One of the biggest things a sharp investor, particularly an institutional investor, is going to check out is your batting average on meeting your sales forecast. Don’t leave it to chance; know where it stands ahead of time.

At a simple level, they may look at it overall, from a high level. What has been your sales forecast for the past three years and how did it match up against your actual sales? They’ll be some variances there. How would you explain them? Would there be factors such as:

1. Delays in the timing of introduction of new products.

2. Inability to close on some new customers that you had expected.

3. Shifts in the market.

4. Delays in your product introduction or service offerings.

5. Insufficient funds to ramp up the sales force.

6. Geographic differences affecting your conversions to buyers.

It’s even better if you can do this analysis, breaking it down into more detail, covering by product line and do by geographic territory or by sales person. Show that it’s a number that you’ve been watching and have some reasons for it.

Suppose though, after doing this, it comes out that you didn’t score like you wanted to and you take responsibility for it, but there’s not a great reason why you just fell short. So, then the question comes, what will be different this time around? Why would you be better at it? What assurance will there be that it’s not going to be a repeat of the past? Some examples might be:

1. Maybe you had a new product and the market wasn’t ready for it. However, you know you’ve are past the early adopters and it’s ready for some broader market acceptance.

2. You’ve brought on new or different sales management/sales people and your closure rate should be better.

3. You now have a strategic alliance or other partnership that opens up the door to a greater number of prospects that you could’ve gotten into previously.

4. You have new products or new service offerings that are now in place.

Be prepared to answer questions about past sales and what’s going to be different about it. Have this covered well. Don’t just leave it to, "Well, look at my great pipeline that I have and all I’ve got to close is just a few of these and we’re going to have a tremendous business." Well, guess what the private equity firm’s going to think? You probably had a great pipeline too a year or so ago or two years ago and it just didn’t come through then. And they’re going to bet that it’s not going to come through now either, unless you show them something very different.