CSE Sales Forecasting & Pipeline Management Flashcards

Which forecasting method uses historical sales data patterns to predict future sales performance?

Answer: Time series analysis

Time series analysis applies statistical techniques to historical data to identify trends, seasonality, and cycles for future sales predictions.

What is the primary purpose of a sales pipeline in a CRM system?

Answer: Visualize and manage deals at each stage of the sales process

A sales pipeline in a CRM provides a visual representation of all active deals organized by stage, enabling managers to track progress and forecast revenue.

A sales executive notices that 40% of opportunities stall at the proposal stage. What is the BEST corrective action?

Answer: Analyze and improve proposal quality and follow-up processes

Analyzing why deals stall at the proposal stage and improving proposal content and follow-up cadence directly addresses the root cause of the bottleneck.

What does pipeline velocity measure in sales management?

Answer: How quickly deals move through the sales pipeline to close

Pipeline velocity measures the speed at which opportunities progress through the pipeline, calculated using number of deals, win rate, average deal value, and sales cycle length.

Which of the following is a leading indicator of future sales performance?

Answer: Number of new qualified opportunities added to the pipeline

Leading indicators like new qualified pipeline additions predict future revenue, whereas closed revenue is a lagging indicator reflecting past performance.

A bottom-up sales forecast is BEST described as:

Answer: Each salesperson estimating their own expected deals, rolled up to a total

A bottom-up forecast aggregates individual rep-level deal estimates into a total company forecast, making it more granular and accurate than top-down approaches.