Forecast.
aka sales forecast, forecast call, commit and best case
Your best guess at the number, before it happens.
What it actually means
A forecast is a prediction of how much a team or company will sell, earn or spend in a coming period, usually a month or a quarter. In sales it is the number reps and managers expect to close, built from the deals in the pipeline and judgment about which ones will really sign, and it is updated as deals move.
A sales forecast is not the same as a target. The quota is what leadership wants you to sell. The forecast is what you honestly expect to sell. Many teams split it into categories. Commit means deals you are confident will close this period, the ones you would bet your reputation on. Best case adds deals that could close if things go well. Pipeline covers everything else that is alive but uncertain. So a rep might say: commit $80,000, best case $120,000. Leaders roll these numbers up to tell finance and the board what the quarter is likely to look like.
Forecast accuracy is how close the prediction lands to what actually happened, and it matters because hiring, spending and investor expectations are often planned around it. Two bad habits get in the way. Sandbagging is lowballing your forecast so you look like a hero when you beat it. Happy ears is the opposite: hearing a vague yes from a buyer and treating it as signed. Both make the number less useful. A trusted forecaster is not the one with the biggest number, but the one whose number is usually right.
Where you'll hear it
I don't need optimism, I need accuracy. Walk me through your commit deal by deal, and tell me what has to happen for each best case deal to move up.
Translation: show the evidence behind every number you are calling, and be clear about what is solid and what is still a hope.
Also in finance, where revenue and cash forecasts drive budgets and hiring plans, in operations and supply chain, where demand forecasts decide how much stock to order, in earnings calls, where public companies may give guidance on expected results, and in CRM tools that categorize every deal into forecast buckets.
The pop-culture version
Your weather app says 70% chance of rain tomorrow. That is not a promise it will rain. It is a best estimate based on what the data shows right now. If you check again tonight, it might say 40% or 90%, because the clouds moved and the app learned something new.
A sales forecast works the same way. On Monday a rep calls a deal commit because the buyer said yes to the price. On Wednesday legal raises a concern, so the deal slips to best case. The forecast is not broken, it is doing its job by updating.
What makes a weather app worth using is that its 70% really means rain about seven times out of ten. A forecast earns trust the same way, by being honest and consistently close, not by always sounding sunny or always predicting storms.
The practical rule: forecast what the evidence supports, not what you hope or fear. If you cannot name the next step, the decision maker and a realistic close date, the deal probably does not belong in commit.
Say it like you mean it
“I'm moving the logistics deal from commit to best case, because procurement just added a security review we didn't plan for.”
It updates the forecast with a specific reason, which is exactly what leaders need to trust the number.“Put me down for the full quota, I've got a good feeling about this quarter.”
A feeling is not evidence, and a forecast copied from the target tells leadership nothing they did not already know.You will also hear that a deal slipped, meaning it moved into a later period, or that someone called the number, meaning they gave their forecast. And a forecast that lands within a few percent of the result is often described as tight.
A practical guide to building sales forecasts that reps and leaders trust, covering forecast categories, deal evidence and ways to improve accuracy over time.
Decoded next
Decoded by the Kurums editorial team. Kurums Decoded translates the language of business for people who are new to it. Definitions are kept short on purpose; the serious version above goes deep. Nothing here is financial, legal or career advice.
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