Sales Forecasting - Word of Caution

In a Sales Forecasting team, you will be working with sensitive details of purchases, sales, inventory, etc., which many organizations might not want everyone to know about. These details can’t be shared with everyone in the team. The following tasks are to be taken care of by the manager only −

• Highly sensitive tasks (For example: Reviews of salaries, Discipline)
• Tasks that involve the settlement of conflicts among employees.
• Tasks that are not well defined or that are uncertain in nature.
• Tasks that involve confidential information.

It is equally important that the concept of accepting assigned work is wilfully embraced by the team members. They should realize that it is not just a desire, but a necessity for successful operation of sales.

However, the goals and objectives must be clearly specified. It is only possible if the managers know the capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of staff. If your staff’s workload is well known to you, you will find it easier to assign them suitable newer responsibilities respectively.

The trick is to never overload the staff and to always abide by the standards of performance. In case, people don’t find Sales Forecasting easy, then a manager should be willing to provide adequate training to his team and keep a keen interest in their progress. If the team performs as expected, it is always advisable to give away appropriate rewards to deserving and successful candidates.

Dealing with Pushbacks

In case of an opposition, you might require to address the task and may also need to either modify or reconsider it. A Pushback can also be a symptom for a bigger issue. For example, an employee who is excellent in computer skills might feel that you are making him/her generate more and more spreadsheets and reports and are unable to balance the load of the work with other members of the team.

The team members becoming victims to this type of a trap is very common, especially when somebody masters a certain attribute that is crucial to the task. Think deeply before mistaking someone’s expertise as someone’s obsession. As you would never want to make a star player feel repulsive towards his game.

Reverse Assignment

Sometimes, it might be needed of you to work in coordination with an employee. Often such situations involve a managerial ploy called “Reverse Assignment”. The meaning of this is to assign a task to your direct senior. This may feel like being a tad bit awkward at first, but it is almost same as any other type of delegation.

Although, you would only be able to delegate the tasks that come within their domain, excluding the administrative tasks. Delegating up requires to be approached with great caution, but if done in the right way, it might really make you visible and give you an opportunity to have more conversations with numerous high profile position holders within your company.