Aligning RevOps, Sales, and Finance for revenue forecasting

Revenue forecasting is a high stakes game. High risk, high reward.

As one of the most strategically beneficial deliverables you can hand over to your leaders, your forecasts will get you noticed.

Whether that attention is good or bad? That’s up to you.

And it’s why there’s so much interest in the pursuit of forecasting accuracy.

But there’s another way you can make sure you’re met with smiles and claps on the back when you deliver your forecast…

Alignment.

Today we’re showing you how to avoid that sinking feeling as finance delivers a forecast that looks nothing like yours.

Why teams need to work together

At our recent Revenue Forecasting Summit, Lisa Jensen, Sr Director, Global Revenue Operations, Backlight, shared something critical…

When different teams show different numbers in important meetings, the consequences are severe.

Arguments. Lost trust. Shattered opportunities.

Max Mozes, Director & Head of Revenue Operations at Walmart Business, agrees:

When teams don’t agree on the numbers, it creates extra work for everyone. Teams duplicate work multiple times as they try to hone in on a true forecast figure.

No one wins.

How to get teams to work better together

Getting sales, finance, and RevOps to align for better revenue forecasting isn’t always easy.

We asked Max and Lisa for some practical advice:

1) Have regular meetings

Lisa suggests having regular meetings. Once every two to four weeks with the finance team should do it. This helps everyone understand how each team gets their numbers.

Finance often sees the data differently than sales. They’ll find certain numbers more important. Others, less so. Use these meetings to understand what each team includes in their reports, and why they think those things are significant.

For example, some companies have a separate “finance forecast” and “sales outlook.” But everyone must agree on what makes up each one.

Max recommends a weekly meeting with finance, too. The primary benefit for him? The trust these regular meetings build. Sales needs to trust that RevOps will work closely with finance. Finance needs to trust that RevOps can give them clear, accurate information. When you meet regularly, you ensure everyone’s working towards the same goals, and establish the trust necessary to succeed.

2) Make it a game

Do you really want your teams to play better together?

How about gamifying your forecasting process?

Lisa shares this fun idea: Mid-quarter, have people from RevOps, sales, and finance each guess what the final sales number will be. Turn it into a bit of friendly competition. (The number closest to the actual figure gets a prize!)

This gives everyone a bit of skin on the game, without raising the stakes to eye-watering levels. It helps everyone see the different ways each team perceives the numbers, and is a good way to openly compare different perspectives.

Seeing forecasting from different sides

Having worked in both finance and RevOps, Lisa has a special perspective on revenue forecasting as a shared activity.

When she was in finance, she didn’t fully understand the pressure sales teams felt. Finance teams often focus on big-picture numbers and how sales affect things like hiring. They might not know about a single big deal that a sales team is counting on to close at the end of a quarter.

• How the sales team sees things

Sales teams, however, are very close to their deals. They develop “gut feeling” intuition about deals based on all their experience talking to customers in the past, and their knowledge of how this particular deal is going. Finance’s forecasts are often based more on past data, like average sales numbers, while sales forecasts are more about individual deals.

Lisa says understanding these different ways of thinking and why each team feels the pressure they do has been very helpful. It lets her speak both the language of finance, and the language of sales, helping the two teams to understand each other better.

• How the finance team sees things

Max adds that finance teams can fall into the trap of only looking at past, confirmed sales data. RevOps, he says, needs to help its finance team understand how unclosed deals in the sales pipeline can change the forecast. It's about showing finance how potential future sales can impact their predictions.

Developing the soft skills necessary to smooth the waters between your sales and finance teams won’t just help you create more complete, confident forecasts. It’ll help you demonstrate your influence and impact on the business at large.

3 tips for handling data discrepancies

It's common for sales records (like in Salesforce) to not perfectly match finance reports.

We’ve already talked about the practical challenges of revenue forecasting, and how missing or imperfect data is a significant one. But how can we tackle this challenge from an alignment perspective?

1) Identify, agree, then move on

Max brings in the analytics team to help. They make sure that both finance and sales are looking at the same information, using the same forecasting rules and methods.

If the numbers are a little different, it's important to first understand why, and then agree on which sets of data to move forward with. The goal isn’t to argue about who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s for everyone to see where discrepancies stem from, learn from it, and then move towards a practical solution for a more accurate forecast.

2) Include sales in your conversations

Max says that sales leaders must be part of the conversations about forecasts with finance. They need to be in the room to talk about how their deals can affect the company's forecast. Sales directors can then relay this information back to their teams. It's a mistake to leave sales out of these discussions. They might not lead the talk, but they need to know what's happening and share their thoughts.

Lisa agrees, saying that all key stakeholders, including the Chief Revenue Officer, RevOps leader, and finance leader, should be in monthly meetings to talk about the numbers.

3) Be clear about changes

Lisa learned the hard way that when RevOps changes something in their sales system, like how they filter data, everyone using that data needs to know about it. An email or chat message is often not enough. She now has regular meetings with her data, finance, and RevOps teams to discuss any changes.

Max adds that before a reporting change happens, finance and RevOps should talk about how it will affect the numbers. They should tell sales leaders before the change goes live, and explain how it might make their numbers look different. This way, sales teams are ready and not surprised.

Final advice for bridging the gap

1) Over-communicate

Lisa and Max both emphasize that building strong relationships is the most important step for connecting sales, finance, and RevOps.

How do you do that? Lisa (half-jokingly) says it comes down to talking to finance all the time. She talks to them “a hundred times a day” to stay connected.

2) Speak the same language

She also advises writing down clear definitions for all your metrics. For example, make sure everyone agrees on what “win rate” means, or what a “committed deal” is. This ensures everyone understands the data in the same way, no matter who is looking at it.

Max adds that finance teams are often open to new ideas, even if people think they are not. If sales and RevOps are the experts on sales numbers, they should suggest how to look at metrics. If you lead with your recommendation and say “let’s work together to align,” finance partners are usually willing to find a common ground. It all comes back to building good relationships.

Next step: How to present your revenue forecast to the board