📌 Stage 3 · Pipeline & Forecast · Sales Pipeline CRM · Weighted Forecast · 30–40 min

Value times weight, summed with judgment

Learning goals

  • Compute each deal's weighted value and round it honestly
  • Sum weighted value across open deals into a defensible forecast
  • Read the gap between raw pipeline and weighted forecast as risk

Concepts

One multiplication, done once

Weighted value is the deal's value times its stage weight - nothing more. The register computes it per row so the number is auditable deal by deal, not buried inside one clever dashboard formula. ROUND keeps the arithmetic clean to the cent; on this sheet the weights are exact tenths and quarters so nothing actually rounds, but the guard costs nothing and protects you when you tune the weights to something like 0.33.

=ROUND($H11*$I11,2)

OPP-107: $18,500 in Negotiation times 75% = $13,875.00 - the single largest line in Northgate's forecast. The 2 rounds to two decimals; the dollar format comes from the column.

The forecast, stage by stage

Sum the weighted column over the six open deals: Negotiation contributes 13,875 (OPP-107); Proposal 4,800 + 3,650 = 8,450 (OPP-108, OPP-109); Qualified 2,850 + 5,500 = 8,350 (OPP-110, OPP-111); Prospecting 540 (OPP-112). Total: $31,215. Notice what the weighting did to the ranking - the $22,000 school pilot (Qualified) forecasts at $5,500 while the $18,500 hotel renewal forecasts at $13,875. Money follows maturity, not size.

Against the $74,200 raw pipeline, the gap is $42,985. That gap is not pessimism; it is the value the weighting says still has to be earned. Watching it shrink as deals advance - or balloon as low-stage mega-deals pile up - is the single most useful early-warning reading a pipeline offers.

💡 Tips:

  • Quote the weighted number to your bank and the raw number to nobody. The raw pipeline is an inventory, not a forecast.

Practice

Fixed case (Jan-Jun 2026, aging date Jun 30, 2026). Pale-green cells are formulas; white cells are typed entries. This lesson opens on Opportunities.

  1. Type the weighted value — J11 is blank. Click it and type =ROUND($H11*$I11,2) then Enter. It returns $13,875.00 - eighteen and a half thousand dollars of hotel renewal at 75% odds.
  2. Check the smallest line — J16 (OPP-112, Prospecting) shows $540.00 - $5,400 discounted to 10%. Same formula, honest odds.
  3. Total the open forecast — In any scratch cell below the table (row 18 works) type =SUM($J$11:$J$16). It returns 31,215 - the weighted forecast of all six open deals.
  4. Read the gap — Compare with the open value you hand-added in Lesson 7: $74,200 raw versus $31,215 weighted - a $42,985 gap that advancing deals must close.

Online exercise

The spreadsheet below is editable — follow the practice steps right on this page. Steps that need ribbon menus should be done in your own Excel with the downloadable practice file.

表格加载中…

Checklist

Work through each item; when every box passes, this lesson is done:

  • ☐ J11 returned $13,875.00 (OPP-107: $18,500 at 75%)
  • ☐ Summed the open weighted column to $31,215 against $74,200 raw
  • ☐ Can explain what the $42,985 gap means and which deals are earning their way across it