Sales Leader | GTM strategy | Sales Operations & Enablement | Scaling and Coaching Sales Teams | Regional GM |
In this climate it is definitely crucial to do more with the pipeline you have and focus on quality, than to cover high early leakage by pulling in more low quality pipeline. Nate Nasralla loving the content here!
Co-Founder @ Fluint | Writing about selling *with* your buyers, not to them.
It's wild how many sales teams still rely on the “3X pipeline coverage” idea. Even though reps building 3-4X coverage AND missing quota happens more frequently than Taylor Swift concerts selling out. For some teams this'll feel a little too "101-level," but that's also my point — it's known, but so rarely done well. So at the risk of oversimplifying this topic, there are 2 types of teams: - Type 1: Wins by “volume.” Close rates hover ~20%. Leadership’s hammering prospecting to make sure reps "get after it." Always feeling like pipe coverage is too light. - Type 2: Wins by “rate.” Process broken down by stage, measured weekly/monthly, targeted programming rolled out based on leaks to win more — with less pipe. → The 1st type of team wins by "force, the 2nd wins with "finesse." Here's an example from an HR tech company we work with. The typical AE on their team: - Built roughly $1M in pipeline/quarter, vs. a target of $250K. - Which is typically seen as a "good" 4:1 ratio. - But really, they leaked revenue between Stages 3 & 4. - The ~40% Stage 3 → 4 rate cut their overall win rate to 21%. Sound familiar..? As a quick aside, here’s how you’ll know which type of team you're on. Mid-quarter, you’ll either hear: Type 1: “Can you pull a few of those deals forward?” “Why aren’t we sourcing X new opps, minimum?” “What if we go back to them with a bigger offer?” And my personal favorite… “Setup the meeting, I’ll handle this one.” (lol) Type 2: “What’s happening in the buying team at S3?” “Can we navigate it with them upstream, at S2?” “What process / skill gap will that mean closing?” Okay, back to our example: Deals stalled when the HR team got excited, their demos went flawlessly, they were multithreaded, quantified “pain,” etc… But then? Nada. Silence. Deals got de-prioritized by Finance + Ops mid-funnnel. Which meant reps needed to engage the COO/CFO — not just the CHRO. So how'd they approach it? - Enabled reps to build a sharp point-of-view. - Writing out that POV in an executive summary. - Sales leaders coaching to that write-up in 1:1's. - Scorecard created to measure strength / deal gaps. - RevOps tied exit criteria to Ops & Finance validating it. Which meant their approach in S1 → S3 completely changed. *They didn't solve the S3 → S4 gap in S3 or S4.* They went upstream. Enabled reps with a new approach, leaders switched up how they ran deal reviews, and win rates jumped. (28% overall vs. 21%) So, some questions for you: 1/ Which sounds more like your team? Type 1, or 2? 2/ If you're a "Type 2" team, where's the process breakdown? 3/ What, specifically, are you planning to address that this week?
