The Weather Channel said it was 40 degrees out. That is too cold to play outside. I decided to take the girls to an indoor play place.

Outside we went, coats and all. As we stepped out into the sun, it became clear. It was warmer than 40 degrees. It was more like 55 and felt like 60 plus. We left the indoor play area after an hour and played outside.

Sales has it’s Weather Channel. It’s the CRM systems. It’s the pipeline. It’s the dashboard. It’s the metrics watched, and fretted over everyday. Like the Weather Channel, sales systems and metrics only tell part of the story. They take all the data, add it up and tell you what’s going on.

But also like the Weather Channel, sales systems can be wrong. The only way to know what exactly is going on is to get outside and see.

To know what’s happening with your sales team, you have to get outside. Dashboards, CRM, sales processes, and spread sheets only tell us so much. The rest comes from experience, and that only comes from feeling the rain drops, the sun, the wind and the snow. It may or may NOT be what the Weather Channel is telling you.