Deals have a way of distracting us, don’t they 😏
I’ve had conversations with both reps and managers who are delighted with themselves because they blew past their number, and they can’t understand why it’s not completely always 100% a great thing.
The problem is, they’ve been scared of being held to a commit or scared of the visibility and pressure they feel at forecasting time, and might have hedged their bets by pushing the close date out so far nobody looks at it, or holding back on changing the stage in the CRM. They think that getting those unexpected deals is a completely positive thing.
But why not?
The dark side of that situation is that it put undue pressure on the rest of the team when they didn’t have a hint that it was coming. It’s that if they’d been more open about it, you could have helped them plan around the potential for it not coming through. Or, that you could have helped them get that over the line AND see what else could be achieved.
Bear that in mind if you’re trying to create that culture of visibility and accountability – it’s on you to take the fear out of transparency through how you respond when deals are won or lost.