Daniel & Friends / Blog / GTM & Sales
You asked if the deal will land. You got a feeling, not a forecast.
Quarters do not fall apart at the end. They fall apart in the meeting where you asked the wrong question and got an honest answer.
Daniel Votruba · 15 September 2026 · 3 min read
"So, Pigeon. Are we getting it?"
"Yeah, looks good. Spoke to them last week, they were excited."
"So I put it in the forecast?"
"Sure."
Six weeks later the quarter closes and Pigeon is nowhere. The rep is as surprised as you are. Nobody lied and nobody slacked. You asked for a feeling and you got one.
"Are we getting it?" has no correct answer
Replay the scene. What was the rep supposed to say? A no undercuts their own pipeline. A maybe earns them "go find out more". Yes is the only answer that ends the conversation.
You are not asking about a fact. You are asking about confidence, and a rep's confidence moves with how the last call went.
One change fixes it. Stop asking whether it will land and start asking what you are holding.
Two things, or the deal stays out
A deadline and a named business initiative. Both, not one of them.
A deadline means a date by which something has to happen on their side. A site opening, the end of a contract with their current vendor, the start of a season. A date the rep invented to fill a CRM field does not count.
An initiative is a goal the company set for itself, with somebody accountable for it. Double revenue in Germany. Get churn under ten percent. An ops manager grumbling about a clunky system is not an initiative, it is dissatisfaction. Purchases come out of initiatives.
Without both, the deal can be as charming as it likes. It has no business in the number you promise the board.
Four categories instead of percentages
Probability percentages in the CRM are a trap. A rep moves a deal to seventy percent and you learn nothing. Replace it with a question about risk: what happens if we fail to clear this obstacle?
| Commit | Almost no risk left, waiting on signature. In the forecast. |
| Win | Risk exists and you know how to absorb it. In the forecast. |
| Push | If the risk lands, the deal slips a quarter. Out. |
| Lose | If the risk lands, the deal dies. Out. |
The difference is that this question has a correct answer. The rep has to name a specific obstacle and say what they will do about it. "Seventy percent" names nothing.
A forecast has three parts, not one
Most companies add up the pipeline and stop there. They are missing a third item that sits in their own data:
Forecast = Commit + Win + the average you create and close inside a quarter.
That last part usually runs between ten and twenty percent of the quarter and almost nobody counts it. Look at your last four quarters and see how much business was both opened and closed inside the same period. It belongs in the number, because it will happen again.
Hope does not close the gap
The difference between forecast and plan is the gap, and it closes from five places, in this order:
- Push and lose deals. Run a creative play and bring your execs in.
- Early deals this quarter that lack an initiative or a deadline. Go and find them.
- Deals slated for next quarter. Can anything be pulled forward?
- New business created and closed on the spot.
- Pick up the phone.
Notice the order runs from cheapest to most expensive. Rescuing a deal already in motion costs a fraction of finding a new one. Most teams do it backwards and go hunting for fresh opportunities while three live deals quietly expire.
What to change at the next meeting
No CRM rebuild and no new methodology. Change the questions.
- Instead of "are we getting it", ask what deadline and what initiative you are holding.
- For every forecast deal, ask for one specific obstacle and the plan against it.
- Work out your average create-and-close inside a quarter over the past year and add it.
- Close the gap from the top, from live deals down to cold calls.
The first time it will take longer and the number will come out worse than you are used to. That is fine. A worse number you can trust beats a pretty one that lands on your head in the final week.
The short version (TL;DR)
- "Are we getting it" asks about confidence, not facts. The rep has no option but yes.
- A deal enters the forecast only with a deadline and a named business initiative. Both.
- Replace probability percentages with four risk categories. Only Commit and Win go in the number.
- A forecast has three parts. The third is your average create-and-close inside a quarter, and most companies forget it.
- Close the gap from the top: live deals first, cold calls last.
Sales Leadership package
Ten tools for running a sales team, plus two spreadsheets that do the maths. One sorts deals by risk and works out the gap to plan, the other turns your annual number into calls per week.
Frequently asked questions
How do you build a sales forecast?
Only include deals that have a deadline on the buyer's side and a named business initiative. Grade those by risk into Commit, Win, Push and Lose, and count only the first two. Then add your average create-and-close business inside a single quarter.
Why do CRM probability percentages fail?
Because they describe nothing specific. When a rep moves a deal to seventy percent you learn nothing about what is holding it back. Asking what happens if a named obstacle is not cleared has one correct answer, and the rep has to name it.
What counts as a business initiative?
A goal the company set for itself with somebody accountable: double revenue in Germany, get churn under ten percent. An employee complaining about a clunky system is not one. Purchases come out of initiatives, because those carry budget and a date.
How do you close the gap between forecast and plan?
Five steps from the top down: rescue push and lose deals, add an initiative and a deadline to early deals this quarter, pull deals forward from next quarter, create and close new business, and finally pick up the phone. The order runs cheapest to most expensive.
Sources & inspiration: the risk-category framework and the gap-closing sequence draw on the work of Mark Kosoglow, CRO at Outreach · the rest from what has held up across 750+ projects of ours · and from meetings where I asked the wrong question myself.
Want this rhythm running and not sure where to start? Get in touch. We will go through your pipeline and tell you what has no business being in the forecast.