Take Spreadsheets out of the
Equation
It's time to drop the SaaS models - The planning spreadsheets don't only fail to work, they lead to dangerous planning approaches, upside down sales teams and missed targets.
It's time we move away from the mess, here's why you should drop them today:
A couple of percentage points difference against conversion rates, deal sizes & opportunity volumes can lead to double digit misses against target.
You might feel as though it's a finished plan, but it's already stale the moment you make it.
Your data
is already
out-of-date
The moment you hit save, every single data point that you enter into your model could be wrong, and wildly out-of-date.
How can you be confident that you'll actually reach those targets, if you're not comfortable with the figures that go into it?
If you can't be confident with the numbers going in, can you really be confident with the numbers coming out?
Whose targets are they really?
The numbers that go into the plan aren't always there to build a plan, instead more often than not, the plan is simply designed to show revenue hitting a number.
Which plan are you working towards when there's a million different versions, and what makes you think that is really worst case, and you're making the most of opportunity?
What happens if your current performance is now somewhere between plan and worst case, what would it mean if things now got even worse?
Best case,
worst case,
waste of time.
If your plan is already out of date, so is any kind of revenue figure, and all of your best case & worst case scenarios.
With no such thing as an "Ideal SDR to AE ratio", the revenue fomula is all dependent on the math of your business, so why accept an arbitary number for one of the most important aspects of your plan?
You're unwittingly making similar model assumptions all the way through. What if your models could be more dynamic and representative of real live revenue team dynamics?
Can you trust your Revenue Formulas?
The numbers that go into the plan aren't always there to build a plan, instead more often than not, the plan is simply designed to show revenue hitting a number.