obviously at ease with the past and present, but not so sure about the future…

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We will be upgrading SalesClic tomorrow (Feb. 8th) from 18:00 to 19:00 CET. The solution won’t be available during this period.

This upgrade concerns both SalesClic for Salesforce and SalesClic standalone and is very much focused on sales analytics.

SalesClic for Salesforce and SalesClic standalone

• Keep your pipeline fresh: as described in an earlier article, red dots will signal opportunities whose close date has passed. We will add increasing intelligence to these red dots in the coming weeks and months.
• Improve your forecasts: we are adding a “forecasting box” in the right column of the pipeline page. For a given period, this box will summarize your quota, commit, actual sales and sales forecast based on multiple sales methodologies. The first such methodology proposed is the weighted pipeline. Other, more elaborate methodologies will come shortly.

SalesClic for Salesforce

• In-depth understanding of your sales process: we are bringing the calculation of historical closing probabilities, conversion rates and durations, as well as our “ideal pipeline”, to pipelines based on opportunity views. This is a very powerful way to understand your sales process in detail.
• Try SalesClic in a sandbox: SalesClic can now be installed in a Salesforce sandbox.

Don’t hesitate to contact us for feedback and support.

One of the founding principles of SalesClic is that sales dashboards don’t work. Sure, modern CRM tools let you build sophisticated reports, tables and charts.

But past the first weeks of enthusiasm, most companies discover an inconvenient truth: nobody ever looks at these dashboards, least of all the populations directly concerned – sales reps and managers.

The red dots

We believe in real-time, in-context, actionable insights. We are therefore very happy to introduce an exciting new feature in SalesClic – red dots on the opportunity tiles.

Starting this Wednesday, these red dots will signal in your SalesClic pipeline the opportunities whose close date has passed. (We describe the other elements of the upgrade in this article.) [...]

We will be upgrading SalesClic next Wednesday (Nov. 2nd) from 18:00 to 19:00 CET. The solution won’t be available during that period.

This is again a combined upgrade for our Salesforce module and our standalone solution. Also, this upgrade kinda rocks.

 
SalesClic for Salesforce and SalesClic standalone

• Identify priority opportunities: the “Ideal pipeline” on the right-hand side of the Pipeline page lets you compare your current pipeline and the pipeline you would need (based on your track record) to reach a chosen target. Click here for more information on this significant development.
• Visualize recent pipeline trends: small arrows in the margin of each pipeline stage tell you whether the number of opportunities, total amount of opportunities, weighted amount of opportunities and average stay of opportunities are increasing, stable or decreasing. Click here for an explanation of how we calculate these trends.

SalesClic for Salesforce

• Measure your pipeline dynamics: the headings of pipeline stages now include the historical conversion rates of opportunities from one stage to the next.
• Visualize your complete pipeline on any date in the past: click “Display at date” in the top right-hand corner of your SalesClic pipeline to visualize the pipeline on any date in the past and assess your progress between two dates.
• Summarize your pipeline at the end of past periods: The “Basic calculations” section gives you a summary of your pipeline on the last day of past reporting periods.

SalesClic standalone

Two significant developments here.

• Increase the quality of your pipeline: you can now create “stage tasks”, i.e. tasks attached to pipeline stages. This is a great way to ensure that transitions from one stage to another are consistent across users. Note that stage tasks are created in pipeline templates, as explained here.
• Improve your visibility on your planning: on the Pipeline page, the mini opportunity card now displays the next Google Agenda event for the selected opportunity.

Don’t hesitate to contact us for feedback and support.

We will be upgrading SalesClic next Thursday (Sept. 29th) from 18:00 to 19:00 CET. The solution

won’t be available during that period.

The upgrade will add both to our Salesforce module and standalone solution.

Salesforce module

• A reality check for closing probabilities : as in SalesClic standalone, the headingsof pipeline stages will include the historical (real) closing probability of the correspondingopportunities.
• A « population pyramid » for the pipeline : the sidebar of the SalesClic pipelinewill show a small graph summarizing the pipeline (amount per stage). This is one of the last steps towards the implementation of the “ideal pipeline” forecasting methodology in SalesClic forSalesforce.

SalesClic standalone

Three significant developments here.

• The “population pyramid” described above.
• Improved measurement of sales efficiency, with the calculation of historical, “real”conversion rates from one pipeline stage to another. This information will appear in the headings of pipelinestages.
• Easier inputs in the opportunity card, with the ability to change and save eachsection of the card independently.

Don’t hesitate to contact us for feedback and support.

We will be upgrading SalesClic next Tuesday (Aug. 23rd) from 18:00 to 19:30 CET. The solution won’t be available during that period.

This is an interesting upgrade, both for our Salesforce module and SalesClic standalone.

 
Salesforce module

Users with the appropriate Salesforce rights will now find under the SalesClic tab the individual sales pipelines of their colleagues and the “consolidated” pipeline of their team, in addition to their own individual pipeline.

This is especially relevant to sales managers with no sales activity of their own.

 
SalesClic standalone

Four significant developments here.

• We are very happy to launch the “SalesClic weekly summary” – a summary of your sales pipelines you will receive every Monday in your mailbox. In keeping with the SalesClic spirit, this summary will focus on the business implications of your pipelines, not on their administrative activity. You can set your weekly summary up in Settings > Profile.
• In your pipelines, the headings of pipeline stages will now include the historical (real) closing probability of the corresponding opportunities. This is obviously a big analytical and forecasting plus. (Note that historical closing probabilities will soon come to our Salesforce module too.)
• We are adding autocompletion to the “Opportunity”, “Company”, “Product” and “Reference” fields of the opportunity card.
• You will now be able to drag-and-drop opportunities on the iPhone.

 
Enjoy, and don’t hesitate to contact us for feedback and support.

Hello,

We are pleased to announce the release of SalesClic’s English version. To switch from French to English, go to :

Réglages → Profil → Langue

…then chose « English » in the select list and click « Valider ». Done !

We particularly recommend the definitions of our 50+ statistics, which we had good fun translating.

Feel free to suggest potential improvements to the English text through our online support.

Best,

Thomas