#10 - Precision and Practicality

My colleague Chris Kocher and I were having lunch the other day with a prominent VC at one of those swanky Bay Area eateries only the in-the-know crowd have programmed into their iPhones. Talk turned to revenue and how VC's continue to be frustrated that 50% or more of all venture money ultimately gets spent on sales and marketing efforts. This VC asked us, "so what are the revenue related mistakes you see tech companies continue to make as they try to scale?". Funny you should ask that Mr. VC, I just gave a presentation on the East Coast a few weeks back on that very subject.

In the spirit of a David Letterman-like 'Top 10' list, we'll periodically post in this blog a countdown of the 'Top 10 Revenue Mistakes Tech Companies Keep Making". So without further adieu...

#10 Precision and Practicality: 'Common Mistakes In The Pipeline' - Any quick review of a sales pipeline can typically reveal a myriad of problematic issues. (Lack of) Precision and Practicality, we call it.

Little (or no) persistence in demand generation capability

Lack of understanding how long the sales process really is (and it varies by vertical)

Not correctly aligning a 'sales process' (yours) to a 'buy process' (who you're selling to)

Inaccurate/incomplete qualification process - failure to qualify out!

Poor forecast methodology

Overly optimistic sales teams

Channel conflict

The disconnect between a companies revenue plan and what's actually in a pipeline can often times be a very large delta. The seven items above, if properly managed, can yield dramatic performance improvements in the pipeline.

Stay tuned.

Author: Mark Zawacki