How ready is your revenue engine to grow without heroics?

The growth number, broken down far enough that every person knows what they own.

1. We have a written revenue plan for the year, with the number broken down by month, by product and by person.

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2. Every salesperson can tell you their individual target and the activity required to hit it, without looking it up.

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3. We know which client profile we make the most money from, and we deliberately go after more of them.

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4. The plan names where next year's growth comes from — new clients, existing clients, price or new markets — with a number against each.

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5. When the numbers drift off plan we change the plan and the activity, rather than hoping the quarter recovers.

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One documented way of selling here, defined by what the buyer does.

1. We have one documented sales process with defined milestones, and everyone follows it.

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2. Our stages are defined by what the buyer has done, not by what our salesperson hopes happens next.

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3. Our salespeople qualify hard and are comfortable walking away from a poor-fit deal.

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4. We can see why any deal is stuck, and exactly what has to happen to move it forward.

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5. Proposals and pricing follow a standard we control, not whatever each salesperson builds.

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The right people in the right seats, with responsibilities everybody understands.

1. Every revenue role has a written scorecard: what they own, what good looks like, how it is measured.

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2. We hire against a defined profile of what succeeds in our business, not on gut feel in the interview.

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3. We can tell the difference between a performance problem we can coach and one we cannot.

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4. Our compensation rewards the behaviour we actually want, and everyone understands how they are paid.

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5. If our best salesperson resigned tomorrow, we could replace them without losing the year.

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Leading measures, not a post-mortem on last month's revenue.

1. We track leading activity measures, not just closed revenue after the fact.

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2. We know our conversion rate at each stage, our average deal size and our sales cycle length.

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3. Every salesperson sees their own numbers weekly and knows exactly where they stand.

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4. Our forecast is accurate enough that we make real business decisions on it.

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5. When results dip we can tell whether it is a clarity, an activity or an effectiveness problem.

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The rhythm that keeps the plan honest week after week.

1. Our sales leader runs a weekly one-to-one with each salesperson that is coaching, not a pipeline interrogation.

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2. We hold a weekly revenue meeting with a fixed agenda that starts and finishes on time.

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3. Issues raised in those meetings get named, owned and closed, rather than reappearing every week.

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4. We formally review the quarter, set the next quarter's priorities, and hold people to them.

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5. Our sales leader spends more time developing the team than doing deals themselves.

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Enough of the right conversations, created deliberately rather than hoped for.

1. We create enough qualified opportunities every month to hit the plan without discounting to close the gap.

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2. We know what it costs us to win a client, and what a lead from each channel is actually worth.

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3. Sales and marketing agree on what a qualified lead is, and that definition is written down.

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4. Outbound prospecting happens to a set rhythm, not in bursts when the pipeline gets thin.

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5. We publish content or run events our ideal buyer would seek out, rather than only promoting what we sell.

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A defined standard of good, and deliberate practice against it.

1. We have a defined standard for what good selling looks like here, and we train to it.

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2. Coaching happens on real conversations — recorded, reviewed and scored — not only on deal reviews.

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3. Every salesperson has a development plan aimed at their specific weakness.

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4. New hires reach full productivity within a defined ramp, supported by real onboarding.

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5. We invest in sales skill development continuously, not once a year at conference.

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Pipeline that mirrors the process, dashboards that reconcile, and AI doing real work.

1. Our CRM pipeline mirrors our sales process — the stages in the system are the milestones we actually sell to.

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2. Pipeline health is visible without anyone building a report: coverage against target, stage ageing, and deals that have stopped moving.

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3. One dashboard runs marketing and sales together, from lead source through to closed revenue.

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4. Our revenue reporting reconciles with our financials, so sales, finance and the board argue about the decision rather than the number.

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5. We use AI to improve the revenue engine itself — research, call analysis, follow-up, forecasting, practice — and the team uses it weekly.

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The engine gets measurably better each quarter, and you can prove it.

1. We run win/loss reviews and change something as a result.

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2. We re-measure the health of our revenue engine at least quarterly and compare it with last time.

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3. When something works it gets written into the process, so everyone gets the benefit.

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4. The team raises problems openly without it being career-limiting.

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5. We set improvement targets for the engine itself, not only for the revenue number.

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