Does your CRM tell the truth?

Every forecast you make starts in your CRM. If the CRM doesn't reflect what's really happening, every number built on it starts from the wrong place.

It rarely goes wrong on purpose. Deals get added after a good first call and never updated. Stages get moved forward because a proposal went out. Close dates slide a month at a time, and nobody removes the deal in case it still comes in.

Here's a check that takes about ten minutes. Go through your open deals one at a time. Each deal needs a named owner, so someone is responsible for it. It needs a next step the buyer has agreed to, with a date on it. And it needs to sit at a stage the buyer would recognise if you described it to them.

Count how many deals pass all three. The ones that fail aren't necessarily dead, but they aren't telling the truth either. A deal with no agreed next step is a hope, not an opportunity.

Then check close dates. Any deal whose date has already moved more than once deserves a direct question to the buyer. Either there's a new date they've agreed, or the deal comes out of the forecast until there is.

The fix usually isn't a new tool. It's a habit. Agree what each stage means in terms of what the buyer has done. Check every open deal against those three things each week, and let stale deals go. The pipeline may look smaller. What's really shrinking is the guesswork.

A CRM that tells the truth is the first thing a good forecast needs.