Sales, forecast.
In context: Stage 10 · Deliver · sub-stage Sales
The point where you set honest numbers for what will sell, then build the systems to track and fund it.
The Sales sub-stage of Deliver turns a finished product into a planned commercial run: forecast realistic volumes, stand up a CRM to track buyers, and set a launch budget that ties spend to expected revenue. Plan it as discipline, not as hope.
What the Sales sub-stage is
This is where Deliver gets commercial. Sales is the planning discipline that sits between a manufactured product and the buyers it has to reach. The job is not to dream up a big number and work backwards. It is to forecast what will realistically sell, build the systems to record and serve buyers, and set a budget that matches spend to the revenue you can defend.
I treat a forecast as a hypothesis, not a promise. It says: given this price, this audience and this channel, here is the demand I expect, and here is how I will know early if I am wrong. Done honestly, it protects cash and tells you when to ease off or push harder.
For the £149 sourdough proofing box, this is where Dan and Anna Hartley got specific in Stockport. A first run of 500 to 1,000 units, a Year-1 target near 3,000, sold direct to consumer through the Sourdough School audience. Those numbers set the production order, the CRM scope and the launch spend, all from one disciplined forecast.
What’s in this sub-stage
Three activities take the Sales sub-stage from a finished product to a planned, funded commercial run. Work them roughly in order.
How it fits the bigger picture
Sales is part of Stage 10 Deliver. It builds on the units coming out of Stage 09 Manufacture and runs alongside Distribution, which moves the stock. The forecast you set here drives the production order upstream and the logistics plan beside it, so a sloppy number here ripples through both.
What it can do
It gives the launch a defensible set of numbers: how many units you expect to sell, at what price, through which channel, and what it costs to get there. Done well, it lets you commit production and spend with confidence, and spot early whether reality is tracking the plan.
What it can’t do
It can’t make the market buy. A forecast narrows uncertainty and disciplines your spending, but it is still an estimate. For the proofing box the cheap early correction is a pre-order or wishlist page: real money or a real email against a £149 box, gathered before you commit the first run of 500 to 1,000. If the sign-ups do not come, you have been wrong for the price of a landing page rather than a container of stock.
See the full 10-stage process →
Try it yourself
Take your own product and write a one-page forecast. State the price, name the audience, pick a channel, and put down the units you honestly expect in the first run and the first year. Then write the single assumption that, if wrong, breaks the whole number.
Or run the guided version. The Free Sprint covers the early stages; the commercial planning tools sit in the paid ladder. Start the Free Sprint →
— First in Sales → Sales forecast