Forecast Models

There are two ways to model traffic or pipeline volume in revenue streams - Forecast Models and Conversion Rules.

  • a Forecast Model directly creates new customers for the customer contracts of its revenue stream using different forecast drivers and targets, e.g. a volume of New Paying Customers is created when Sales Teams - having a monthly "New Customer" Target - achieve their target or a volume of New Signups is created after Marketing Budget has been spent.
  • a Conversion Rule connects two customer contracts (within the same or in 2 different revenue streams) and simulates upselling/downselling logic, e.g. additional volume of Paying Customers is created when 10% of signups convert into Paying Customers on a monthly basis.

Forecast Models - Drivers and Targets

A Forecast Model allows to define how many new customers of each customer type are signed up as leads or contracted as buyers every period. Forecasts create the volume required to grow and scale your business, e,g. traffic volume (new leads), pipeline volume (new opportunities) or customer volume (new customers). Select the Forecast Model which best suits your go-to-market approach. How do you scale your business over time? By the number of New Customers (e.g. if you directly sell to customers online), by the number of New Sales Teams (e.g. if you follow an inside or outside sales model), by the number of New Sales Partners (e.g. Distributors or Point-of-Sales),  by the revenue target set for your company, sales teams or sales partners or by the marketing budget available?

Note: How best to define a 'Customer' depends on the revenue stream which you are modelling as part of your Customer Licefycle. These might be Leads, Signups, Opportunities, Trials, Buyers, …
Which Forecast Model to pick?

Each Forecast Models combines a Forecast Driver and a Forecast Target.

  • the Forecast Driver describes your Go-To-Market approach - how to scale your business over time, e.g. by the number of "New Customer" or "New Sales Teams" or by "Revenue Targets" or "Marketing Budgets"
  • the Forecast Target defines the target metric for each forecast driver, e.g. how many new customers  a or sales teams sign up or what the size of the Revenue Target or Marketing Budget  is

If you click the Tab icon next to the metrics, you can use the the Lean-Case Spreadsheet widget to adjust the data series for drivers and targets over time, e.g. to define the exact points in time when you hire a new Sales Team or to define how the target of the new Sales Team ramps up.


List of Forecast Models

The table below lists the available Forecast Models - when you can apply them and describing revenue drivers and revenue targets 

New Customers

... if you sign up leads or users via direct mechanisms (e.g. ads)

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Define "New Customer" Target incl Ramp-up for the business

New Customers per Sales Team

... if you follow an inside or outside sales model

Define Hiring Plan for "New Sales Teams"

Define "New Customer" Target incl Ramp-up for each Sales Team

New Customers per Sales Partner

... if you follow an indirect partner sales model

Define Hiring Plan for "New Sales Partners"

Define "New Customer" Target incl Ramp-up for each Sales Partner

New MRR

... if you sign up paying subscribers directly with a revenue target for "New MRR" (New Monthly Recurring Revenues) 

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Define "New MRR" Target incl Ramp-up for the business

New MRR per Sales Team

... if you sign up paying subscribers  following a direct sales model

Define Hiring Plan for "New Sales Teams"

Define "New MRR" Target incl Ramp-up for each Sales Team