Understanding the Reality of Sales Forecasting

Hello there.

Welcome back to the podcast and I hope you've had a great week.

So this week I'm going to talk about a subject that I think is really important in sales roles.

Not so much if you're a business owner, although that's really important, but more about sales roles.

And it's funny because someone reached out to me quite recently and said that there was a couple of areas of sales related information that I didn't cover.

And I was looking through my rep, you know, my 700 plus videos, by the way, they're all on search James white sales on YouTube and there's 700 videos there and obviously all the podcasts.

And I've realized I've not really done much around forecasting.

So I'm going to talk today about forecasting and what good forecasting looks like, how you can forecast more effectively, some of the reasons as to why forecasting tends to be this very difficult thing to get right and what you can do if you're in a sales or business role to basically ensure that your forecast is stronger and more importantly delivers on what you say it will do.

And one of the things around, and I've learned some lessons in a forecast situation for a long period of time, but some lessons that I learned when I was a younger salesperson at one of my first companies, threecom, was some hard lessons that I learned.

There was a VP of sales there, I'll say his name actually, because I'm not sure what he's up to now, but a guy called Shane Buckley.

And Shane Buckley was a, it's fair to say, a tough cookie, let's call it that.

He was a tough man and forecasting was really important for him.

And I learned a lot about forecasting and how important forecasting was when you work for a company.

3Com, the company I worked with was, was quoted on the nasdaq.

So it's basically meant, and as I worked out in time, that the chief financial officer and the chief executive officer would have to tell the markets what their numbers were going to look like for the following quarter.

So when they were doing their update calls to see how the stock was going, they would have to give a forecast number for the following quarter.

And basically if they gave a number that they then didn't deliver, they looked as if they couldn't do their jobs to the stock market and the stock market would probably then want them out.

And as in many big organizations, and I'm sure if you've worked in big organizations, what happens at the top just sort of filters all the way down.

So Shane Buckley was the VP of sales for the EMEA region.

And EMEA was probably 40% of the revenue of 3Com, maybe about 35%, maybe.

But as well as the Americas and Asia Pacific, it was a key region.

So he was the VP of sales.

So, you know, if he was in a position where the forecast that he'd given to his management was literally, I don't know, 20% out, then he would look like he would be in trouble himself.

And Shane was very strong at being able to make sure that those that worked for him in the sales roles were able to forecast effectively.

So his approach to doing things I'm not sure would be, you know, people in HR maybe have a few concerns around it now.

But he was definitely a man that got what he wanted.

And the reason he got what he wanted is because he made people realize that their forecast was.

Was a sort of a statement of blood.

Basically, if you put your forecast in, you didn't hit your forecast then.

Then basically you were.

You were castigated and held out to account.

And I remember on a number of calls where I made the lesson once, where I forecasted some deals to come through.

I was at that time working on a large partner opportunity, some large partner opportunities, and I forecast some deals to come through, and they didn't come through.

And basically it tore a sheet off me in front of 15 other people on a call.

So I learned the lesson then that actually, you know, you've got to make sure your forecast is right.

And there's a great quote that I was hearing about forecasting the other day, which is I thought was great, which is great.

Sales.

Forecasting isn't predicting the future.

It's inspecting reality better than everyone else.

So what we've got to do within forecast is make to make is look to make sure that we have a sense of reality rather than just trying to predict what will happen.

And I think that's the bit that I'm going to say to you as part of this podcast today is really, you've got to be excellent at being able to understand reality better than as much as other people.

And that for salespeople is sometimes hard because we have our hopes and dreams and everything is brought up and we think everything's going to go in a certain way.

And then, you know, we don't sometimes use our, you know, listen.

We have happy ears, as I call it.

We listen to what we want to listen to rather than what's, what's there.

So I'm going to talk about a couple of things you need to do to be able to get right with forecasting, but a couple of other things I also tend to see an awful lot in forecasting is the first is people tend to over forecast and they tend to over forecast because they don't have enough deals in the pipeline.

Ultimately, as a sales business person, you want as many deals as possible.

I talk a lot about fat funnels.

So at the top of your sales funnel, you want as many people as possible, as many opportunities there as possible.

Because if you've got as many opportunities, if you know that you've got a large amount of deals at the top of your funnel, you don't then tend to be desperate to bring certain deals across because they will come through as they are.

And what tends to happen in a lot of forecasting situations is people include every single deal that they've got at the top of funnel.

And as I'll talk about in a moment, some of those deals are just not ready or right to be forecasted right now.

And so what do I see a forecast as being a forecast is this is what's going to happen, this is what we're going to make happen.

So if, let's say you're in a sales role right now and you're being told to forecast your month for the end of March or for the end of April, what you're being asked to do, maybe we come to the end of the Q1 for this year, you're being able to give a forecast of your Q1 number.

And the reality is if your target, let's say, is 100 and you're only at 50, 50 of that target, what you'll try and do is you'll try and forecast higher in order to get closer to the target.

Even though some of those deals that you're forecasting are probably not right to be forecast right now.

And that's the challenge that a lot of salespeople have.

So the first thing I will say to people is most of the time you're over forecasting because you want to show proof, you want to show evidence.

No one wants to turn up to a sales call and say to their sales manager or to their leader, no, sorry, my forecast is not showing much.

I was in a role temporary.

I helped out a company last year on an interim basis just for A couple of months, a customer I was working with to do some sales, interim sales directorship.

And one of the conversations I remember having with the sales team and a couple of the salespeople was, let's look at your forecast.

And you know, one guy in particular was just.

Just had nothing in his pipeline.

And the reality is, when there's nothing in the pipeline, he knew fully well that the attention was unfocused on him and what it tended to mean.

He would.

He would tend to include lots of deals that were just nowhere near moving forward from a deal perspective.

And I'll talk about what you need to show that in a moment.

So, you know, it's an embarrassing situation if you're going into a sales scenario and doing that.

And look, what I will say is, in sales, we sometimes get chances, especially if you're in a new role, you will get three to six months where people don't expect a huge amount from you.

They might want to see some sales and numbers come in, but you get some time initially to do some stuff.

And this is one of the classic elements around sales, where we've often got to do the work even when we're not going to get a result for a few months.

But know that if we do the work, then we're going to get the result in time.

And it's something I have to still continue to do when I'm prospecting.

I know that I have to prospect now because I can't forecast a deal to come through in April, May, June, July if I don't do some of the work now.

And so we have to make sure we do that element.

So look, if you're in a situation where I think you're in a forecast situation right now, what are some of the key things I think you've got to be able to do?

So the first thing I encourage you to do is to know your numbers.

Salespeople that don't know their numbers, I think tend to get caught out quite a lot.

And what are some of the numbers I think you need to know?

So I think you need to know, for a start, your average deal size.

I think so your average deal size, to me, and I always say simple calculation for this.

Take your last five deals that have confirmed, add them up and divide them by five and gives you an average.

It's not perfect science, but what's your average deal size?

So if your average deal size is 5,000 pounds, I don't know, $5,000, whatever the figure is, and you've got a number to hit, then you can start to work out how many of those deals you need in order to be able to hit your target.

So your average deal size, I think, is a really, really important thing to consider and know in order to be able to see whether you're going to have a chance of being able to hit your target.

But more importantly, be able to forecast effectively.

Because sometimes in certain sales situations, deals do change.

Buyers may want less of a product or more of a service or product.

And so you need to be able to know your average sales.

Sales size.

I think the other thing you also need to be able to know is your average sales cycle.

So what I mean by the sales cycle is how long does it take you from engaging with a potential prospect to then put in an order in?

And sometimes, again, that can be very quick.

It can sometimes happen in weeks.

Or if you're an existing role and you're working with some existing customers, it may well be straight away.

But for new business, invariably that sales cycle can be a good few months from the moment you engage them, from the moment they put an order in.

It can take some time.

So know your numbers.

And again, why is this important is because if you know your sales cycle is three weeks on average, well, there's no point you try to forecast a deal that's going to come through for the end of the month, if we're sitting here, you know, in the middle of March, when actually it's going to take three weeks naturally for that deal to come through.

So in which case, if I was to look at that deal, I'd go, I'm probably going to forecast that for the following month or the following or the month after that, rather than for the current month.

So know your numbers and feel comfortable about those.

I think the other number you should also know as a salesperson is your win rate.

So if you're presenting to or engaging with five prospects, how many of those do you normally win?

How many of those deals do you normally bring on board?

If you win every one of them, then I'm going to say to you, wow, you're doing something A, incredible.

I want you on my podcast as a guest.

But B, probably means you're too cheap or something, you know, something's not quite right because, you know, even though even the best salespeople would probably only win 60% of deals they have at the final stage.

So what's your win rate?

And also how good are you at moving people from the different stages?

So I always think about the funnel being at the Top of the funnel, you've got the people that are hearing about you and engaging with you through to then potentially having a conversation with you through to them, potentially doing a demonstration with them or an audit or some sort of initial work with them through to then a proposal through to then close.

So how many of those people have you got in each stage of the funnel?

And the reality is, I think you need to look at how you can move people through that stage and know those numbers.

So the first thing for me is know your numbers and know where you're at so that when you're quizzed as well.

One of the things I did last year when I was in that sales director role was was able to quiz effectively some of the people around the deals that they've got.

And one of the skills that I have as a sales leader is that I'm able to, I call it my sniffer dog.

And what I'll try and do is if, if I get that someone's tried to forecast me a number, I will dig into that number.

I will dig into the questions and the information they've given me.

I will start to ask questions.

Okay, what's making you so sure about that?

What evidence do you have?

Show me a bit more details, what you've got in this, in this information to prove this.

And as I'll talk about in a moment, some of the time, if you haven't got that, most sales managers are going to disregard that lead and opportunity.

But if you have got it, people are going to go, okay, you're not just giving a number and putting a finger in the air.

You obviously understand that you have to be able to hit the deals, hit the numbers that you want to hit, and you know how to do that and make that happen.

So those are things I think you've got to know for a first stage.

The second thing, and I think that you, you've got to be able to do is, is be really, really paranoid about key elements of your deals that you have and what I mean by paranoid.

So let's say again, you've got a target of, let's say your target for the month is, is 100, let's say use a simple round number.

And at the moment, you know you've got 100, you know you've got 100 is a target.

Your average sales, average deal size is 20.

So you know you need five deals across the, to come across the line to be able to hit your number.

And let's say you've got 10 deals in your pipeline.

So let's say you've got 10 deals in your pipeline.

Now, some people might try and forecast all 10, but most salespeople would go, no, I'm not going to forecast all 10, because all 10, again, using these generic figures and numbers, would give me a number of 200, which would put me double over my target.

And most salespeople know that actually the key thing is to hit your target.

And if you can go over and above it, great, but make sure you're hitting your target.

So you want to be able to look at which five deals you know you can move forward and put into your forecast that you can then hit by the end of this, let's say the end of the month or the end of the quarter, whatever it is.

So the first thing you've got to be able to do is to understand the risk to those deals.

And most salespeople are ambivalent and just shut their eyes and ears to risk.

And every deal that you have has a risk.

Right now, we've just embarked on a.

You know, the world is in a really strange place.

There's the problems going on in the Middle East.

There's more risk associated in business.

And there will be companies around the world that are going, not sure I'm going to be buying that right now, because do we want to conserve rather than.

And conserve our cash rather than spend money?

So there'll be people going, I'm not sure if that's the right thing for us to do right now.

So understand the risk associated in each of your deals and be a bit paranoid.

There's a great quote from Andy Grove, who was the CEO of Intel.

And I share this quote quite a lot because I think it's so powerful, important.

And he said, success breeds complacency.

Complacency bleeds, failure breeds failure.

Only the paranoid survive.

And I would encourage you to become a bit paranoid about the elements of your deals.

Now, I don't include paranoia as being negative.

I'm not saying you should become negative and think it won't happen, but just be paranoid about what could be the curveball that stops that deal from coming through.

So a couple of questions that I always encourage salespeople to ask three or four questions, but these three, I think are really important.

The first question is, why does the customer have to buy at all?

What is the reason for them having to buy?

Why?

What is that big why that's making them having to spend money?

What's the big challenge or issue they've got or what happens if they don't get your service in place or what are they looking to achieve?

Why are they having to do this?

And ask yourself the question, but obviously when you're talking to your key contacts at the customer, find this information out.

What's driving you guys to want to look at this right now?

What's so important about being able to make this project happen right now?

What would be the implications of not doing this over the course of the next few weeks?

You have to really get cued in and tuned in to the why of why they have to do it.

And the second why to that is why do they have to buy it now?

So, you know, if, if they're going to look to, if they have to buy a solution because they've got a problem, otherwise why now?

What?

Is it because they've run a run out of something?

Is it because they don't have enough, you know, reserves to, to achieve something in the future?

Why now?

Why?

Why now?

I'm sitting here recording this.

Why now?

Why are they going to have to make a decision on it now?

Is it because they've run out of stock?

Is it because they've got no leads coming in?

Is it because they've got a specific problem right now that if they don't fix it, will cause a bigger issue down?

I don't know.

But why now?

Ask yourself the very hard question, why do I have to buy it in this month?

Because if you want to forecast it in this month, you've got to be 100% sure that the buyer is going to say, yeah, I need this right now.

We need it to be able to do what we need to do.

And then the other question I encourage you to think about is why you?

Why us?

Why your company?

So the customers and business people and buyers that you talk to have different options.

They can have options to buy services from products from lots of different people.

So why are they buying it from you?

Why your company?

Why us?

And again, what is it that you offer?

Is it something unique that you offer as a service?

Is it because you've created a brand that's then becoming in demand from people?

I don't know.

But just ask yourself the question, why us and what?

That's all.

What, you know, what the why at all, why they're buying, why now?

Why us are doing is literally making sure that you, as a salesperson, don't get complacent, I guess is the key word into thinking that everything's fine, everyone's okay, and.

But suddenly, you know, something comes in the way, which we haven't thought about.

And I've seen this happen time and time again of things that could get in the way of the deal.

Things that could happen that people say, oh, I never thought that they'd have a new managing director that would come in, or I never thought they'd even think about our competitor, or I never thought that there'd be a decision to put budgets on hold for the time being.

So the reality is businesses and the clever salespeople get inside the mind of their buyer, but also the companies and understand the organizations that they're working with and they get clever at trying to think what could become a risk here.

They get clever at being able to look at the markets to be able to understand is the company that they're working with a listed company and have they just put bad results onto the stock market, in which case if they have, there's probably going to be a push from the senior level of people to put a hold on spending money, which might then mean your deal might not go ahead.

So have a look at the narrative around the customer and the company you work with to make sure that you feel comfortable around what's going on in their world and what's going on there.

Because I think that's a really, really critical, critical thing for you to think about doing.

And I always say to people, what could get in the way of the deal?

What could get in the way of that deal happening?

What are the circumstances?

And again, if you're day to day doing this and you feel okay, but even in the end of an evening, grab yourself a coffee or a glass of wine, whatever works, and just do a bit of a brainstorm.

What could get in the way?

What could stop this deal happening?

Who could stop this deal from happening?

And you know, it's really important that you also include in here some proof and some evidence.

So for me, one of the, one of the biggest challenges that salespeople tend to have is they focused on their activity rather than the buyer's reality.

So what evidence you have?

Do you have an evidence, an email, for example, from a buyer from someone buying your service that says, we have to get this resolved, we have budget to spend before April.

I don't know what are the things that you've currently got in there?

So what proof and evidence do you have from scene even that's not just ideally Hearsay.

Sometimes people will hear things from individual salespeople, from people they're selling to, but, but that person's then got to go and talk to someone else.

So that is hearsay and it's nice words, but it's not evidence and proof that they have to do something or want to do something.

So for example, I was helping with a client of mine a couple of weeks ago who basically said in terms of the timings and the evidence, I saw an email that the person sent that said they had to move their provider by the end of February, otherwise they'd have to tie in for another two year contract.

And they didn't want to do that because they felt, felt the service wasn't good enough.

So they had to move by the end of February.

So in which case then that was the proof and evidence that we know we needed to be able to say, right, this is what we need to do and that deal could be forecasted.

So really understand that the evidence and the proof that you have to make sure that the deal that you're wanting to forecast.

And again, it's about forecasting, this is about saying I will deliver that deal by that time.

So make sure you've got some evidence behind that.

And I guess the other factor then to finally to add into that is around understanding timing, especially the larger, the deal that you work on.

So larger deals take time.

Why?

Because more people sometimes need to be involved in the process.

You get procurement and other different departments involved.

So if you're trying to forecast a large deal, I would be in a position where I'm giving myself, especially if the deal is, I don't know, over 30, 40, you know, in the high, you know, thousands of figures.

I'm giving myself probably at least a minimum six weeks, a month to six weeks before I would even consider whether that deal might come through.

Why?

Because by the time you get people together in meetings, people tend to be on holiday, different people have, aren't around you.

Then once the deal is agreed, you then have to go through maybe procurement or legal, which then takes two or three weeks for people to get things signed and sealed.

So timing is really, really critical on deals and you've got to work out who they've got to talk to and what that looks like and how things come together.

So I really encourage you to think about understanding the time frames.

And there's a great phrase that I've always learned, which I take into account when I'm, when I'm forecasting, which is plan conservatively, execute optimistically so if you think from it, let me repeat that plan conservatively.

In other words, don't think it's going to be done by the end of March.

Give yourself the end of May, and then if you can execute it and bring it into April, great.

But give yourself that bit of time.

And that's not trying to sandbag every deal you've got and make sure that you say, I've got nothing coming in, but I've got everything coming in in May.

But it's also trying to be aware of the timing, because the other key thing around forecast, and again, this is something I've done with companies, is good sales leaders will dig into the deals you've got.

So tell me a bit more about that deal.

What's happening there?

Why are you pushing that for.

For April, May?

And if you can then go back and say, well, the reason I've done that is because person X is on holiday, they've got to go through legal.

That's going to take this period of time.

It's going to take two weeks.

So I've given myself an extra four weeks to get that deal through, even though I think it could get in before then.

Because the reality is that's.

That's fair.

That's fair based upon what's likely to happen and what could happen in that business.

Now, of course, salespeople and sales leaders will always say, can you do anything you can to bring it forward and bring the deal in?

And sometimes you can do that.

But the most important thing is for you to be able to know what's going on with the deals that you've got.

So be paranoid about these key elements of the deal, understand what could get in the way, and understand the timing that goes on with these deals itself.

Okay, so those are some of the things to add to your numbers that I think you've got to be really focused on from a forecasting perspective.

A couple of other things that I'd encourage you to really tune into when it comes to your forecast.

And again, this is linked into, you know, every deal.

And these are some of the sales basics that I talk about a lot.

The first one is ignoring or misreading buyer signals.

I think a lot of the time, salespeople tend to, again, I've said this for rage before, have happy ears.

They listen to what they want to hear rather than what's really being said.

And the challenge around having happy ears is that if you just listen to what you want to listen to, you sometimes miss the core essence of what might be being put in place there, which might well be what we're keen to go forward and do this, but we've also got some other things we need to work through first.

Which basically means, you know, whilst you might hear I'm keen to go forward, the reality is it could well mean that they're putting some other things above a priority.

So this might take two or three months more to get done.

That would be my set take on it.

I'd be looking, listening to the words that they've said or what they're actually thinking before we get, before we get to how they've said it before I get to thinking, okay, this must mean that they're going to buy by this period of time.

Time.

So really, you know, and I've done lots of videos and podcasts on reading bias signals, been able to an expert listening to tone the way in which your voice comes across, the way in which their voice comes across.

I think these are such important signals to be able to pick up on and I think you need to be able to spot them.

You really do.

So I really encourage you to look at these sort of signals and make sure you misread them.

And again, don't, I'm not saying be negative, but just question yourself what's making them do this?

Why us?

Go back to those three why questions that I've mentioned.

Just sanity check it.

Because again, like I learned a hard lesson with Shane Buckley.

I heard something from a prospect, I thought, yeah, great, I forecast the deal.

And then basically something happened in that business and again in that situation there, I think it was something to do with a problem that occurred, an economic problem in a country that basically meant that some other funding was pulled, another project was pulled which meant my project was pulled before.

You know, I was then going into a forecast sales meeting and saying not nothing's going to happen.

When I told this guy, this VP of sales the month before that it was going to happen and he tore me apart for it because he said to me, you didn't know your details, you didn't have enough awareness of what was going to happen.

You should have been able to forecast and understand that that was going to take place or you should have had other stuff to come in and replace that.

I more deals in the top of your funnel.

So just be careful how you ignore or misread the buyer signals.

I think the other key thing that I would say is a couple of small set of sales related points to deals themselves that I think you need to think about as well.

Are sometimes being a bit emotionally attached to sales deals.

I know this feeling again because we've all been in sales where we get, we get attached to a deal because we think, oh wow, the deal size or the deal value is particularly high or we felt we've had a really good relationship with one person in the company or the numbers of the deal make us go, wow, it sounds big.

And so we get our emotions attached to it.

What that does is it means that we then forget about the logic and the reality that might happen here.

And we also in many cases need to be take that emotion out of the deal and go, right, actually, okay, what's going to mean, you know, what's the core cold light of business decisions that have got to happen here to make this come to come to life?

And have you been too emotionally attached to people or the words people have been giving you rather than thinking seriously and you know, practically around what they're actually the words that they're saying.

And in many cases, you know, we think, oh, they're such a lovely chap, they'll make it happen, they'll do things, they're nice people, they're that she's a lovely lady, they'll get it done and we become emotionally attached to them rather than looking at the facts and the figures and the stats and the evidence to show whether that deal is likely to happen or not.

So those are the key things that I feel.

And again, using evidence, not just feelings, is something I think is so, so important when it comes to forecasting.

What evidence have you got that this can happen?

And if you don't know that evident you don't have that evidence, then you're potentially going to face a much, a much bigger challenge as a result of that.

So a couple of final points before we finish today that good salespeople I think do is good salespeople will try and remove weak deals from their pipeline.

Don't include deals on there because nothing frustrates a sales leader more than seeing the same deal for the last six months and then thinking, actually, well, you've told me that one loads of times before.

When, when's it ever going to happen?

So actually be able to remove weak deals from the pipeline shows that you've actually taken that emotion out of it and said, no, I've had a conversation, I've lost that or we're not going to get that through because for whatever reason it's not in my forecast to include it.

So removing weak deals from your forecast I think is really important.

It Shows you've got some emotional intelligence to be able to see what's right and what's not going to happen at certain stages.

And I guess the other key thing for me is to know what the next step is.

So one of the things that I would also say to any deal that you've got in your forecast right now is you should have a clearly defined in your diary, but also in the buyer's diary, you should have a clearly defined next step.

And I think what I mean by next step is you should know what's going to happen.

So you've got a meeting, for example, taking place on 21st 20th March or whatever the date is, or you've got a call to go through something with that prospect or that buyer.

You should have a definitive lead date, next step.

That's also in the buyer's diary.

Not just your diary, because again, we put them in our diary thing.

I'm going to call them on this day.

But is the buyer expecting that call?

Are they actually thinking that calls going to be something powerful and useful for them?

So the thing I would be most 100% looking at is what's the next step?

And if you're forecasting a deal to come through that doesn't have a next step happening anytime soon, then I'm questioning that.

I'm thinking that's probably not going to likely happen or it feels weaker for me as a forecasted opportunity than some others.

So look, these are my thoughts on forecasting.

It is a challenge.

Forecasting is a real challenge.

Of course it is.

But like I said at the start, great sales forecasting isn't predicting the future.

You.

It's trying to inspect reality better than everyone else.

And I think if you can start to really look at the reality of the situation and what's happening, what's going on, and start to look at your pipeline, your deals and what's going on.

You can be in a position to work things out in a far better way than just being able to put your finger in the air and think, hope that will be okay.

Hope is not a strategy.

The only strategy you've got to be able to do is to go through your deals, have conversations, have the right conversations, ask those right questions, find out really what's making those three whys, or find why's that we talked about.

And if you don't get the answers that you need, you then got to put more on top of the funnel to make up for that.

And that's the only way you're going to be able to hit the numbers that you want to and to be able to hit the forecast numbers that you want to.

So these are my thoughts on forecast and I hope they've helpful, but let me know if there's other questions you've got.

If this thing I do, you know, one of the things that this, this person came out, he reached out to me and dropped me an email.

So feel free to drop me an email at hello, ameswhite business connect on social media, LinkedIn, any social channels.

Always happy to communicate and engage with people.

I love hearing the sales challenges that you have and talking about those on podcasts and videos and other resources.

That's what I'm here to do.

It's what I'm here to do because I want to help you achieve your sales numbers that you've got.

So if they have got other questions you've got, let me know what they are Very happy to get involved and to support you in that way that I can.

And this is an area I think is actually one we haven't covered before and we should have done.

Forecasting is so important, especially if you're in a sales role.

So hopefully this has given you some tips and ideas on how to help you.

So what I wanted just to do is, as I always do, finish the podcast on an inspirational story.

And this inspirational story this week is around a lady called.

And I've done this because the weekend it was International Ladies Day and there are some incredible ladies in the world.

I work with five brilliant ladies.

I'm going to share that on my social media posts in the next week or so because the five ladies that are important and run my world, as it were, so hugely important to what they.

But this lady is a lady called Sue Hickey and Sue is from Essex in the UK.

She's 67.

But she just continued to decide to focus her time on doing a number of activities.

She did a number of activities, swimming, running, walking to support people.

She started to do fundraising events.

So even though that she was diagnosed with breast cancer herself, she was doing other things to help inspire other people and to raise money to try and fix these issues.

And again, when I think sometimes when we're in difficult moments or tough times or whatever else, it's also very easy to think about ourselves and feel sorry for ourselves.

But I think Sue Hickey's case, there is a good example of someone that said, no, not just going to think about myself.

I'm going to do what I can to help others at the same time.

So so she's my inspirational story for today.

So that's it for the podcast this week as hope you've enjoyed.

As ever, please come back to me with comments, questions you've got.

Please share the podcast if this is helpful for you, share it with other colleagues.

Let's get them and also liking and subscribing and commenting rating podcast even that would be great for me.

If you can rate us and help us improve the visibility of the podcast to help more people, that would be fantastic.

But as ever, it's my pleasure to share some ideas and thoughts with you.

I truly hope to the bottom of my soul that this gets you some increased results and gets you winning more deals and business.

If it does, let me know as well.

Those success stories mean the world to me.

It's why I do what I do.

But until next week, have a great week.

Stay safe and I'll see you soon.

Take care.