I spent nine years at Avnet Technology Solutions, one of the largest technology distributors in the world. I rose to Customer Operations Manager, where I was responsible for forecasting $1 billion in annual revenue and tracking every order from sale through shipment and billing.
Most of the business owners I work with now run companies a tiny fraction of that size. The lessons still apply, and they’re cheaper to learn from someone else.
A forecast is a habit, not a document. The number you write down in January matters less than how often you compare it to what actually happened. A monthly check, even 30 minutes long, tells you early when sales are drifting and gives you time to react.
Follow the order all the way to the cash. A sale isn’t finished when the customer says yes. It’s finished when the work is delivered and the invoice is paid. Many small businesses track the first step closely and lose sight of the rest. That’s where money leaks: work done but never billed, invoices sent but never followed up.
Know which handoffs break. Every business has a few points where work passes from one person to another: sales to scheduling, scheduling to the field, the field to billing. Most problems happen at those handoffs. Write down who owns each one.
Small numbers deserve the same attention as big ones. At $1 billion, a 1% miss is real money. In a small business, one lost customer or one unbilled job can be the whole month’s margin. The discipline is the same at any size.
None of this needs expensive software. A shared spreadsheet and a standing appointment with yourself will get you most of the way.
Danielle Lemons is Vice President of Operations at DirecTech Connect, a Nashville provider of business phone systems, managed IT services, websites and digital marketing. More about Danielle.
Also published on Medium.
