Sales teams do EXACTLY that. Go into salesforce and you’ll see the estimates.
Potential deal with client Foo will be for $X, to be signed on Y day, with Z% chance of closing.
On an individual level, it may be more precise than it is accurate, but it’s a fairly standard and important part of sales operations. And yes, the estimate dates are often just ways to express orders of magnitude (put next Friday as estimate dates not because it’ll definitely close next Friday, but bc it’ll probably take about 2 weeks). The % chance of closing are typically pre determined by what stage of the deal you’re in.
However, when applied across dozens, hundreds, thousands of potential deals, it allows the organization to understand their sales pipeline and sales velocity fairly accurately.
Of course the numbers are gamed a bit. And some sales people are much worse at estimating than others, or less consistent about keeping the numbers up to date. But the benefit of these practices are massive.
Potential deal with client Foo will be for $X, to be signed on Y day, with Z% chance of closing.
On an individual level, it may be more precise than it is accurate, but it’s a fairly standard and important part of sales operations. And yes, the estimate dates are often just ways to express orders of magnitude (put next Friday as estimate dates not because it’ll definitely close next Friday, but bc it’ll probably take about 2 weeks). The % chance of closing are typically pre determined by what stage of the deal you’re in.
However, when applied across dozens, hundreds, thousands of potential deals, it allows the organization to understand their sales pipeline and sales velocity fairly accurately.
Of course the numbers are gamed a bit. And some sales people are much worse at estimating than others, or less consistent about keeping the numbers up to date. But the benefit of these practices are massive.