In today’s episode of More Profits TV, I talk about one way you can tell if this recession is about to end. It’s the concept of the sales pipeline forecast.
Here’s how it works.
Consumer spending drives business profits. Business profits drive business spending. Business spending drives employment. Employment drives economic booms and recessions.
In this economic circle of life, one of the ways you can tell what’s going on is to figure out if businesses are spending money. One of the metrics used to determine this that the mainstream press never reports, is called a sales pipeline vs. sales goal ratio.
Here’s how it works.
Amongst corporate sales forces, sales people use the term sales pipeline to refer to deals they have in the works. So if they have $400k in deals in the works for this month, their sales pipeline is $400k.
You want to compare this pipeline number to the sales person’s goal. If the target for the month is only $100k, this sales person is in good shape. Some deals fall through, some get delayed into the next month, etc…
Watch today’s episode to see what the sales pipeline to goal ratio is across 10,900 companies in 19 industries RIGHT NOW. Keep in mind sales pipeline numbers improve BEFORE they ever appear in economic indicators. Watch today’s episode to learn more.
The information from this post comes from Greg Alexander, CEO of Sales Benchmark Index who was a guest speaker at the Fortune Magazine Sales & Marketing Summit where I gave a keynote address recently.