Once Upon a Sales Meeting!

Once Upon a Sales Meeting!



It was an awkward silence in the meeting room "Uproar." John Kowalski, the new sales manager, was not happy with the team's performance. After scribbling something in the notepad, he decided to break the silence,

John: I cannot believe you guys have been working like this. No reports, delusional forecasting, random targets, and no eye on the ball.

Kevin: We followed Richard's orders.

John: Well, Richard is not here anymore, is he?

John walked up to the whiteboard, and wrote in big bold letters: "TARGET - $50 MILLION". He then turned around to see the poker faces of his 6-member team and asked, "Thoughts?"

Kevin: Our last year target was $15 million, and yet we missed that by 20%. This new target of $50 million is almost four times what we did last year. Do you think it is practical?

John: Kevin, we make software for salons and spas. That's a 3-billion dollar industry. I'm asking you to capture less than 2% of that industry. Now, you tell me if that is impractical.

Kristin: But John, with the same team of 6, we'd need a magic wand to achieve that target.

John: Wand, not sure. Magic, well yes. We certainly need the magic of proper planning and reporting. We need to analyze relevant data and make strategies. What does our sales pipeline look like today?

Kristin: I can quickly check the CRM and let you know.

John: Please do.

Kristin (reading from CRM): We have 135 open deals as of today.

John: And what stages are they in?

Kristin: 93 cold, and 42 hot

John: Is that it? What about more granular stages? Those in the demo stage, or proposal stage for instance?

Team looked blank. John decided to continue.

John: Anyway, can you tell me who among you has the highest probability of topping the closures this month?

Kristin: That would be Kevin.

John: Kevin, how much is in your pipeline right now?

Kevin: I am about to close a 200,000 dollar deal, and have few more follow-ups to do.

John: Could you give me your sales forecasting for this month based on conversion probability?

Kevin: Well, if you give me sometime, I could pull that for you.

John did not know how to react. Perhaps, he was expecting more numbers from a team that brought 12 million in sales the previous year.

John: It's alright, Kevin. Team, let me show you how we are going to keep track of our leads and prospective deals going forward.

John projects the following image on screen:




John (continues): We'll have five primary deal stages - New (or cold leads); Talking (or showing interest); Meeting (or Demo); Proposal (or Quote); and finally Closed Won or Lost. This is how we'll prepare our sales pipeline. We'll also map probability percentages in these five stages based on our previous record. If we capture the appropriate data into our CRM in time, we can pull other important reports as well. Let me show you another example. 



Conversion or Sales Funnel report is essential find out where our leads leak in the process, and then tighten the gap. Sales Funnel reports can also be pulled by regions, or lead owners. These are some useful metrics that we could use to streamline our approach. For instance, if we see a low conversion rate for some of you, I can work closely with you to help analyze and improve.. Any questions?

Kristin: John, few of my clients take too long to close and that affects my targets for that particular quarter. Can we also do something to reduce the conversion time?

John: That is an excellent question. It is important to learn about sales cycle time or velocity so that we can set realistic targets for everyone of you. Also, shorter sales cycles would mean more ROI for our team.

Kevin: John, I like to take time with my clients and build relationships with them. That is important because if they like the product and service, they are going to renew their subscription every month, for a longer period. 

John: That's a great point, Kevin. Thank you for bringing this up. To monitor this, let's follow two more metrics - Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). 
John walks up to the white board and starts writing MRR formula. 

Net MRR = MRR at the beginning of the month + MRR gained from new customers for the month + MRR change gained from upgrading customers for the month - MRR change lost from downgrading customers for the month - MRR Churn from the month

John (continues): Recurring revenue is the lifeblood of any SaaS business. It’s what makes building a SaaS so appealing. You do not have to worry about one-off sales that may or may not return. If you have a solid product ,and like Kevin mentioned,, build a good relationship with clients, they automatically return for renewal. While new subscriptions validate our sales efforts, the Churn rate l lets us know where we went wrong. 

Kristin: What about Customer Lifetime Value?

John: Customer Lifetime Value is simply the total revenue we make from a single customer over the whole period of relationship with that customer. It's an important metric as it costs less to keep existing customers than it does to acquire new ones, so increasing the value of your existing customers is a great way to drive growth. Marketing team would be interested in this metric as well, as they compare this with Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), to calculate ROI.

Understanding CLV/CAC generally helps marketers unlock additional budget for their programs. For instance, it can help them determine whether they should be allowed to spend more on acquiring larger customers who'll likely stick around longer and pay more in their lifetime. This is what an “allowable CAC” represents. Allowable CAC is the maximum acceptable amount to pay for a customer. It's essentially a cap marketing team pre-negotiate with the finance team. They can justify a higher allowable CAC if CLV is higher.

Kevin: Sorry to return to where we started, John, but how are we going to divide the 50 million dollar target among ourselves.

John: All the reports, analysis and metrics that we spoke about, will help us set our goals and targets. Let's pull out all those reports from our CRM and come back for our next meeting tomorrow. We'll sit together and work out a target sales plan for each of us according to the insights we gain from reports. Sounds good?

All: Yes John

John: Alright then, see you. Hopefully, I'd get to hear from George, Lisa, Rajesh and Peter as well tomorrow, and not just Kevin and Kristin.

Everyone laughs and leaves the room. John left with a satisfied smile, as he believed he gave his team 50-million reasons to trust the sales reports and work with a plan.

    • Sticky Posts

    • As Sales Person, Here are my New Year Resolutions. What are Yours?

      Being a salesperson, I keep learning from my mistakes and have noted a few changes that I need to make in my approach. I take these resolutions going into 2021, hoping to keep it going for as long as possible :) 1. I will not say "Yes, our product has

    • Once Upon a Sales Meeting!

      It was an awkward silence in the meeting room "Uproar." John Kowalski, the new sales manager, was not happy with the team's performance. After scribbling something in the notepad, he decided to break the silence, John: I cannot believe you guys have been working like this. No reports, delusional forecasting, random targets, and no eye on the ball. Kevin: We followed Richard's orders. John: Well, Richard is not here anymore, is he? John walked up to the whiteboard, and wrote in big bold letters: "TARGET

    • Recent Topics

    • Zoho CRM IP Addresses to Whitelist

      We were told to whitelist IP addresses from Zoho CRM.  (CRM, not Zoho Mail.) What is the current list of IP Addresses to whitelist for outbound mail? Is there a website where these IP addresses are published and updated?  Everything I could find is over

    • Empowered Custom Views: Cross-Module Criteria Now Supported in Zoho CRM

      Hello everyone, We’re excited to introduce cross-module criteria support in custom views! Custom views provide personalized perspectives on your data and that you can save for future use. You can share these views with all users or specific individuals

    • How Do I Refund a Customer Directly to Their Credit Card?

      Hi, I use books to auto-charge my customers credit card. But when I create a credit note there doesn't seem to be a way to directly refund the amount back to their credit card. Is the only way to refund a credit note by doing it "offline" - or manually-

    • Zoho Flow Needs to Embrace AI Agent Protocols to Stay Competitive

      Zoho Flow has long been a reliable platform for automating workflows and integrating various applications. However, in the rapidly evolving landscape of AI-driven automation, it risks falling behind competitors like n8n, which are pioneering advancements

    • Important Features Missing

      Hey all I love linkthread, but i am missing some important features. I want to be able to include my Google Tag Manager. I have all the important stuff in my GTM Container: Facebook Pixel, LinkIn Pixel, Zoho Pagesense and so on. So i am able to do retargeting

    • Introducing Record Summary: smarter insights at your fingertips

      Hello everyone, We’re excited to introduce the Record Summary feature. This powerful addition makes use of Zia to simplify how you interact with your CRM data, providing a seamless, consolidated view of critical record information. Scrolling through the

    • Zoho SignForms: Prefill parameters with spaces render as “+” in the document (even when using %20)

      Hello Zoho Sign team, we are using SignForms with prefill parameters passed via URL. Spaces in parameter values are being rendered as “+” in the finalized document—even when we URL-encode spaces as %20. This is critical for us because we prefill addresses

    • Auto CC - Moving Departments

      We have Auto CC e-mail replies to your support mailbox enabled. We have two departments: Helpdesk (helpdesk@domain.com) Delivery (delivery@domain.com) If we create a Helpdesk ticket, and reply, replies are CC'd to helpdesk@domain.com (OK) We then move

    • Currency selector (based on variable) usage in comparsion

      Hi, I've developed a currency selector based on the following topic, and it's working well in pivot tables and charts: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/how-can-i-allow-my-users-to-choose-a-currency-for-the-dashboard I also have a comparison

    • Notification received when self-assigning tickets

      When I assign tickets in Zoho Desk the relevant agent gets a notification email. When assigning myself a ticket in Zoho Desk, I get a notification email. Now, as I am the person who assigned the ticket to myself, getting a notification in this regard

    • Customize Column in Projects - Default View for Template?

      Is there a way to have the columns you'd like to see added to a template? I want my customized columns to show up every single time I create a project from that template. It appears I can customize them in the template but when I create the project they do not transfer over.  Template: See below how the columns in order are : Task, Owner, Status, Assigned, Website URL, Blog H1..etc. When I create a project from that same template it comes out as: Task, Owner, Status, Tags, Start Date, End Date, etc

    • Ask the Experts 24: Analytics, data administration, and mobile experience with Zoho Desk

      Hello Everyone! Welcome back to the Ask the Experts(ATE) series! We were so focused on our Autumn 2025 release that we didn't host an ATE session last month. In this month's ATE, we'd like to expand our areas for discussion: we'd like to listen to your

    • Multi-Page Forms in Zoho Creator!

      Let’s make long applications easier to handle by dividing them into pages, adding a progress bar, and guiding users step by step through complex data entry. This would be a total game-changer for the user experience and could significantly boost completion

    • Unable to Receive Emails on Zoho Mail After Office 365 Coexistence Setup – Error: 553 Relaying Disallowed

      Hello, My domain name is bigniter.com, and I’ve been using Zoho Mail as my email service provider without any issues. Recently, I followed the steps outlined in the Zoho documentation to enable Coexistence with Office 365: 🔗 https://www.zoho.com/mail/help/adminconsole/coexistence-with-office365.html#multi-server

    • Email login error

      Login successfully but email page error

    • Shared Mailboxes Disappeared

      Zoho Mail users in our company haven't been able to see their Shared Mailboxes for the past few hours. I've checked with App and Web Access, but they can't access them. When I send emails to their addresses, I get no error messages. They're still visible

    • Remote Server is misconfigured

      Dear Team, I am unable to use email id as remote server is misconfigured. It would be really great if you could help on this and get this resolved. Thanks & Regard Rohit Gupta

    • why cant i access my email account. it keeps asking me for reverifiying my account by entering my password.

      I cant access my account. it keeps asking me for reverifcaton by entering my password. once its entered it asks for it over and over.

    • The attendees will now be redirected to the landing webpage when they exit the webinar, set by the organizer.

      Hello All, In the latest version of the Zoho Meeting iOS mobile app (v1.3.16), we have brought in the below enhancements:   Post Webinar Re-direction Revamped exit UI for Webinar Post Webinar Re-direction:  The attendees will now be redirected to the

    • Free webinar alert on October 16 - Less Complexity, More Security: Workplace + Directory

      Hello Zoho Workplace Community! Security and productivity shouldn't be at odds—and with Zoho, they're not. Discover how Zoho Workplace + Directory delivers seamless collaboration with enterprise-grade security, all in one integrated ecosystem. Join our

    • Email Recall Feature In Zoho Mail Which Should Also Work For Outside Organisation Members

      Add a feature to recall or undo sending an email within a configurable short time window (e.g., 30 seconds to 2 minutes) after hitting send, similar to Gmail’s undo send. Currently the sent email can not be recall If the recipient is not from within your

    • Workdrive and ChatGPT Team Synced Connectors

      Hi, we want to be able to integrate Zoho Workdrive with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Team plan. Google Drive and OneDrive both offer this, zoho please catch up asap. We dont want to have to put our company files in google drive, we want to allow chatgpt Team edition

    • Alias Name (on items) use case in Zoho inventory

      Hey, Hope everyone is well. Wondering if anyone can shed some light on the use case of Alias Names on Products in Zoho Inventory? Cheers, Chris

    • Updating an Invoice Line Item's Discount Account via API Call / Deluge Custom Function

      I need help updating an invoice line item's discount account via API. Below is a screenshot of the line item field I am referring to. Now the field to the left of the highlighted field (discount account) is the sales income account. I am able to modify

    • Send e-mail with attachments

      Dear Zoho, How is that possible in Zoho Flow to send an e-mail with attachment?  Just a simple example: Zoho Flow checks my Zoho mails and if the conditions starts the trigger then I would like to send an email with the original email's attachment. Any idea? BR, Adam

    • How to I get checkboxes on a subform to update via deluge

      Hello, would someone be able to tell me what I'm doing wrong here? I am trying to take the contents of a Deals subform and add them to an invoice then update the checkbox on each row so that 'add to invoice' is unticked and 'invoiced' is ticked. The output

    • CRM Related list table in Zoho analytics

      In Zoho Analytics, where can I view the tables created from zoho crm related lists? For example, in my Zoho CRM setup, I have added the Product module as a related list in the Lead module, and also the Lead module as a related list in the Product module.

    • Cadences

      I have just started using Cadences for follow-up up email pipeline. Is it just me or do you find the functionality very basic? For example, it will tell me (if I go looking for it) if someone has replied to a follow-up and been unenrolled; but it won't

    • Account in Quick View Filter

      I have a report that I often run against a specific Account. Every time, I have to go into the edit menu and change the Advanced Filter. I would prefer to use the Quick View Filter, but it does not allow me to use the one and only field that makes any

    • Add Webhook Response Module to Zoho Flow

      Hi Zoho Flow Team, We’d like to request a Webhook Response capability for Zoho Flow that can return a dynamic, computed reply to the original webhook caller after / during the flow runs. What exists today Zoho Flow’s webhook trigger can send custom acknowledgements

    • Your bot just got smarter: AI-Powered routing that reads between the lines

      What if your bot could tell the difference? Between a visitor who just needs a quick answer, someone actively comparing options, and a frustrated customer one click away from leaving? Most bots can't. They deliver the same response to everyone, missing

    • Tips & tricks: Make SalesIQ automations work for you

      Every day, thousands of visitors land on your website. Some browse, some buy, and some leave without a word. But, wouldn’t it be great if you could automatically know who’s interested, engage them at the right moment, and never miss a lead, and all this

    • Zoho Analytics & SQL Server - Live connect

      Below are the steps I did Created a fresh database and table in my own virtual server Created a new data source connection with live connect I was able to select the tables and created the data source successfully I am getting the error when I try to

    • Mapping a new Ticket in Zoho Desk to an Account or Deal in Zoho CRM manually

      Is there any way for me to map an existing ticket in Zoho desk to an account or Deal within Zoho CRM? Sometimes people use different email to put in a ticket than the one that we have in the CRM, but it's still the same person. We would like to be able

    • Good news! Calendar in Zoho CRM gets a face lift

      Dear Customers, We are delighted to unveil the revamped calendar UI in Zoho CRM. With a complete visual overhaul aligned with CRM for Everyone, the calendar now offers a more intuitive and flexible scheduling experience. What’s new? Distinguish activities

    • Urgent Security Feature Request – Add MFA to Zoho Projects Client Portal Hello Zoho Projects Team,

      Hello Zoho Projects Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to submit an urgent security enhancement request regarding the Zoho Projects Client Portal. At this time, as far as we are aware, there is no Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) available

    • Unified customer portal login

      As I'm a Zoho One subscriber I can provide my customers with portal access to many of the Zoho apps. However, the customer must have a separate login for each app, which may be difficult for them to manage and frustrating as all they understand is that

    • Microsoft Teams now available as an online meeting provider

      Hello everyone, We're pleased to announce that Zoho CRM now supports Microsoft Teams as an online meeting provider—alongside the other providers already available. Admins can enable Microsoft Teams directly from the Preferences tab under the Meetings

    • Zoho Projects - Task Owner filter at Project level

      Hi Projects Team, The feature requests I would like to raise is the ability to create a custom view at the project level for projects with tasks owned by a user or users. For example "Ashley's Projects" custom view might contain a list of project in which

    • How to display Motivator components in Zoho CRM home page ?

      Hello, I created KPI's, games and so but I want to be able to see my KPI's and my tasks at the same time. Is this possible to display Motivator components in Zoho CRM home page ? Has someone any idea ? Thanks for your help.

    • Next Page