On-demand webinar
Balance it, measure it, make it a habit
What you’ll learn :
- Why squeezing the pipeline on its own creates peaks, valleys and lumpy cash flow
- How to reverse engineer a monthly target into the conversations, discovery meetings and proposals it takes
- Why you should count conversations, not calls or drop-ins, and work from estimated ratios until you know your real ones
- The three sales leadership non-negotiables: the weekly one-on-one, the weekly sales meeting and in-field coaching
What's covered
Inside the session. Watch a clip, then get the full recording.
A recap of the first three levers. In the opening poll, none of the audience had run a pipeline squeeze in the last two weeks.
Squeeze without refilling and you get peaks, valleys and a dry next quarter. Tracy explains how a scramble to close at the end of a period can cannibalise the next month or quarter.
A wholesale and distribution client won new accounts while losing existing ones. Splitting into dedicated account and new business teams restored retention and balance.
Sales year to date and actual against budget are lagging indicators. Leading, behavioural KPIs predict the result, and AI is compressing the sales process as buyers do their own research.
A $100,000 monthly goal and a $10,000 average deal works back to 20 proposals, 40 discovery meetings and 200 conversations a month. Why conversations, not dials, are the number to track.
Why managers resist weekly one-on-ones, how Alex turned a company's worst performer into its top performer in six weeks, and Jill's four-part one-on-one agenda.
The sales meeting builds and motivates the team; it is not for company updates. In the field, the manager listens and observes rather than sells.
A manufacturer saying yes to every small custom job rebuilt its pipeline around profitable work and lifted profitability by over eight points without a price increase.
Resources
Get the recording
Frequently asked questions
Common Questions
Keeping a steady flow of new business and repeat sales alongside the deals you are closing. If you only squeeze, you can empty the pipeline and end up with peaks and valleys. Jill cites a Harvard Business Review study suggesting about 60% of focus on existing clients and 40% on new business.
Lagging indicators, such as sales year to date against budget, tell you what has already happened. Leading or behavioural KPIs, such as conversations, discovery meetings and site visits, predict what will happen. The panel says to report on both, but to drive the team on the leading ones.
Reverse engineer it. In the session's example, a $100,000 monthly goal with a $10,000 average deal needs 10 sales. With a one-in-two close rate on proposals that means 20 proposals, then 40 discovery meetings, and at one discovery per five conversations, 200 conversations a month.
Make an educated guess and work from it until you have real data. Alex gives two reasons: it gets salespeople into activity mode, and their activity builds the pipeline. Tracy adds that the team should keep tweaking the numbers as you learn what led to each win.
Jill's agenda: build rapport and find out what is happening in the person's world, inspect the pipeline, review the KPIs with a close eye on leading indicators, then give guidance and agree priorities for the coming week.
The panel says yes. Jill names managers not holding their team accountable as the number one reason for non-performance, and the structured one-on-one is the main accountability tool. Alex reframes five hours a week with five reports as time invested, not written off.
The next step
Stop running on heroics. Start engineering revenue.
Whichever way you work with us, the same proven Revenue OS runs underneath. Book a growth session and we’ll show you where to start.