7 Steps to Building The Right Business Forecasting Process For Your Startup
We’ve all suffered through it.
The end-of-year Zoom call where the fearless founder, likely fueled by a few craft beers, starts riffing off bold projections for the upcoming year.
“We’re gonna crush it”
“We’re gonna change the game”
You get the idea 😉
I’m all for setting ambitious goals, and have crazy amounts of respect for any founder audacious enough to pursue them.
But ONLY if they’re backed by a robust forecasting and tracking/reporting system that helps bridge those “BHAG’s” into reality.
Without that, you’re blowing hot air and essentially giving your team an unrealistic (and unwinnable) game.
In this week’s episode, I cover the 7 aspects of a powerful forecasting system that helps you ground ambitious goals into the day-to-day reality of your startup… while keeping your team excited and motivated to hit them.
Exclusive Download: Weekly Sync™ — Run Your Weekly Team Meetings Following This Structure Easy, Fast & Productive
At a high level, your forecasting system will be made up of the following:
- Historical Data
- Resources
- Work Backwards
- Set Targets
- Review Monthly
- Iterate Quarterly
- Don’t Teach Your Team to Lose
The final point is arguably the biggest difference between companies that win and those that fizzle out. Any founder can step in front of a team and declare plans to “take over the world”.
But massive goals WITHOUT the proper forecasting system are a recipe for disaster.
Reckless enthusiasm will only take you and your team so far.
At some point, those missed projections will breed a losing culture and a collective eye-roll with every new initiative you dare set.
By all means, go big. But stay real.
And implement the forecasting system in this episode to coach a winning culture that actually follows through on their plans for world domination 😉
—
Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.
Originally published at www.danmartell.com on October 1, 2018.
