{"product_id":"2940012211170","title":"Sales and Market Forecasting for Entrepreneurs","description":"This book is about pragmatic, management-oriented sales forecasting for\u003cbr\u003eentrepreneurs, small business owners, and middle managers faced with\u003cbr\u003ethe kind of practical management problems that forecasting can help prevent.\u003cbr\u003eIts main focus is the real-world sales forecast done almost every day,\u003cbr\u003enot using technical analysis or sophisticated forecasting techniques, but\u003cbr\u003erather common sense, experience, and industry knowledge. This is forecasting\u003cbr\u003ethat respects the educated guess.\u003cbr\u003eThe book is written for entrepreneurs and managers to help with practical\u003cbr\u003eand commonplace management issues. The sales forecast is a vital\u003cbr\u003etool for management, even though it’s likely to be wrong. It becomes the\u003cbr\u003efoundation of the expense budgets and, through that, cash management.\u003cbr\u003eIt begins by setting forecasting into management context. It isn’t\u003cbr\u003eabout guessing the future correctly; instead, it’s about setting reasonable\u003cbr\u003eassumptions, getting them organized into a forecast, and then tracking\u003cbr\u003eand following up so that the difference between original forecast and\u003cbr\u003eactual results can be tracked and managed. A good forecast continues,\u003cbr\u003eevery month, with regular review and course corrections. And that leads\u003cbr\u003eto better management. The process is something like steering, which is a\u003cbr\u003ematter of making regular corrections.\u003cbr\u003eThe bulk of the book is instruction by example. It presents actual\u003cbr\u003ecases, with step-by-step details, of sample sales forecasts. These include\u003cbr\u003enew products and new businesses and existing businesses. They also\u003cbr\u003einclude top-down (called trees from the forest) forecasts from the larger\u003cbr\u003emarket trends, and bottom-up (forest from the trees) forecasts looking at\u003cbr\u003edetails by customer, channel, or product. These case examples are annotated\u003cbr\u003ewith tips and traps and explanation of the underlying thinking and,\u003cbr\u003ewhere relevant, market research—and lots of spreadsheet specifics to\u003cbr\u003eempower the manager.\u003cbr\u003eAs it progresses, it does cover some of the more common sophisticated\u003cbr\u003eforecasting techniques, including an innovative strategic interactive\u003cbr\u003emodel, several examples of data smoothing and weighting, and a simple\u003cbr\u003eregression analysis.\u003cbr\u003eIn the final chapter, it gathers spreadsheet forecasting tips from\u003cbr\u003ethroughout the book to put them together where they can be most useful\u003cbr\u003eto real managers.","brand":"Business Expert Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47073406451952,"sku":"2940012211170","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012211170_p0.jpg?v=1763553502","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012211170","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}