Next to the bottom line, the forecast drives budgeting, resource allocation, investment, positioning, strategic planning and promise to shareholders. An accurate forecast can always lead to a sound company, but when it is inaccurate, there is always trouble. Multiple components contribute to a sound forecast. It starts with hiring, managing and motivating a top performing sales team.    Achievence provides strategy and hands-on development to help sales teams meet the critical performance objectives of a sound business forecast. Every Achievence engagement begins with a complete sales audit. During this audit, the sales team itself is interviewed and the associated sales processes, tools and systems are examined. Although there are hundreds of components to consider when building a successful sales team, we have found some current conventional wisdom concepts to be ineffective and often counterproductive. Hiring Practices Often, companies require specific backgrounds from their sales candidates that include learned or acquired capabilities, such as a candidate’s industry experience, past quota performance, Rolodex, and relationships with potential buyers. Yet these criteria have little to do with the likelihood that a sales candidate will be successful. In a recent Achievence survey of more than 1,000 sales people, only 22% achieved quota goals within two years of their start date (only 8% in venture backed, start-up technology companies). Standard hiring practice led to a failure rate of nearly 80%. Compensation, Territory and Quota Objectives Compensation should encourage the right behaviors from the sales team and be properly weighted between base and performance components. Territories should be managed for maximum production. This means reconsidering geographic lines in favor of aligning strengths of client types with the appropriate sales person. Quotas often need addressing, as single objectives can be stifling and are often not properly reverse engineered. Finally, performance appraisals must be carefully developed to include quantitative and qualitative objectives, not just sales and revenue results. Sales Force Automation and Forecasting All sales info must be captured and managed through an effective and easy-to-use sales force automation tool. This tool must not be seen by the team as simply a method, used by management, of monitoring sales activity. It must also provide business intelligence that helps the sales people and the organization become better at achieving predictable and repeatable sales results. The forecast portion must also have prediction criteria that are clearly defined with close attention to progression and buying motivators.