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This is the concrete forecasting method behind the opinionated answer: it walks through pipeline count times win rate times deal size, then upgrades it to stage-weighted probability with a worked example (Discovery 10%, Evaluation 25%, Proposal 50%, Negotiation 70%), so you build a number from your own deal-by-deal reality instead of a top-down fantasy. It also names the trap directly, calling out 'happy ears' and rep sandbagging, which is exactly the vanity pipeline that later contradicts your bank account.
Bottom-Up Sales Forecasting: Formula, Examples, and Process
From Weflow by Weflow 15 min read
- Forecast by summing each deal weighted by its stage conversion rate, not one blanket win rate, so a fat top-of-funnel does not inflate the total
- Replace the vendor's default stage percentages with your own historical close rates per stage as soon as you have enough closed deals to compute them
- Pipeline hygiene (killing dead deals, fixing stale stages) is the foundation of a forecast you can defend to investors, not busywork
