Moe Revenue

The Canary in the Coal Mine

One of our CRO level book reviewers recently commented…

You’ve really got some powerful stuff here. The way you approach issues from a common sense, realistic position …comes through loud and clear. The path seems so obvious at times but it never ceases to amaze me how many people (CRO’s) end up so far off the mark.

He is right. Revenue is the life blood of all organizations and the CRO is responsible for its delivery yet we still see CRO’s bypassing the heavy lifting of doing the forecast audit drill-down based on the Critical Qualifying Questions that drive forecast reality.

Obviously there is some momentary euphoria (we call that the power of positive confusion) in this economy when initial forecast numbers suggest above plan performance but that is no justification for CRO’s to relax their forecast audit intensity. The forecast is the business equivalent of the canary in the coal mine in terms of identifying potential challenges.

Don’t start 2010 without a healthy canary and the commitment to keep it that way.