Sales Funnel vs Sales Forecasting

Sales Funnel
Sales funnel looks at the overall health of all the deals in the pipeline. The forecast maps customer’s buying cycle to specific business periods. This helps predict what business will close in the specific window of time. A sales funnel is a good leading indicator of medium to long-term health of sales efforts. It dampens wild unpredicted gyrations in forecasting.Sales funnel management helps estimate the probability that enough opportunities are moving towards closure. This allows the organization to keep revenue flowing for a period of time. Sales funnel opportunities estimates are compared against sales target and historical performance and conversion ratios. This helps to determine whether there is enough business in the intermediate term.

A sales funnel is a visual representation of the steps required to sell your products or services. A sales funnel should reveal how many prospects you have in each stage of your sales cycle, and also detail your conversion rates for each stage.




for more information: http://www.telesalesus.com/sales-funnel

Stages in the sales funnel (5 Stages). (1-3 Stages)
Lead (Suspect): A lead is someone you have not spoken to. But if a lead appears similar in profile to your target customer, you may decide that they are worth pursuing. Track your most fruitful sources of leads.

Prospect: A prospect has confirmed interest in your offering. You have had a conversation, provided the person with information about what you do, and both of you have agreed to a next step in the sales process.

Qualified prospect: Qualification is the most critical and demanding stage of the sales funnel. In the qualification process, you verify that the prospect has a need for your product, that the prospect sees value in your offering, that there is sufficient budget for a deal, that you have access to the decision-maker, and that there is an agreed-upon timeline for the sales process. The qualification process can be complex and lengthy, and can be managed with a Sales Call Talk Track and stakeholder management chart. ... More  

The sales funnel visually describes the sales process from initial contact to final sale. It uses the metaphor of a leaky funnel, into which a seller can “drop” sales opportunities. At some point, sales opportunities are removed from the funnel because potential customers become uninterested or you determine their lack of fit. The stages of a sales process refer to a potential customer’s degree of readiness to commit to a deal (from the seller’s perspective). Or put in a different way, readiness may be seen as the probability of the sale taking place.   

As a sales opportunity moves down the funnel, time to closing decreases and the probability of the sale occurring increases. The sales funnel metaphor enables you to analyze and manage a portfolio of sales opportunities. ... More  

There are 3 key metrics that can measure the health of your funnel:

■Number of opportunities in your funnel (#). You should also know the rate at which you are acquiring these opportunities – or arrival rate.
■The total possible value of every deal in your funnel – or funnel value. ($)
■Average amount of time prospects are in the sales funnel until they are acquired - or flow rate (days).  

Sales Forecasting
Sales Forecasting is the process of estimating what your business’s sales are going to be in the future. It is an integral part of business management. Without a solid idea of what your future sales are going to be, you can’t manage your inventory or your cash flow or plan for growth. The purpose of sales forecasting is to provide information that you can use to make intelligent business decisions. 

Sales forecasting inaccuracies can result from over-eager expectations as reporting periods near an end. Also, a lack of understanding of where opportunities are in the sales process leads to inaccuracies. Apply sound process, organization, management and analytic's to ensure predictable and accurate forecasts.

To the majority of organizations the most relevant measure is gross dollars that are projected to close in the next business period. Other forecast metrics include closed deals, recognized revenue, profit, and units sold. Decide which metric, or combination of forecast metrics work best for your company to create an accurate and impaction forecast.

Sales funnel and sales forecasting combined with analytic's and technology will help your company achieve improved sales performance, better business visibility, and better team management.  

Sales Funnel Management
Sales funnel management helps estimate the probability that enough opportunities are moving towards closure. This allows the organization to keep revenue flowing for a period of time. Sales funnel opportunities estimates are compared against sales target and historical performance and conversion ratios. This helps to determine whether there is enough business in the intermediate term. 

A sales funnel provides a clear view of the opportunities currently available to your sales team. With proper sales funnel management we can create an accurate map that details how you can improve your chances of making or breaking your revenue goals.

Leaky Funnel -
If a sales opportunity does not move down the funnel, the sale will not happen and the opportunity should be removed, hence the “leaky” funnel. A leaky funnel is not necessarily bad; as a salesperson, you want to focus on opportunities that are likely to yield results. It is the nature of sales to have to remove an opportunity from your funnel. It does not mean that you will not sell to that account (a positive action by the customer can put them back into the funnel), but for the time being, your should centre your attention on opportunities that remain in the funnel. ... More 

Social Media & Enterprise tools

Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks It differentiates from traditional/industrial media in many aspects such as quality, reach, frequency, usability, immediacy, and permanence. There are many effects that stem from internet usage  -- from Wikipedia

Social networking platforms are effective in the following ways:

1. Building a collaborative culture.
2. Establishing more effective two-way communication.
3. Creating more engaging learning experiences.
4. Sharing current practices through a knowledge network.
5. Improving employee involvement and engagement.
6. Helps in finding the right talent for business
7. Wizard-like functionality leading you through the process
8. Improved opportunity tracking
9. Better status updates
10. Easy administration and maintenance ... More

 
Some of the well-known collaboration tools on the market as of 2011
 
•Adobe Acrobat – Acrobat.com allows teams to work collaboratively on documents through their browsers. Options for web conferencing and screen-sharing provide additional communication channels.
 
•Atlassian Confluence – offers a powerful wiki-based solution to enterprise collaboration. Content can be simply dragged and dropped from the desktop to the platform, eliminating the need for keeping track of attachments sent via email.
 
•Basecamp – collaborative messaging and file sharing. Project management can be easily tracked with milestones and deadlines, and templates for saving time with common projects. Campfire by Basecamp implements real time chat for collaboration.
 
•Broadvision Clearvale – a Cloud-based platform that can be established without the need for any additional IT resources

•Colaab – offer real time browser based collaboration by allowing annotations to appear simultaneously on other collaborator’s screens. A “DeepZoom” feature allows work and annotation to take place on very specific areas of large images, such as design documents.
 
•Chatter – provided by Salesforce and free for existing customers. It allows communication and sharing of projects by employees from their browsers, desktops or mobile devices.
 
•Episerver relate – collaboration and community software. Also turns out-of-date intranets into a social community where employees collaborate and share information.
 
•FMYI – a private collaboration site where you can store and share information securely and sustainably with your team. ... More  

•Google Documents – simultaneous editing of files makes Google Docs ideal for students and other casual collaborative groups. The upgraded Google Apps version offers additional security options for business.
 
•Huddle - project management and collaboration software that allows you to connect, share and invite people to work on projects.
 
•nu+/Yooplus – a team collaboration and social software platform for the SME market.
 
•Offbureau – Offbureau fuses on-line collaboration, document management, and a social network.
 
•Open Atrium – drupal based team collaboration tool.
 
•Podio – a collaboration platform with a new and radical take on work tools: you build it yourself.

•Sharepoint – provides a single platform for employees to work collaboratively through various methods such as wikis and work flows. Personal profiles allow a team to better understand each other’s skills, experience and interests.
 
•Socialcast – allows employees to discuss projects remotely through a microblogging service, which is also accessible from a smartphone. The Town Hall extension enables discussion between executives and employees.
 
•Socialtext – uses a Facebook-like interface and claims to increase typically increase productivity by 20% or more.
 
•Sosius – a hosted online workspace, accessible from any PC or Mac, that lets you create and collaborate and share.
 
•Teamlab – enterprise collaboration, project management, document sharing and instant messaging solution.

•Tibbr – uses a design that is familiar to Facebook users, providing an intuitive experience. One key feature is the ability for employees to follow subjects, to stay informed on news and developments in their area of business.
 
•Wiggio – a free service that simplifies keeping track of multiple groups. Collaboration on documents, polls, and communication by text are some of the offered services.
 
•Wikispaces – wikis for organisations, individuals and groups to enable online sharing and collaboration. The power of online collaboration is perhaps best exemplified by Wikipedia. The Wiki platform is a great collaboarative tool.
 
•Yammer – enables companies to create their own private social network, requiring a company email address to access the community.
 
•Zoho – a large variety of collaborative and sharing tools for individuals, groups and businesses.
 
Source: http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2011/03 ... More   

Its Life Cycle
 

Interesting article on Enterprise social network

http://www.citeworld.com/social/21922/enterprise-social-networking-success-story-socialcast-humana?page=0 

What is Sales Force?

SalesForce CRM is an online web-based "cloud" computing application from Salesforce.com for Customer Relationship Management (CRM). As with all CRM software, it captures and organizes communications and information from current or prospective customers from many departments across a company.

Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing leader. social and mobile cloud technologies—including flagship sales and CRM applications—help companies connect with customers, partners, and employees in entirely new ways.Its solutions are broken down into several broad categories: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Data Cloud, Collaboration Cloud and Custom Cloud. On the high side, Saleforce is aiming be the first cloud computing company to hit the $4 billion annual revenue by 2014

Salesforce.com was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff who pioneered the concept of delivering enterprise applications via a simple website

Below sample diagram which depicts SFDC flow & helps to identify the flow in diagram

1.The prospect fills out an enquiry form on your website or calls your office requesting more details.
2.A new Lead record is created in Salesforce.com.
3.Leads can be filtered into lists and bulk emailed.
4.When more is known about a Lead (qualified), the record can be converted to a Contact and associated with an Account.
5.Contacts can be filtered into lists and bulk emailed.
6.Accounts have Opportunities that typically relate to the sales process of a Product (or service). Opportunities can have Quotes and Products.
7.Products have individual Assets. If an Asset has an issue, it can have one or more Cases registered against it.

As a worldwide leader in cloud services, more companies trust their vital customer and sales data to Salesforce.com than to any other CRM company. It creates and tracks Inquiry, Leads , Opportunity , Accounts, It also has sophisticated approval automation for virtually any process,proposals and workflows. Some of the competitors are Oracle's Siebel CRM, SAP's Business ByDesign ecosystem,Microsoft Dynamics CRM , SugarCRM,etc


Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software solutions allow you to manage the relationships you have with your customers, using a combination of people, processes and technology. It helps your business attain and retain happy customers. CRM is an overall strategy to help you to learn more about your customers and their behaviour so you have the skills to develop stronger, lasting relationships which will benefit both you and your customers. It's impossible to manage a successful business without a strong focus on CRM. After all, your business is all about the customer

CRM Grows Revenue :
To grow revenue you need a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application that helps you track sales activity—every lead, opportunity, and customer, especially when you’re on the go. In today’s mobile business environment, there’s no reason for a big up-front software investment that's expensive to install and maintain.

Salesforce Is Customer Focused :
With Salesforce CRM applications and its mobile cloud-computing model, you can follow your customers and your budget at the same time from anywhere. You’ll be up and running in 30 days with the world's most proven and loved customer relationship management solution. With our pay-as-you-go model, the price of success is dramatically lower

No Hardware, No Software :
No software, no hardware means you’re up and running and positively impacting your business in no time at all. With Salesforce everything comes to you—accounts and contacts, leads and opportunities, forecasting, analytics, contact management, all wrapped around powerful workflow that helps you customize the Sales Cloud to your business requirements.

Complete Customer Management Solution :
Salesforce covers every customer touch point and every stage of the customer lifecycle, especially as you close deals on the go. Sales activity tracking ensures instantaneous customer updates so there are no surprises when you are on the road. Salesforce makes it easy for you because everything is connected. ... More

World’s #1 CRM Solution:Today, over 100,000 of the world’s most innovative companies—large, medium, and small—use Salesforce to close bigger deals faster. Using Salesforce is as easy as buying a book on Amazon.com. That means your employees will use it, so it will be a more effective tool for your business to collaborate, mobilize, and grow revenue. 

Customers, analysts, and industry experts agree: Salesforce = ease of use

Benefits of SFDC
1. Unparalleled time to value :: Salesforce.com minimizes the risk involved in implementing business applications like CRM by eliminating up-front capital investment making the path to CRM success exceptionally short.
2. Less expensive initially.
3. Easy upgrades.
4. Better service delivery.
5. Better scalability.
6. Easier to customize.
7. Users are more satisfied.
8. Easier for administrators :: Administrators can tailor processes and define how data is viewed for different departments and work groups, while ensuring that users can access only that data for which they are authorized. Salesforce’s ease of use extends to its administration functions 


Top Five CRM Applications available in the Market as of today.
1. ORACLE / SEIBEL
2. SAP
3. Sales Force
4. Microsoft Dynamics CRM
5. RightNow

For more information on its recent activities, you can refer below
http://salesforce.meetup.com/

Way 2 Money Transfer with in minute!!

What is IMPS?

Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) is an instant, interbank (similar to NEFT) electronic fund transfer service that can be initiated only through mobile phones or online banking or SMS

All domestic bank account holders who have registered mobile numbers can send and receive money using IMPS. Money can be sent via SMS channels or Mobile or Online

Beneficiary details required are:
a. Beneficiary’s mobile number as registered with his/her bank
b. Beneficiary’s Mobile Money Identifier (MMID)
or
a. Beneficiary’s Account number
b. Beneficiary’s IFSC code

What is MMID or Mobile Money Identifier?

Mobile Money Identifier (MMID) is a random seven digit number issued by banks to their customers. If you wish to send money using IMPS, you should have the mobile number and MMID of the beneficiary (person whom you wish to send money to). If you wish to receive funds using IMPS, you should generate an MMID for your account and share this with the remitter (person whom you wish to receive money from). You can generate only one MMID per account. 

All IMPS transactions executed through Mobile or Online or SMS using Mobile number and MMID or Account number and IFSC code have a combined daily limit of Rs.50,000/-. One-time fund transfers through IMPS via SMS or Mobile have a daily limit of Rs.1000/-.

While sending money using IMPS, how do I come to know that my account is debited and funds have been credited in the beneficiary’s account? 

You will get a confirmation SMS on your registered mobile number which informs you of the debit in your account.

While receiving money using IMPS, how do I come to know that funds have been credited to my account and the remitter’s account has been debited?

You will get a confirmation SMS on your registered mobile number which informs you of the credit in your account.

What happens in case a wrong beneficiary mobile or beneficiary account number is input during a transaction?

Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) is an instant, interbank (similar to NEFT) electronic Fund transfer service that can be initiated through mobile phones or online or SMS. The beneficiary details required for sending money are mobile number and MMID or Account number and IFSC code. The transaction will get declined in case any one of these two numbers is erroneous and the transaction will get reversed instantly. 

What are the timings for initiating and receiving IMPS remittances?

IMPS is a 24x7 service. IMPS transactions can be sent and received at any time and any day. There are no timing or holiday restrictions on IMPS remittances.

If the transaction is not completed successfully when will the money be returned?

The funds will be returned immediately for unsuccessful transactions. There might be cases where status of the transaction cannot be determined immediately. In such a scenario, the reversal of funds will happen on the next working day.

When can I use the funds received through IMPS?
The funds received through IMPS can be used immediately upon credit.

Can I withdraw and / or deposit money using IMPS?
No. Deposit and withdrawal of money cannot be done using IMPS.

What are the charges for sending and receiving funds using IMPS?
There are no charges for sending or receiving funds using IMPS.

Are there any subscription charges to avail of the IMPS facility?
There are no subscription charges. IMPS can be availed free of charge. SMS and GPRS charges for using the service via the mobile phone apply. 

How can customers get MMIDs for their accounts?
Customers can do this way:-
SMS: Customers need to send MMID XXXX to 52484 to generate MMIDs for their accounts. XXXX denotes the last 4 digits of your Debit Card Number.
 

If MMID is already generated then this will retrieve the existing MMID.

How can customer delete the MMID for their accounts?
Modified - Customer can do this way:-
SMS:
Send MMIDCANCEL <7-digit mmid=""> to 52484 to delete the MMID

If mobile number gets updated what needs to be done to receive funds?
Customers need to share the new mobile number and the existing MMID with remitters in order to receive funds. Customers can also alternately use the account number and IFSC code combination of the beneficiary to transfer funds using IMPS.

For more information, please refer to below links
http://www.npci.org.in/aboutimps.aspx 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediate_Payment_Service

Some true things to remember ...

1. "The only way to do something is to just do it."Dr. Judy Kuriansky
2. "You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true." Richard Bach
3. You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don't let yourself indulge in vain wishes. Rabindranath Tagore
4. Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, has lost something. Life's Little Instruction Book by H.Jackson Brown,Jr.
5. Adventure is not outside man; it is within. David Grayson
6. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as warning to others.
7. "The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."
8. The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.
9. Share your smile with everyone, but save your kiss for only one.
10. Ray's Law: You can't fall off the floor.
11. Four things do not come back: the Spoken Word, the Sped Arrow, the Past Life, and the Neglected Opportunity. Arabian proverb
12. Living and being alive are two different things; being alive and not living is not worth squat.
13. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
14. A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
15. For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
16. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
17. "True spirit is loving life and not caring who knows or what they have to say about it." J. Silgals
18. "If you don't ask, the answer is always 'No." Everett Lipman
19. "One must learn to fall, if one would fly." Richard Bach
20. "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." Robert Frost

Thoughts to ponder over...
1. "The world is a looking glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, an it is a jolly , kind companion." Thackeray 'Vanity Fair'
2. "There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go." Tennessee Williams
3. "One-half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it." Sidney Howard
4. "All changes have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die one life before we can enter unto another." Anatole France
5. "What if no one's watching? What if when we're dead, we are just dead? What if it's just us down here? What if God is just an idea someone put in your head?" Ani DiFranco, "What If No One's Watching"
6. "It is curious how silly trivial things, sometimes for no apparent reason, become signifigant. At first you laugh at these things, you think they are of no importance, you go on and you feel that you haven't got the strength to stop yourself....And so it seems to me that if I die, I shall take part in life one way or another."Anton Chekhov , The Three Sisters
7. You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them. Richard Bach
8. "Nothing just happens. You choose it to happen."Dr. Judy Kuriansky
9. “When we put up with any situation that we don't have to put up with, it's not because we're dumb. We put up with it because we want the lesson that only that situation can teach, and we want it more than freedom itself.” Richard Bach
10. "I know that the journey is never what we plan for; it's what happens between the lines."-Mary Morris, Nothing to Declare
11. Poor Fletch. Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly.'' Richard Bach
12. Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there...to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson or help figure out who you are or who you want to become. You never know who these people may be but when you lock eyes with them, you know that every moment that they will affect your life in some profound way. And sometimes things happen to you at the time that may seem horrible, painful and unfair, but in reflection you realize that without overcoming those obstacles you would have never realized your potential, strength, will power or heart.
Beauty
1. "Wise people have an inward sense of what is beautiful, and the highest wisdom is to trust this intuition and be guided by it"Aristotle
2. Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming. Donna Tartt
3. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.- Franz Kafka
4. Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
Dreams
1. "Don' t let weeds grow around your dreams." Life's Little Instruction Book by H.Jackson Brown,Jr
2. "Ideals are like stars, you will not succed in touching them with your hands. But like a seafaring man on the desert of waters you choose them as your guides, and folowing them you will reach your destiny"
3. "A ship in harbor is safe... but that is not what ships are for"
4. "You are successful the moment you start moving toward a worthwhile goal." Charles Carlson
5. "... when a man once gets bitten by a virus of the ideal, not all the King's doctors and not all the King's surgeons can rid him of it." S.Maugham
6. 'No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to unchartered land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.' Helen Keller
7. "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."Goethe
8. "Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong." Ella Fitzgerald
9. Whenever I get to a low point, I go back to the basics. I ask myself, "Why am I doing this?" It comes down to passion. Lyn St. James
10. "What will you risk for what you believe?-- and what is your belief worth if you will not risk anything in its defense?"Michael Kube-McDowell
11. "Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul; the blue print of your ultimate achievements."
12. Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel. Voltaire
13. A desire can overcome all objections and obstacles. Gunderson
14. In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another. Francois De La Rochefoucauld
15. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else. Joseph Campbell
16. For every mountain there is a miracle. Robert H. Schuller
17. No matter how hard you work for success if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible. Baudjuin
18. One must have a dream if one is to have a dream come true.
19. Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care. Blaise Pascal
20. "Great spirits often meet violent opposition with mediocre minds" Albert Einstein
21. "Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."
22. "...it takes your sleeping self years to catch up to where you really are. Pay attention to your dreams: when you go on a trip, in your dreams you will still be home. Then after youve come home you'll dream of where you were. It's a kind of jet lag of the unconscious."-Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
23. ."A man can find more reasons for doing as he wishes than for doing as he ought." S.Ruskin
24. Dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go; be what you want to be because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want in life.