Creating a Common Sales Language

Aviation insurance companies are notoriously strict about "pilot time in type" when setting insurance rates.  This reflects their belief that a pilot's familiarity with a specific type of aircraft significantly influences risk and outcomes for its safe and effective operation.  Through their premium rate setting, insurers are, in essence, betting on this principle.

Now, consider the portfolio manager of a private equity firm.  Typically, they must familiarize themselves with the unique sales and forecasting models of each portfolio company.  If the manager oversees five companies, that's five different "languages" to learn — FIVE.  Using aviation parlance, the manager's "gross time" (overall experience) might be extensive, but it's divided across five "aircraft types."  This fragmentation is analogous to an insurance scenario where the pilot's experience in each specific type is insufficient, resulting in higher premiums.  Wouldn't it be better if this fragmentation didn’t occur?

The problem with managing multiple sales and forecasting models is twofold:

1. Comparisons are reactive.  It's challenging to draw meaningful comparisons across the portfolio until after the fact, when outcomes are already set.
2. Incremental improvement is harder.  Refining five separate models is far more complex and time-consuming than optimizing a single, unified approach.  This is further complicated by the likelihood that each model includes subjective elements, making cross-comparisons nearly impossible.

Now, imagine a world where a portfolio manager doesn't need to learn multiple sales languages — just one.

How does this reduce risk?  A standardized language across all companies enables a clearer understanding of each portfolio company's declarations and allows for straightforward, real-time comparisons.  On reliability and scalability: what if every company's performance could be summarized by one objective number?  One number to measure, track, and compare.

This isn’t just a theoretical exercise—it’s achievable.  MOIC Pipeline Grader provides a common, totally objective (algorithmic) approach to allow the portfolio manager to review the sales forecast across the portfolio in a common way, measuring pace (speed of each sales metric measured in days) and progress (are we ahead or behind by metric) of the deals on an on-demand basis.

By being able to identify bottlenecks, the portfolio manager can identify the vulnerabilities as well as the positives of each deal in an objective manner across the portfolio.  This is the first sales forecasting system of its kind.  If you would like help reviewing your portfolio performance, please ask Virtual Dave or email dave@moicpartners.com.