Catching Sand Baggers

Sandbaggers. We’ve all seen them. Hey, maybe we’ve been sandbaggers ourselves. We aren’t here to judge. This is a safe space. Safe for us, but for current or future sandbaggers, we’ve got bad news. 

We see you. You won’t get away with it, not for long. 

How do we stop sandbaggers? Data. 

Specifically? Data in Clari. 

• Pulse — Pacing Line

  • Use Pulse to check your team’s performance against the purple pacing line to avoid that hockey stick at the end of quarter

  • Go back to previous quarters and see if your team has a tendency to hit their number, but only in the last few weeks of the quarter

• Pulse — Scope

  • Zoom into specific reps to see how their forecast changes week by week

  • Ask yourself…

    • Are there sudden large jumps in their forecast? 

    • Do they always hit their number despite a low call at the start of the quarter?

• Flow and Waterfall — New Category

  • Depending on your business, the New category can be great for identifying deals that were created and are now slated to close within the quarter

  • If this is a pattern over multiple quarters for a rep, they may be sandbagging!

• Dashboard — Deal Prioritization Widget

  • With your team’s inboxes connected, Clari can display incredible insights into deals where there is low activity but a high CRM score

  • Use the legend in the widget to find earlier stage deals that have a high CRM score

• Dashboard — Scope and Top Deals Widget

  • Use the Scope to zoom into individual reps and see their top deals

  • Are any of the top deals in later stages but with a close to end of quarter close date? Those deals may be getting help back for next quarter! 

• Opportunity Grid — Close Date Sort

  • Sort deals by Close date to see any instances where deals close at the very end of a quarter

  • Deals with late close dates are suspect to slip, perhaps intentionally

• Opportunity Grid — Close Date Group

  • Another easy way to get similar insights to the point above is to use your Close Date field as a Group

• Opportunity Grid — Details

  • Check the notes for any deals that reek of an attempted sandbagged deal 

  • Make this a part of your regular deal inspections 

• Opportunity Grid — Insights

  • Use the Insights Panel to check on the deals status

  • See if deals…

    • Were created recently

    • Are in late stages with few Total Updates

• Opportunity Grid — Filters

  • Use filters to check on deals with a late Stage but an early Forecast Category

  • Use filters to check on deals with an early Stage but a late Forecast Category

Each idea above is a way to zoom in and triangulate on sandbagging behavior. Is there anything we missed? 

Let us know in the comments below!