Forecasting - Or Fortune Telling!

For this last show of 2025, host Steve Vaughan is joined by the "two Jonathan's" - Cooper and Slasinski to delve into the critical topic of sales forecasting. The team discuss the definition of forecasting, its importance in sales management, and the best practices for achieving accurate predictions. Topics include the role of data, the challenges faced in forecasting, and the dynamics of teamwork in achieving sales goals. The episode concludes with practical tips for improving forecasting accuracy, emphasizing the need for clear communication and understanding within sales teams.

Steve Vaughan, Jonathan Cooper, Pru Layton, Christian Walter, Pascal le Floche,  Jayne Green  and Jonathan Slasinski are Sales Trainers from george james ltd.  You can email the show at:  Podcast@georgejames-training.com

 The trainers on LinkedIn:

 Steve Vaughan https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-vaughan-salestrainer/
Jonathan Cooper https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-cooper-18716b1/
Pru Layton https://www.linkedin.com/in/pru-layton-b46a3528/
Christian Walter https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-walter-a1857b1/
Jayne Green https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayne-green-salestrainer/
Pascal Le Floch-Riche https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascal-le-floch-220ba46/

Jonathan Slasinski https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-slasinski-449a655/

george james training website https://georgejames-training.com/

Transcript

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Steve Vaughan (00:00.846)
Hello again and welcome to The Luxury of Choice, a B2B sales and business podcast brought to you by the training team of George James Limited. My name is Steve Vaughan. I'm a trainer here at the George James team, and I'm also the host and the producer of this podcast. And this is our last show before the Christmas holiday season. And I'm joined here by not one, but two, Jonathan's, which is going to be very, very, very confusing. Jonathan Cooper and Jonathan Zlizinski. So I'm going to open for this.

ease of communication. I'm going to call you JC and JS. So Jonathan Cooper, JC, how are you, sir?

Jonathan Cooper (00:36.415)
very well indeed thank you just recovering from our day in Birmingham Steve took me on a tour of three fantastic pubs and a very nice Indian as well he's got in yeah for the listener he's got yes we yes sorry about yes yes absolutely he's done

Steve Vaughan (00:38.296)
Good.

Steve Vaughan (00:47.288)
There was some business as well, I should say. wasn't just...

Jonathan Slasinski (00:52.078)
I was gonna say, I was just gonna say that doesn't sound like much business got done, but.

Jonathan Cooper (00:56.019)
Yeah, yeah. was, he was a student, just for the listener, he was a student there, so it was an intimate knowledge of the best places in Birmingham. Yeah, so real good thanks, yeah. Looking forward to the great.

Steve Vaughan (00:56.664)
You

Steve Vaughan (01:03.278)
Yeah, that was 40 years ago, Jonathan. Yeah, no, had a planning meeting and Birmingham is halfway for both of us. But yes, it did involve going for a beer and a curry afterwards, which would be, it would be a shame not to in Birmingham. anyway, and Jonathan Zazinski sitting over there in California, we know what the hell we're talking about. How are you, sir?

Jonathan Cooper (01:11.869)
Yeah, it did. Yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (01:21.28)
I'm doing fantastic. Just beautiful sunny day here. Finally, we've had the marine layer. You know, it's just so rough here. You know, when you have a marine layer and it's gray, everyone doesn't know what to do. But we got the sun this morning. So it's kind of

Steve Vaughan (01:22.894)
good.

Steve Vaughan (01:34.058)
If you can, I might finish the podcast early because it's absolutely chucking it down here. It's horrendous biblical rain. I've just driven up the M40 from a meeting and it's took me about an hour and a half to do 30 miles. yeah, not.

Jonathan Cooper (01:34.247)
Very good.

Jonathan Cooper (01:46.493)
and in Cumbria it's pitch black outside. I've just looked out the window.

Steve Vaughan (01:49.507)
Yeah, same here. Yeah. It is four o'clock, we should point out. It's supposed to be black at this time of day. Anyway, let's get off to today's topic. And it's a topic which I know is close to all of our hearts. And any sales manager listening to this will also have a strong empathy with this topic. And that's forecasting. We've called the episode Forecasting or Fortune Telling. It's a really important topic, whether you're in sales management, you're a salesperson, whatever aspect of the commercial team you're in.

Jonathan Slasinski (01:50.872)
Hahaha

Jonathan Cooper (01:54.258)
It is, yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (01:55.395)
That is true.

Steve Vaughan (02:19.136)
Forecasting is super important, but let's go right to the start, right back to the beginning and let's just revisit what do we mean by a forecast. Jonathan Cooper, JC, what do we actually mean by a forecast? What is a forecast in sales?

Jonathan Cooper (02:32.937)
Well, a forecast to me is simply a prediction. And I should say an accurate prediction. We could talk about what accurate was. An accurate prediction of the business that you intend to secure and irrespective of what you are selling and whether that be for orders or sales or revenues, an accurate prediction of what it is you intend to secure, business you secure over a fixed period of time.

Steve Vaughan (02:36.93)
Yep. Yeah, we'll come into that.

Jonathan Cooper (03:02.175)
So whether it's a month, whether it's a quarter, six months, year, two years, whatever that happens to be, that fundamentally is it for me. And it probably comes with some basic information, like the name of, preferably with the name of the customer, exactly what you're selling to them and the value of that piece of business as well. We will, yes.

Steve Vaughan (03:02.459)
Right.

Steve Vaughan (03:07.124)
Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (03:15.534)
you

And I'm sure we'll come into that in a bit in a bit more detail. Yeah. So, Johnson's, Lusinsky, JS, do you mean by what does forecast mean to you? Anything different or anything additional?

Jonathan Slasinski (03:29.891)
Well.

No, think, I think Jonathan's good. It sounds like he's kind like a walking Oxford English dictionary. There was really, really good definition, but I love the fact accurate, right? Accurate time bound. I look at a forecasting from three perspectives. One, when I was a rep, one, when I was a manager and then the other one, when I was an enablement trying to teach our, you know, our companies, how do we forecast correctly? And I'll say as a rep, it was kind of like, just, just read my funnel. Like you should know, you should kind of know what's coming in. But then as a.

Steve Vaughan (03:38.702)
You

Steve Vaughan (03:53.74)
Right, good point.

Jonathan Slasinski (04:01.808)
was like, it's a lot, it's a little bit more complex than that.

Steve Vaughan (04:02.766)
Hahaha.

Jonathan Slasinski (04:06.606)
And then as an enablement, it was like, okay, well, how do we set up a process to make sure this is as efficient and kind of effective and accurate as possible? And there's many ways you can do that. And I've seen it. I've seen the gamut of how you set that up, but I think Jonathan kind of nailed it on the head. It's really about the accuracy kind of being time bound and a prediction, right? Cause it is, it's, you know, it's fortune telling, it's an art, it's a science, it's all that kind of stuff together.

Steve Vaughan (04:11.278)
sure.

Steve Vaughan (04:17.112)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (04:23.362)
And again, I'm sure we'll come onto that. Yeah.

Jonathan Cooper (04:34.847)
Yeah, it's also by the way for me in terms of what is it it's also a great test of your ability as a salesperson you could argue that actually it's the num you know if if you know that measuring accuracy is is a brilliant way to assess your effectiveness as a salesperson you know and It's one thing hitting your revenue number or your orders number. It's another thing delivering an accurate forecast So in terms of what is it as well?

Steve Vaughan (04:35.534)
You

you

Steve Vaughan (05:02.7)
Hmm. It absolutely is. Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Cooper (05:02.815)
actually it's a test of how good you are at what you do. Somebody once said to me when I missed the forecast, do you really know your customers, Jonathan? Do you really understand them? Very fair comment. Heart and heart for the bear.

Steve Vaughan (05:11.63)
It is a fair comment. it is. So why does it matter though? I mean, I know, you know, can imagine not this time of year, but probably in January when we're all back after the holiday season, you know, first thing that will happen is, right, what's the forecast for Q1 and, you know, salespeople roll their eyes and everything else. And why does it matter? Why do salespeople, sales managers spend so much time talking about forecasting? Why does it matter?

Jonathan Slasinski (05:40.034)
Well, I mean, I think as a company, we're here to drive revenue, have profits. And to me, it's it's all right. How do we understand what kind of revenue we're going to have? How do we understand what's going to happen? Are we going to meet growth targets? Are we a public company versus a private company? Because you have to publish those numbers and you have to make sure you're potentially showing growth or whatever it is. But I love kind of what Jonathan said in the, you know, previously what which was it really is about knowing your business, right? Like I used to love.

Steve Vaughan (05:56.876)
That's a big point.

Jonathan Slasinski (06:10.008)
we would have these kind of forecast calls and we weren't hitting the number, but we were hitting our forecast and everyone was patting themselves on the back because we were hitting the forecast, but that wasn't the goal for the year. So it's kind of like, okay. But it is about knowing your business, right? Then that's kind of what it comes back down to.

Steve Vaughan (06:12.173)
okay. Yeah, so that's different between accurate forecasting and acceptable forecasting, which is a different, another conversation.

Jonathan Slasinski (06:31.502)
True. Exactly.

Jonathan Cooper (06:33.193)
Yeah. Yeah. And, and, know, and there are, goodness me, I mean, we could probably spend the rest of the podcast talking about the business reasons why it's so important. But, you know, just two or three things that, you know, I would always point to, of course, from a, sort of been able to, you know, forward planning from a financial perspective. a lot of investment decisions are made off the back of that, off the back of a forecast. And,

Steve Vaughan (06:41.133)
do a whole series.

Jonathan Slasinski (06:41.88)
Sure.

Jonathan Cooper (07:02.975)
And if there's any signs that forecast is going to be missed, then hey, we can get very nervous in So about projects that we might be investing in, whether that's more in R &D, whether that's more marketing programs, people in the sales organization, whatever it happens to be. Huge impacts on that.

Steve Vaughan (07:08.747)
Hmm. Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (07:21.281)
High rink, yeah. Yeah, all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Cooper (07:25.927)
Of course, you know, from an operations and production perspective, I think that's probably the one that most people would sort of read out first, you know, hugely important there as well. You know, making sure that, you know, we've got everything we need to, you know, to meet the revenue, meet that revenue number that we've committed to. yeah, incredibly important from a, you know, from a just business perspective, across a number of topics. There's just a couple from my perspective, at least.

Steve Vaughan (07:31.851)
Yeah, of course, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (07:43.854)
It is, yeah. And we've all got an instrument background and the kind of instruments that we used to sell that weren't sitting on the shelf waiting to be picked like...

Jonathan Cooper (07:55.433)
that are key.

Steve Vaughan (08:02.573)
You know, TVs and electronics still, you most of them were built to order or built based on some kind of prediction. So it's that important, isn't it? Really, to be being able to meet your customers expectations and never have to say sorry to a customer. It's now going to be another six months because we got the forecast wrong. So it is is that important. So so in terms of approaches to forecasts, then, you know, I think in an ideal world, it would be, I guess, just press a button and a number fell out. You know, the sales process was so

Jonathan Cooper (08:07.775)
Sure, yeah, yeah.

Steve Vaughan (08:32.237)
being followed so well, everything was working so well that a manager could just press a button and there's the forecast and off we go. But in reality, I guess it's never quite like that really. So in both of your experiences, what have you seen as being best in class or best ways of approaching forecasting?

Jonathan Slasinski (08:52.046)
I would, it's funny because I've seen the gamut as I've said before, you know, we had at one point there was nine stages of forecasting between forecasted strong upside, mid upside, weak upside, you know, right? It's just all these layers. And to me, when I was a rep, I was like, come on, like strong upside versus weak upside. exactly. Right. You know, it's those things.

Steve Vaughan (09:05.623)
Gosh, wow.

Steve Vaughan (09:16.053)
even mean.

Jonathan Cooper (09:19.007)
Yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (09:21.558)
And again, to me, when I was in enablement, it was like, okay, well, how do we, how do we just simplify this? Right. And to me, was. Forecasted upside.

working and then at risk, right? So just try to, to me, it was always like, how do we take what is it is? It can be complex, right? You're, looking at funnels, you're looking at instruments, you're looking at things. How do we kind of make this? So it can be pretty simplified, right? And to me, it was just kind of reduced to stages and make sure the stages matter, right? That people understand what's going on. Why is my, why am I putting this into forecasted? Why am I putting this into upside? Why am I putting this into working and then at risk? But then of course, that's

Steve Vaughan (09:33.675)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (09:38.667)
Hmm. Yeah, it sure, yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (10:01.2)
where the fortune telling comes from. Cause now it's about you've got these things bucketed. Well, what out of upside is going to come in? What out of working is going to come in? And now it's, it's that's, that's the fortune telling part of it.

Steve Vaughan (10:16.567)
Sure. So what about you, Jonathan Cooper? What about you?

Jonathan Cooper (10:17.949)
Yeah. gee, gee, that's a, I mean, it's a great topic this because, you know, I can only be completely, I can only be honest here because there's probably enough people that know me from my various, from my career to know that this wasn't something I was always very good at. Okay. I this the hard way and, you know, whether I was a salesperson, sales manager, you know,

Steve Vaughan (10:41.691)
Same here.

Jonathan Cooper (10:48.019)
Senior sales leader, you know with a pretty sick, you know with a big team. I learned I learned this the hard way I Think for me, it's a great point that you've raised there Jonathan I think I think first of all, you know knowing your language and And having an understanding of what all of those terms mean is really really important in forecasting So if you have a process in your business top tip for me, whatever your role do make sure you understand what that process is what the what the words mean

Steve Vaughan (11:07.243)
Yeah, super.

Jonathan Cooper (11:17.407)
And if there is no definition, I think it's really important you have a definition. So that would be one thing. Something else that's critical for me is that I think when I understood that forecasting is based on data, facts, and validated information, that helped a lot. That moved it away from the fortune telling and the guessing game into something that was real. And again, I can think of some forecasts that I prepared that

Steve Vaughan (11:22.573)
you

Steve Vaughan (11:33.793)
Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (11:42.268)
Ciao.

Jonathan Cooper (11:47.805)
weren't great. Why? Because they weren't based on facts, and validated information. But if I'm really open with people, I think it comes down to, at the end of the day, was my sales funnel clean and healthy? So whether I'm selling instruments or actually, and I would bucket into this, large consumables deals are every bit as complex and difficult, arguably more so in some cases.

Steve Vaughan (12:09.575)
yeah sure yeah absolutely.

Jonathan Cooper (12:14.109)
you unless you have you build that clean and healthy sales funnel, forecasting will always always be almost impossible. mean, as I was taught, forecasting is just an output. It's an output of having done some other things extremely well. And one of those things is building a clean and healthy sales funnel. And as people know, who work with me, I am passionate about that clean and healthy funnel. Because if you build that

Steve Vaughan (12:21.997)
Mm.

Steve Vaughan (12:28.845)
doing all the right stuff, yeah.

Jonathan Cooper (12:39.869)
then the forecast, know, forecasting is easier. I never say it's easy because it isn't right. But it's definitely easier. But that, those for me, clean and healthy sales funnel, know, fax data and validated information and, and make sure you understand your, your, your, your rules and your guidelines and the language associated with it. So that, you know, you're, you're, you're operating, you know, in the, know, effectively interpreting things in the same way, same labels, things like that.

Steve Vaughan (12:45.229)
No, it's not. No, it's not.

Steve Vaughan (13:08.833)
Super points and often I think one of biggest challenges with forecasting is that we're not going to qualify. So we don't qualify properly, we don't know who the right people are, we don't talk to the right people, we don't have an understanding of what the customer's purchasing process is, we're not talking to purchasing even. One of the biggest causes of forecast slippage in my experience is that we've never had the T's and C's conversation or we have it too late.

Jonathan Cooper (13:18.013)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (13:32.909)
So, you we think it's going to come in at the end at the end of the quarter, but then we find out we're going to spend three months arguing about terms and conditions, which we could have been doing while we're waiting for things to to move forward. lots of reasons. One of the things, and like your thoughts on this one, but you know, I've managed consumer business, I've managed instrument businesses, I've managed combinations of both. And there is some some mathematics you can do on things like run rate and stuff with, you know, consumables type businesses really. But I've never been a fan of

Jonathan Cooper (13:42.515)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (14:01.9)
You know, this is a 20%, this is a 40%, this is a 60%, this is an 80%. So let's factor all that up and get a number. I've never been a fan of that. I don't know about you guys, but it never works.

Jonathan Cooper (14:06.175)
you

Jonathan Cooper (14:11.423)
No.

Jonathan Slasinski (14:11.466)
No, I agree. I don't think it, I don't think that works. this is, I have these things at 90%. Yeah, great. Because inevitably what happens in a forecast, something drops out, right? So yeah, I've never been a fan of those numbers, but I am in a fan of

You know, the progression through the funnel and again, back to what JC was saying is are we clean and healthy? Right? Cause if we have a clean and healthy funnel, those funnels that are down at that kind of end stages, you should have more confidence that those are going to come in. Right? Now it might not be 80%, 90 % confidence, but if we've done the qualification, we should be able to make a great call saying, you know, these guys told me on February 15th, they're going to purchase this. I'm forecasting that. Right. Now something could happen with the T's and C's where maybe we have to push it out. Right. But that's where you're at risk.

Steve Vaughan (14:37.048)
Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (14:57.456)
risks are, that's where we have to really be. Again, this kind of goes back to this accuracy, right? To me, was always, you know, we're gonna have weekly forecast meetings in the first month of the quarter.

I don't know if that's something that's great, right? Because your funnel and your forecast is gonna get more accurate as the quarter goes through. Like those beginning weeks is where things are still just trying to kind of hash its way out. So, that's kind of it. Like I always got annoyed at the percentages, but I also got annoyed at every, in the first quarter of the month, every week I'm giving you a number, like things really aren't changing that much. It's that second month and it's definitely that third month of the quarter where,

Steve Vaughan (15:18.5)
Hopefully. Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Cooper (15:30.463)
No.

Steve Vaughan (15:32.685)
No. yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point.

Jonathan Cooper (15:35.069)
Yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (15:40.812)
things really start to come come to come to life.

Jonathan Cooper (15:42.247)
Yeah, yeah. So I think, I mean, I'm not a big fan of percentages either, okay. I see them get used actually, and sometimes I see them get used very effectively. I think it part and part comes down to sample size. So I was never a brilliant academic. I was never a brilliant mathematician. But I do remember my statistics at school and when n becomes significant.

Steve Vaughan (16:02.412)
Mm-hmm

Jonathan Cooper (16:09.555)
You know, I think there are circumstances. I think especially, you know, when, you know, a sales leader, you know, is consolidating a whole string of forecasts from a whole, you know, from a whole series of salespeople or sales teams. The sample size is such that you can apply statistical techniques to it. And I've seen it work. I think especially when you don't allow the salespeople to actually call the percentage, the percentage is assigned to the sales stage.

And again, it comes back to having a clean sales funnel because if we put all of our opportunities at the right stage, okay, and that's clean, then those percentages for sure could be used by people at a higher level in the company for sure. And that's fine, okay?

Steve Vaughan (16:38.368)
Absolutely right. Yeah, yeah. You're so right about the sales people not deciding subjectively what the...

percentages is yes some people are naturally pessimistic you know and those typically are spurs and Liverpool's fans some people are naturally optimistic and you know glass half full sorry that was a football reference which floated past both of them but some people in all seriousness are a bit more optimistic than others my view on the percentages is you don't sell half an instrument you either sell it or you don't you know so above a certain level whatever the percentage is

Jonathan Cooper (17:01.023)
Correct, Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's right.

Jonathan Cooper (17:24.477)
No, that's right. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (17:29.768)
It's forecasted. It means it's in really. And whether it's 80%, 90%, whatever, it's, the word, I know, Jonathan, I know this is word that you love. It's committed to, we're committing to the business that that sale is going to happen. And that's, think is a key word in forecasting. And I learned it very early on in my career at Thermo Fisher really where dealing with big numbers and big instruments, know, Steve, it's a commitment. The process was run by finance, not by sales. It's a commitment to that particular number.

Jonathan Cooper (17:31.399)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Cooper (17:43.583)
Correct. Yeah.

Jonathan Cooper (17:57.811)
Yep. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (17:59.87)
and that particular number of units. And if you haven't got it, you better go and find it.

Jonathan Cooper (18:04.723)
Yeah, yeah. And I was taught it was a promise. It's a great, it's a promise that that's how seriously it is taken. I've got some stories around that, but I can't really repeat them on the podcast, but there was certain, there's certain things, know, that promise, you know, was really, really important. And I think that it helps people understand just how serious this is and actually how important this is. So.

Steve Vaughan (18:07.775)
Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (18:28.468)
It it's the UD, but it's not the auto sampler. It does, yeah.

Jonathan Cooper (18:31.699)
You know, I think again, when I think of percentages like you, Steve, somebody once said to me, so you put that in at 50%, Jonathan, is that the left half or the right half? You know, or was it that they could have said the top or the bottom, the top half or the bottom half? You know, and then it really, it really then makes you think that, you know, that A, this is serious. So yes, I've seen percentages work when the sample size is such and yeah, great.

But I think at an individual salesperson level, there is no better discipline than doing it on a deal by deal basis, building that, making sure that everything's at the right stage. You know, the close dates are accurate. The, you know, the revenue number on the, on the deal is, you know, is accurate as it can be. Right. And of course there's always small changes and things that happen. But again, if we, if we talk and it'll probably open up into this, but if we're talking to the right people, then, you know, there's every chance that.

Steve Vaughan (19:05.789)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Of course.

Jonathan Cooper (19:28.937)
you know, we'll get the information we need to, you know, certainly improve from where we are today. And hopefully the listener will leave with maybe one or two tips about things they can do to improve their forecast accuracy. Again, well, yes, know, do purchasing have a part to play in this? I suspect in some cases they absolutely do. No question, but there's more people than that involved as we know. yeah.

Steve Vaughan (19:41.111)
Going toward the purchasing for starters, yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely. What are your thoughts Jonathan Zalazinski? What are your thoughts?

Jonathan Slasinski (19:57.304)
Yeah, I you know, as we keep thinking, I was just trying to think back to like when I was a rep giving a forecast and like, you know, it felt good when you hit it, right? Like when you, when you knew it felt good, like, Hey, I did the right thing, right? I'm doing my job. Here's my boss. But I was also thinking about times when my manager would come back to me and be like, we need a little more from you. What can you do? And now you're like, okay, you got to go back to your funnel. Where am I? What could potentially I push up? What could I close?

Steve Vaughan (20:13.291)
Great point. .

Jonathan Slasinski (20:26.784)
And those are the times where like, all right, cool. Hey, look, I think I can get you this, right? And then all of a your forecast bumps up. And now that's the added pressure as a sales rep that you have. and just felt good to kind of be able to work those things. But I've also had the flip side where I've gone to my manager, like, yeah, that a thousand dollar equipment. It's not coming in this quarter. Boom. So now we're in the hole and he's asking somebody else to see what else, what else they could, what else they could, you know, flip up.

Jonathan Cooper (20:38.015)
Bye.

Jonathan Cooper (20:48.829)
Yeah, correct. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (20:48.896)
Absolutely.

Jonathan Slasinski (20:53.526)
And then, you know, when I put my manager shoes on, it was always like, uh-oh, we're not going to be making forecasts. Now everybody else above me is going to be looking at me as to why we're not making this.

Steve Vaughan (21:02.913)
You better believe it. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Absolutely.

Jonathan Cooper (21:05.033)
Yeah. No, I was just going to say, and that's where the team play becomes so, so important. you know, if you, if you do miss in the court and look, there's always mishaps. I've always said that things happen sometimes that. Okay. It's easy to say that a lot of things beyond our control and yeah, there are some things, right. And mishaps happen, but you know, does the team have that, does the team itself have that, you know, have those risks covered in some way? you know, you might miss one quarter, but maybe a team member can help you out that.

Jonathan Slasinski (21:15.372)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (21:29.671)
Hmm. Hmm. you

Jonathan Cooper (21:34.451)
that quarter or that month or whatever period we're talking about here. yeah, it's yes, there's a huge onus on the individual to get this right. But I think the team has got a part to play as well. You know, especially for the sake of the health of their sales manager for sure. But hey, the sales managers can work together as well. We're all in this together. And that's the key thing, I think as well to remember here.

Steve Vaughan (21:55.159)
Of course. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, I say this to young salespeople that I train, you new enroll and I say, you know, if you want a long successful career in this industry, it'd be great to forecasting. It's a real measure, as you say, Jonathan, of your sales skills as your rink craft really. And here's the thing, by the way, dear listen, if you don't know this already,

Jonathan Cooper (22:10.067)
Yeah.

Correct. Yeah, it is.

Steve Vaughan (22:19.019)
under forecasting and over delivering, he's almost as bad as missing a number the other way. I did some training for a company earlier this year, there was a guy there who had brought a million dollar order in that the business wasn't expecting a nice big order, but actually it was creating a problem because they didn't have the available inventory to make the product because it wasn't forecasted. you know, it's,

Jonathan Cooper (22:36.221)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And from a shareholder perspective, that's astonishingly or investor perspective, whatever, you know, whoever we talk about there, that is one of the most frustrating things they see, right? You know, there's an opportunity that, you know, to make some additional revenue, cut some additional profit or earnings. We've not been able to do it because we didn't see it coming. Yeah, absolutely. So you're dead right. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (22:50.635)
Mm.

Steve Vaughan (22:57.513)
Yeah. Because you can't ship it. Good news, bad news, but no surprises. Yeah.

Jonathan Cooper (23:05.342)
The numbers, the number, you know. Now look, the reality is if you come above your number, I shouldn't really say this, most of the time, you will not be told off. I don't think I was ever told off for exceeding my number, but you're dead right. It's just as, it's actually, you know, it's still wrong, okay? It's still wrong. But no, it's not.

Steve Vaughan (23:15.135)
No, no. It's not accurate, is it? No,

Jonathan Slasinski (23:15.393)
Hahaha

Jonathan Slasinski (23:27.0)
But it's also, but it's also that call because I am again putting my it's that human nature. It's right. You know, we want to, we want to look good. Right. So it would always be like, you know, my first, first quarter, my call out and also my manager be like, that's a little low. Don't you think? Well, it's a little low because I want to exceed it. You know, I mean, it's just, just, just two months left, you know, that I want to do this. but I think what, what JC was saying about, know, when we think of.

Steve Vaughan (23:36.107)
Hahaha!

Jonathan Cooper (23:44.219)
Yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (23:51.971)
when working together in teams and Steve, you're talking about training, you know, newer people on forecasting. You know, if you happen to work in a team environment, it's, it's this whole thing about being inspired by the success of others. I used to work with a colleague who was fantastic at this. mean, I would talk to, I would talk to them.

Steve Vaughan (23:55.996)
Mm. Mm.

Jonathan Slasinski (24:09.75)
And they would know almost every order that was coming in that week. I'm getting 16 grand here. I'm getting 32. And I'm like, like, wow, he really, really knows his business. Meanwhile, I was just like, yeah, I think, I think I'm going to get maybe 20 this week. Right. Yeah. Or exactly. Or, or hope. And then like every day I'm watching the bookings report. Did I get that order? And then I get this order. And

Steve Vaughan (24:16.796)
Wow.

Jonathan Cooper (24:22.557)
Or I hope.

Jonathan Slasinski (24:31.182)
I learned from I learned from them, right? That was the best part was like, what are they doing? Oh, they know they know purchasing, they know when when things are coming through. And it actually just made me better at keeping account of my orders so that I can actually give that that that, you know, that better call. But I do think there is something about, you know, are we sandbagging because that used to be the I'll look at that number that this person game out or, you know, it's like.

Steve Vaughan (24:38.421)
Yeah.

Jonathan Slasinski (24:55.47)
Again, I think that's more human nature in the beginning when we do these things because we always want to succeed, right? You know, we want to succeed, but that goes back to JC. Is it accurate? Right? When a rep is giving that call, what's really the accurate number?

Steve Vaughan (25:07.558)
It's better to know at the start of quarter, if the quarter does look bad for whatever reason, it's better to know accurately at start of the quarter and be able to do something about it rather than kid ourselves it's going to be a great quarter and then what does it happen? It falls off a cliff on week 12, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, you know, so yeah, it's better to know. It is better to know.

Jonathan Cooper (25:13.151)
Correct.

Jonathan Slasinski (25:13.304)
true.

Jonathan Slasinski (25:19.52)
Everything falls off, exactly.

Jonathan Cooper (25:20.474)
Yeah, yeah, it's a great point. It's been being I mean, that was something I love be absolutely honest and upfront about this. Right. So, so, you know, report it as it is. It's facts, validated information based. Yeah, but they can be absolutely honest. Right. And if your forecast number doesn't meet the you your tart your sales target number, then okay.

Steve Vaughan (25:35.121)
Absolutely.

Jonathan Cooper (25:45.503)
That requires a conversation, but it's much more of a positive conversation in my experience than the one that follows because you've committed to a number at the beginning of the quarter and it keeps your manager happy because they're thinking, great, look at that number that Jonathan's just submitted. that's perfect. But within one month into the quarter, there's no sign of any of it.

Steve Vaughan (25:50.643)
Hmm. Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (26:02.556)
Hang on, you're picking on Jonathan. You could have picked on me as well.

Jonathan Cooper (26:11.007)
And they get it. Are you sure Jonathan? yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure that's gonna I'm sure that's gonna happen. Half way through and it's not there. it's right that that's now not necessarily a very positive conversation. So Yeah, but one thing I would just add about Jonathan's call on you know, if things if you are asked to pull something in additional and it happens and I guarantee you you work in a team you work in a

any sort of company it's going to happen. Please make sure you go prospecting to fill the gap that you've almost certainly got for following quarter.

Steve Vaughan (26:44.808)
That's a great point. That's a great point. Yeah, because you probably brought you forward from the quarter next quarter and then also you've got a big hole where that quarter used to be. Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Cooper (26:53.021)
That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Because I've always worked on the basis that I learned very quickly that no one will remember that you brought that additional business in to cover a gap. That's okay. You know, that's the rule. Yeah. No one forced me to move into sales and do this job. So you just accept the responsibility. Go prospecting. Okay. Fill that gap. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (27:00.202)
No, no. Especially finance managers, they have very, very, very, very short memories.

Jonathan Slasinski (27:06.846)
Exactly.

Steve Vaughan (27:15.092)
super point. So we're coming up into, well we're a week before the holiday season and Christmas day. So in the spirit of the season, one Christmas present for all of our listeners listening to this from both of you now, a great tip or something you think that somebody who wants to get better at forecasting should think about over the holiday season. One from each of you who would like to go first. No pressure guys.

Jonathan Slasinski (27:38.543)
Yeah, I'll start. start. I again, I don't think it's, it's not really a gift that makes them better forecasting, but I think it makes them better as a sales rep or manager. And it's, it's this ability to step out of your role and understand that your actions affect.

Steve Vaughan (27:44.638)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Steve Vaughan (27:51.882)
Great.

Jonathan Slasinski (27:53.967)
So many more people, you know, when you're a rep, your actions affect your manager. When you're a manager, your actions reflect, you know, the VP and kind of what we started talking about at the beginning. A forecast means so much more than just the number. It means marketing. It means production, right? It means, are we building enough instruments? we, are we ordering enough to make the enzymes to do the consumables that we're selling? So I would just say, you know, as my Christmas gift, try to step out of your own role for, for an instance, you know, put that EQ hat, that emotional

Steve Vaughan (28:15.146)
Absolutely.

Jonathan Slasinski (28:23.92)
intelligence head on and understand that what you do affects a lot of other people around you. Of course we want clean and healthy, we want that accurate, we want the best thing that you can do, but just know that the number you give does affect a lot of other people besides you and your manager.

Jonathan Cooper (28:27.177)
Yeah.

Jonathan Cooper (28:39.197)
Yeah. And I just add Jonathan, you know, two other groups of people that sometimes we don't think about when we're forecasting. It can affect our service colleagues and it can have a huge impact on our colleagues in the support role, FAS, know, field applications type role. It can have a huge impact on them if they've, you know, any method development work to do or any training to do as part of the, know, the acceptance. So yeah, that's a great one.

Steve Vaughan (28:39.528)
Super, love that. Great point.

Jonathan Slasinski (28:49.88)
True. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (29:07.442)
Super point. Your Christmas gift. Brucey bonus. Yeah.

Jonathan Cooper (29:09.023)
So I guess I've got two really, because I'm generous at Christmas. So what I can do is just relate the biggest, so what had the biggest impact on my ability to get this more often than not right? What changed for me was understanding the strategic importance of the deal, okay?

Steve Vaughan (29:35.626)
Okay, tell us more.

Jonathan Cooper (29:35.871)
So if you're selling larger consumables deals, you're selling larger capital particularly, and it's not just coming out of some sort of operational budget that's already been pre-approved and the cash is made often signed off by the guy, maybe the lab manager, even potentially the person behind the bench, okay, it depends. But I would say that understanding the strategic importance of that deal.

to be placed at that moment in time is absolutely critical. We meet scientists, don't we? And they've got this amazing passion for what they do. And that what makes them great at what they do is why they invent such incredible things. But for them, too often, of course, their project is the number one game in town, isn't it? It's the only game in town, right? The company's bound to back this project, right? I've been told I can go and get a quote and we're gonna buy this. Yes, they might do, but the timing is everything.

Steve Vaughan (30:04.031)
you

That's a great point.

Steve Vaughan (30:25.474)
Okay.

Jonathan Cooper (30:33.497)
you know, and, you know, we have to remember sometimes that, and this isn't going to look good, as a, as a, from an audio perspective, but we've got a pile of money that's so high. Okay. And we've got, you know, often a pile of projects that are way, way higher than that, that are looking for funding. So if somebody has to make a decision, right. And the, the, the day when I started finding that person who, or getting to that person often via my sponsor or my champion.

Steve Vaughan (30:41.322)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Steve Vaughan (30:50.43)
Yeah, absolutely right.

Jonathan Cooper (31:02.047)
When I started finding that person and understanding the strategic importance of the the piece of business it changed my forecast accuracy forever So and that was the first one. That's the first gift the second one I'll be real quick Steve because I know you want to wrap up Was do you understand the buying process of the company because how many times have we heard it's in purchasing? Okay

Steve Vaughan (31:11.844)
That's a great point. Okay.

Steve Vaughan (31:27.594)
Are you stealing mine now?

Jonathan Cooper (31:30.789)
What actually happens in purchasing, right? Because often things can get lost in there. And I've seen some deals held because we didn't understand that IT needed to sign it off. And actually this time of year, you know what? They finished yesterday. dear, right? Or the legal team need to sign it off. by the way, they finished the day before. So they're not there to do this, right? So making sure that we know what those final steps look like, because we may need to get involved, create a sense of urgency.

Steve Vaughan (31:44.458)
Hmm.

Jonathan Slasinski (31:45.934)
Thanks

Steve Vaughan (31:50.538)
Absolutely.

Jonathan Cooper (31:58.877)
right, to really get people to do what needs to get done to get this deal over the line. So those would be the two things for me, okay.

Steve Vaughan (32:05.29)
Great points. I'm smiling because this is the time of year we're normally doing all this kind of stuff the week before Christmas and then showing our age, but equally standing by the fax machine waiting for the orders to come in and hoping that, yeah, fax. know exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So mine was going to be around purchasing as well. But basically if you're sitting down to look at your Q1 forecast over this week, which perhaps isn't a bad idea, and you've got things in your forecast for, if it's not Q1, but for the first quarter in 2026 anyway, if you're...

Jonathan Cooper (32:10.534)
Yes, yes.

Jonathan Cooper (32:16.371)
Thanks.

Steve Vaughan (32:34.868)
Businesses are different fiscal. If you've got things in their forecast that you believe are gonna happen and somebody from purchasing hasn't told you that, do you really believe it? Can you actually be 100 % confident that it's gonna happen? If you've got something in your forecast and you think it's gonna happen in that particular timeframe and somebody from purchasing hasn't told you, go and find somebody from purchasing and see what they say, because you might have a completely different answer. So that was mine anyway. Jonathan, Jonathan's.

Jonathan Cooper (32:42.303)
Yeah.

Jonathan Cooper (32:57.673)
Great.

Jonathan Slasinski (32:58.733)
Great gifts, great gifts.

Steve Vaughan (32:59.816)
Yeah, exactly. Aren't we generous at Christmas, We haven't even got our Christmas sweaters on. It will go out, so we're recording this on the 18th of December. It will go out potentially on the 19th, but certainly before the 20th.

Jonathan Cooper (33:00.575)
Great joke, yeah. Even though... When will this go out, Steve?

Jonathan Cooper (33:14.638)
fantastic, great stuff. So they are genuine gifts. Good, okay. Yeah, yeah, not New Year gifts. That's lovely. Good.

Steve Vaughan (33:17.31)
They are genuine gifts and I think it's only appropriate in that case that we then just wrap up by saying, first of all, thank you both. Thank you both, Jonathan's. Five, it, five gold rings, four calling birds, three French ends, two Jonathan's and the partridge in the pear tree. Yeah, I had to dig deep for that one. So what are you both doing for Christmas? Obviously individually, any plans for Christmas?

Jonathan Cooper (33:26.876)
Thank you.

Jonathan Cooper (33:32.351)
Very good.

Jonathan Slasinski (33:33.143)
it is.

Jonathan Slasinski (33:43.127)
Just some family over, gonna see some friends and family and then just love that. I love that week just to try to reset. know, I mean, the year is gonna come right up, but I just love the fact that a book, quiet, reset, and then January 2nd comes, let's go.

Steve Vaughan (33:50.632)
Yeah, so important.

Jonathan Cooper (33:51.187)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (33:57.256)
Yeah. Super point.

Jonathan Cooper (34:00.723)
Yeah, two daughters and all their attachments. So house will be full, but looking forward to seeing them all should be great.

Steve Vaughan (34:01.253)
yeah.

Steve Vaughan (34:07.859)
And grandkids of course, yeah.

Yeah, brilliant. We've got much the same. My Christmas present is a new granddaughter, albeit well if everything goes to plan. So that's something to look forward to as well. So and can I take the opportunity to wish all of you out there listening to the show a wonderful holiday season. If you do celebrate Christmas, have a Merry Merry Christmas and we wish you all also a fantastically successful and prosperous and enjoyable 2026. We're going to have a couple of weeks off now for the holiday season to regroup ourselves. We'll be coming back.

Jonathan Cooper (34:17.454)
that's nice. Good.

Jonathan Slasinski (34:20.589)
awesome.

Steve Vaughan (34:39.966)
towards the end of January with a new podcast. Until then, have a great time, happy selling, and we'll talk to you soon.