Signed in as:
filler@godaddy.com
Signed in as:
filler@godaddy.com
I've seen the same conversation play out across small businesses and large enterprises.
Revenue is behind plan.
The immediate response?
And mathematically, none of that is wrong.
More quotes create more at-bats. More opportunities create more chances to close. More leads can create more pipeline.
That's the gap I look for.
A revenue shortfall is an outcome.
It's not a diagnosis.
Before deciding that a business needs more leads, another salesperson, a new CRM or more activity, I want to understand why the existing business isn't producing the expected result.
That means looking beyond the revenue number and examining the business behind it.
Is there actually enough pipeline?
Can we trust the pipeline?
Are we quoting the right opportunities?
Are leads properly qualified?
Does sales know what marketing considers a qualified lead?
Does marketing know what sales actually needs?
Are people trained and confident enough to execute?
Are handoffs between departments working?
Is ownership clear?
Are the systems supporting the process—or has the process been built around the limitations of the systems?
And what external forces are affecting the business?
Start with why.
I've used this approach across organizations of very different sizes because the scale may change, but the fundamental questions don't.
I start by looking inside the team.
Does the team have enough capacity?
Do they have the right skills?
Do they understand what's expected?
Can they confidently have the conversations required of them?
Do they know what good looks like?
Then I look between teams.
How does work move between sales, marketing, operations, service delivery, customer success, product, finance and leadership?
Where does something stop?
Where does it slow down?
Where does ownership become unclear?
Where are two departments using different definitions of success?
Then I look at the operating motion.
What happens from:
Lead → Opportunity → Quote → Customer → Delivery → Retention?
What role do the CRM, PSA, marketing platform and other systems play?
Are they supporting a defined process?
Or are we assuming that because the technology exists, the process must exist too?
Neither is a PSA, time clock, project-management platform or all-in-one business application.
Those tools perform functions.
The business still needs to know how the functions work together.
Not every problem originates inside the company.
Economic conditions matter. Supply constraints matter. Customer demand matters. Competitive changes matter. Technology shifts matter.
COVID was an extreme example: supply, pricing, availability and customer behavior changed rapidly across industries.
A business can't control those forces.
But i
Not every problem originates inside the company.
Economic conditions matter. Supply constraints matter. Customer demand matters. Competitive changes matter. Technology shifts matter.
COVID was an extreme example: supply, pricing, availability and customer behavior changed rapidly across industries.
A business can't control those forces.
But it can understand them and adjust.
That's why I separate:
from:
Confusing the two leads to bad decisions.
This is where the analysis matters.
Someone saying:
“Our pipeline isn't good.”
is an assumption until we examine it.
Someone saying:
“Marketing isn't producing qualified leads.”
needs a common definition of qualified before the statement means anything.
And:
“Sales needs to quote more.”
doesn't tell us whether they're quoting the right customers,
This is where the analysis matters.
Someone saying:
“Our pipeline isn't good.”
is an assumption until we examine it.
Someone saying:
“Marketing isn't producing qualified leads.”
needs a common definition of qualified before the statement means anything.
And:
“Sales needs to quote more.”
doesn't tell us whether they're quoting the right customers, products or opportunities.
So we use the information the business already has:
Then we keep asking:
Until we're no longer treating the symptom.
Across the businesses where I've applied this thinking, the objective isn't to produce another giant list of things that could be improved.
That just creates another problem:
Everything becomes important.
Instead, the gaps are simplified and prioritized into focused initiatives with clear actions, ownership and measurement.
Across the businesses where I've applied this thinking, the objective isn't to produce another giant list of things that could be improved.
That just creates another problem:
Everything becomes important.
Instead, the gaps are simplified and prioritized into focused initiatives with clear actions, ownership and measurement.
REVENUE SHORTFALL
↓
WHY?
↓
┌──────┼──────┐
PEOPLE PROCESS MARKET
│ │ │
SALES SYSTEMS ECONOMY
│ │ │
MKTG HANDOFFS COMPETITION
└──────┼──────┘
↓
FIND THE GAPS
↓
PRIORITIZE
↓
DEFINE ACTIONS
↓
EXECUTE
↓
MEASURE
The result is something much more valuable than:
“We need more.”
Sales matters.
Marketing matters.
People matter.
Process matters.
Technology matters.
Operations matter.
Leadership matters.
External conditions matter.
Looking at any one of those in isolation can produce a technically correct answer that still doesn't solve the business problem.
That's when gaps appear.
And those gaps eventually show up somewhere—in revenue, margin, productivity, customer experience or growth..
This is hte connection that lead to the creation of MomentumOS
MomentumOS isn't designed to replace your CRM, PSA, project-management system or the other applications running your company.
Those tools have jobs.
MomentumOS looks at how the business itself operates across those tools, teams and processes.
It creates the visibility needed to ask:
Because sustainable growth doesn't come from blindly doing more.
You don't need to diagnose it before talking to me.
That's the point.
The Opportunity Snapshot starts with the problem you're seeing and looks beneath it to identify where I'd investigate first.
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