Chasing Flow Issue 03: Decided Somewhere You Weren’t
Where the decision that sets your revenue actually gets made, and the records that settle it: qualifying through an incumbent, sales ramp time, flat quarters, how technical buyers research, and brand as a tiebreaker.
Why Engineers Choose the Better-Known Brand
Seventy percent of engineers are likely to choose the better-known brand when two solutions are technically similar. What that means for a challenger, and the two problems to solve.
Four Causes of a Flat Sales Quarter
A flat quarter looks the same no matter what caused it. Four commercial causes, how to tell them apart from records you already have, and the fix for each.
How Long Until a New Salesperson Is Productive?
One full sales cycle, plus a quarter. How to calculate ramp time from your own numbers, and what it means for the cost of a sales hire and the first-year quota.
Chasing Flow Issue 02: Revenue Nobody Owns
The revenue that arrives through somebody nobody manages: referral dependence, the plan that's still moving in February, what reps and distributors know that never reaches you, the channel as an unmanaged motion, and owners who turn out to be reporters.
Chasing Flow Issue 01: A Motion, or Four Opinions?
Whether your company has a go-to-market motion or four private versions of one: a ten-minute leadership exercise, the top-seller spread, capacity utilization by industry, installed-base decision dates, margin-ranked accounts, and capturing what application engineers already know.
Why Most Annual Plans Don’t Happen
ClearPoint analyzed 20,582 strategic plans: goals with a real owner reached on track 42 percent of the time, against 15 percent without one. Three tests to put every line of your plan through this fall.
Your Rep Network Is a Go-To-Market Motion
Most industrial companies made their channel decision once and have treated it as infrastructure ever since. Two numbers to put side by side, and the ownership question that follows.
Three Questions to Ask Your Reps and Distributors Every Month
Your reps, distributors and dealers talk to your market every day, and almost none of what they learn reaches you. Three questions, asked the same way every month, and what each answer tells you.
Your Biggest Customer Is Probably Not Your Best Customer
In engineered products, revenue and value come apart. Rank your accounts by revenue, then by gross margin contribution, and let the second list drive your ICP, positioning and sales coverage.
Your Installed Base Has No Renewal Date. It Has a Decision Date.
In engineered products, retention is decided at the next platform generation, line rebuild or requalification, long before it shows up in revenue. Two numbers that make the risk visible.
When Your Top Seller Produces Four Times the Median
A four-to-one spread between your best rep and the median is the absence of a repeatable play. How to measure it in an afternoon, what the spread tells you, and how to turn one person's knowledge into the company's.