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.


      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • 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

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ



                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • View Answer Bot conversations?

                                    We are trialing Zia and are experimenting with Answer Bot on our knowledge base. So far so good! Management asks me if it is possible to view Answer Bot conversations, the purpose being to look over its shoulder and confirm that it is working as des
                                  • Add Comment workflow action delayed by 1–2 minutes in Zoho Desk

                                    Hello Zoho Support team, We are experiencing an issue with a workflow in Zoho Desk. The workflow is triggered when the Quote ID field is updated and performs two actions: A standard Field Update An Add Comment custom action When the Quote ID field is
                                  • Zoho CRM Layout Rules: Nine New Actions, Profile-Based Execution, and Interactive Preview

                                    Hello everyone, Availability: This feature is now available for customers in the JP and SA DCs. It is planned to be released for other customers in soon. We’re excited to announce powerful new enhancements to Layout Rules in Zoho CRM - a feature built
                                  • Zoho Books and TRAINING SALES receipt label for eTims?

                                    Hi, Can Zoho Books implement TRAINING SALES receipts and push them to eTims for test? In other words how can we send to Zoho or even create in Zoho training mode invoices and TEST the workflow POS>Zoho Books>eTims and back without actually registering
                                  • Reporting Tags and COGS

                                    Is there any way to get COGS recorded against reporting tags? The use cases seems very straightforward to me. If I'm running a P/L report against a specific reporting tag (I use mine for customer type, but it could be used for regions, etc.), the revenue
                                  • Hide Custom Fields for Customers or Vendors

                                    For whatever reason, all custom fields added to the Customer module also get added to the Vendor module. This leads to a clunky experience for users, as many custom fields we add only apply to one or the other. There should be a "hide" option to hide
                                  • Onboarding process

                                    I urgently need onboarding support. My account still shows trial period.
                                  • Detailed General Ledger - Display Transaction Description in Reports

                                    Hi Zoho Team, I'm currently using Zoho Books and have a question regarding the Detailed General Ledger report. When we enter a description or narration in transactions (Bills, Journal Entries, Expenses, etc.), the report does not display this description.
                                  • Which Zoho CRM tasks would you want an AI assistant to handle?

                                    I’ve started delegating my Zoho CRM work to AI – and many tasks now take me half the time. It has been so useful that we’re now working to make it available to everyone. Instead of clicking through records and tabs, I simply describe what needs to be
                                  • Zoho Mail Does Not Integrate with Analytics

                                    Hello everyone, Just wanted to make a quick post about the problem with zoho mail. Currently it does not connect to Zoho Analytics, which I think is crazy considering both of these applications have existed for a long period of time. Even zoho voice a
                                  • Net ##th Terms (e.g. due on the following 15th)

                                    I have a client who pays me twice monthly per our contract. It would be helpful to have terms on my invoices where the invoice is due on the 15th or the 30th of the same or the following month.
                                  • Project status update visibility within a project

                                    Currently the only place within Zoho projects to see status updates for a given project is actually not in the project it's self it's in the Collaboration section and then by searching for a given project and clicking on the status tab. It would be great
                                  • Using custom CRM fields

                                    I have created a series of fields in the Deals module that need to be linked to fields in a contract I have customized. I can only see how to map standard fields, not the custom ones. How do I do this?
                                  • Como limitar o Zia Agent?

                                    Geralmente quando estamos criando um agente de IA no ZIa Agent Studio, colocamos o que ele deve fazer, utilizando as instruções que colocamos no Knowledge Base. Mas como colocamos limites que não devem ser ultrapassados? Para isso utilizamos os Guardrails,
                                  • An important update for Zoho Cliq desktop users

                                    The latest version of the Zoho Cliq desktop app (v1.8.0) will no longer be supported on macOS 10.15 Catalina and earlier versions. This is because the framework we use (Electron) no longer supports some older macOS versions. If you’re using macOS 10.15
                                  • Zoho Flow - Zoho Desk trigger "Ticket created or updated" overrides Department

                                    Just in case anyone else has this issue. We had a Zoho Flow with the Zoho Desk trigger "Ticket created or updated". In the trigger I had selected a Department (Sales). What happens is that the Department ID (Sales) is submitted as part of the request
                                  • 2026 Product Roadmap and Upcoming Features

                                    This is your guide to what is coming in Zoho Vertical Studio throughout 2026. We’ll update this post throughout the year as items move from development to release, and as and when new initiatives are added. Once a feature is released, it will be reflected
                                  • Introducing Canvas templates: Design once, apply everywhere

                                    Greetings all! We're happy to introduce Canvas templates, a Forms view enhancement that enables you to design form layouts just once and apply them seamlessly across multiple modules. Imagine you use five CRM modules (Contacts, Deals, Leads, and more),
                                  • Why cant i see the Campaigns module in my Zoho app

                                    I am on the ZOHO CRM Standard edition. I can clearly see and use the Campaign module when viewing the ZOHO CRM desktop. When I switch to my phone, the Campaign Module does not show. I have gone through all the settings I can think of, but I still can't
                                  • 📣 Ask the team behind Zoho SalesIQ: Summer '26 Q&A

                                    Hi everyone! Following our recent webinars, Summer '26 Release: What's New in Zoho SalesIQ—where we walked you through all the new features, what they do, and how they work—and Driving the AI Evolution: Building Smarter Customer Experiences with Zoho
                                  • Always display images from this sender – Is this feature available?

                                    In Zoho mail, I had my "Load external images" setting set to "Ask me", and that's fine. That's the setting I prefer. What's not fine though is I always need to tick "Display now" for each email I get, regardless if I've done that multiple times from several
                                  • Set Custom Icon for Custom Modules in new Zoho CRM UI

                                  • Displayed sample tracking for multi branch setup.

                                    We have multiple branches and one of the biggest challenges for us to be able to track if a particular item is in display or not. I am shooting in the dark but I am wondering if there is a solution for the following : Each product used for display is
                                  • How do I migrate from Office 365 to Zoho Mail?

                                    Check out Advik Email Migration Wizard, this software is specially developed to move mailboxes from Office 365 to Zoho Webmail. In addition you can migrate from Gmail, Yahoo, Rediffmail and 80+ webmail servers to ZOHO MAIL. Isn't it amazing? This is an all in one email migration solution. Steps to export emails from Office 365 to Zoho Webmail are as follows; Run Advik Email Migration Tool in your system. Select Office 365 as source and enter its login credentials. Select mailbox folders and choose
                                  • Connection Issues

                                    Morning. Seems like a few of my colleagues that are offsite are having issues with connection to cliq, even when their internet is working perfectly fine and only 1 person onsite has issues. Can you please explain? Thanks
                                  • Backorder process review - Automating Removal of Sales Order from "On Hold" When PO is Received

                                    Hello Zoho Inventory Team, Currently, sales orders in On Hold status are released only when the bill for the purchase order is created. In our workflow, it would be much more efficient if the sales order could automatically move out of On Hold as soon
                                  • Which Is the best online store to buy office furniture in Australia ?

                                    The most important part of your office is the office furniture. Your office is not complete when you have not put the required furniture in place. You need a furniture in your office so that you and your employees have desks, tables, and chairs which
                                  • Add "Product Code" as available column and search criteria for Assemblies

                                    Hi Zoho Community. For product (item) assemblies, it would be helpful to be able to create a custom view search criteria that limits the view by product code or perhaps product category. Currently, Product Code is not an available option to display as
                                  • What's New - July 2026 | Zoho Backstage

                                    Hello everyone, We hope you’re having an expectation-exceeding event experience! We’ve been hard at work bringing you a bunch of enhancements designed to make event management even easier. Let’s take a look at what’s new in Zoho Backstage. Export delivery
                                  • Delete Field that is used in a Zoho Flow connection

                                    I'm trying to delete a Field used in a Webhook created by Zoho Flow with CRM Connection and i get the following alert: When going to the alert i get to the following issue, can't edit it since its been deployed by a pluggin But yes i have here the prompted
                                  • Q3 USA ZUG Meetups - Build AI Agents with Zoho

                                    Hi everyone! What if you could build your own AI agent from scratch in just one session? That's exactly what we're going to do at the upcoming ZUG Meetups across the United States, where you'll get hands-on experience with Zia Agents and explore how AI
                                  • Data Export is forcing Creation/Modified date just like reports

                                    The data export now forces you to select a created or modified date. There is not an All-Time option. This severely cripples the whole function of data export for audit purposes. If the data export (or reports for that matter), requires a date, there
                                  • Default ticket template in helpcenter

                                    Hello, I have a web form and a ticket template created. How can I make that my default ticket template? If an user clicks New ticket or create a ticket, I want that template to be the default one. Thank you for the time and info.
                                  • Zia Agents looks promising, but I still cannot deploy my first agent or connect WhatsApp after weeks of support tickets

                                    Hi Everyone, I am posting here because I am stuck and need practical help from someone who has successfully deployed a Zia Agent with WhatsApp. Zia Agents looks like a very promising product. I have watched the platform expand quickly, and I have noticed
                                  • Valid characters for use in email addresses using Zoho's apps/APIs

                                    We have found an issue with the + sign character in zoho subs - we are allowed to create a customer with an email address that has a plus sign but the API doesn't allow the + so the billing portal is not created. We are going to prevent users from using
                                  • Feature Request – Per-Channel Pre-Chat Form Controls

                                    We'd like the ability to enable/disable the pre-chat form on a per-channel basis, rather than having a single global setting. On the website widget, asking for name and email before chat starts makes sense. On WhatsApp, however, email isn't necessary
                                  • Copy + Paste in Notes: Text color and text background are not retained

                                    I've recently started using Zoho Notebook as an Evernote replacement. When copying and pasting text within Zoho Notes, I notice that the formatting of the text (text color and background color) is not retained when pasting. Only the attributes "Bold"
                                  • Need to show discount before total after subtotal

                                    Need to show discount before total after subtotal on my estimate template (see attachment)
                                  • Google Ads Data is Publicly available in Zoho CRM

                                    We recently discovered that ALL of the following Google Ads fields are visible to all users in our CRM that have access to either Leads or Contacts modules. Not only is this troubling and inconvenient, it should be unacceptable. It also creates a mess
                                  • Zoho Books bill pay option not available with zoho one

                                    Why isn't Zoho Books bill pay add-on not available for Zoho one customers not even as a purchasable option. I think this is very inconvenient for companies wanting to use this feature all in one system
                                  • Next Page