It's that time of year - budget/forecasting time. Have you done yours yet? If so, what improvements are you forecasting?

If you haven't made any plans for 2012 yet, don't worry, you still have time. Why should you even do this? Simple - if you don't know where you're going, any road will do! You must believe that you can make a difference in what you do. You have to know that extra effort will produce better results. 

Let's talk about how to achieve forecasts.

Detail, detail and even more detail. The more detailed you are in a) your forecast and b) how you are going to achieve your forecast, the better chance you will have of attaining it.

So don't just say you are going to increase your business by 10%, go into detail as to how you are going to achieve the increase. Do you have the tools necessary to make the increase - do you have enough people to help you make the increase? What are you gong to do differently from 2011? You have to do something different if you want better results - the better results won't just happen! 

Salespeople - your detail should equate to the number of people you need to get in front of to make the requisite number of sales. Then you need to detail exactly how you are going to get in front of those people - think about service departments, prior customers, referrals, your own circle of influence. What are going to do in 2012 over and above what you did on 2011 to give you more opportunities to do business?

Managers - your detail should include what your team needs to do to make the improvements. Do you have the right number of people to service more customers? If not, when and how are you going to recruit? What type of training do you need to provide to both your new recruits and your current team - they won't improve on their own - it is your job to help them become more successful, so what exactly are you going to do differently better? 

Tracking - once you have your forecast set, now split it down to 12 monthly forecasts - depending on where you are, this will require a little work to weight the months accordingly. Now you have monthly forecasts that you can track your performance against.

Here's the deal - most forecasts are forgotten about until the end of the year - nothing is done throughout the year to ensure forecasts are hit. You will have a far greater chance of hitting your forecast if you track your performance often - the more often the better.

Attainable - make sure you set a forecast that you can hit - if it is too far out there, it will have a negative effect all year long - make it attainable, realistic and make it mean something to attain.

If you would like to see an idea of tracking tools, let us know and we will gladly e-mail you some electronic reports to use.

Share your forecasts/goals with others that can help you achieve them - managers and co-workers. You are part of a team - use the team.

Use your forecasts to make something happen - believe in the forecast and do everything in your happen to hit it - make it so that missing the forecast is not an option - you will succeed!!