Weeks sold to the wrong segment
Seller weeks spent on segments the renewals never confirmed, paid in discount at the close and in churn at the first renewal.
GTM Strategy
The plan is signed once. The assumptions under it run all year.
Go-to-market strategy decides which customers earn a seller's week, which motion reaches them and how many people that takes. Where a choice was never made, the plan still carries a number for it.
From the seat
The plan is built in November from last year's ramp.
In a company like this, the annual commercial plan is built in November. The board number comes first. It is divided by the seats the plan assumes will be filled and ramped, and that becomes quota. Win rate, deal size and ramp are last year's, and nobody records that they were assumed. A partner motion added in spring sells into the same accounts as the direct team. Pricing changed in the summer; the plan did not. The ideal customer in the deck is wider than the one in the renewals, and the segment that leaves most is still funded.
The plan is defended in every quarterly review and reopened in none. By December the miss has many explanations and no owner.
The levers
Five choices, made once, paid for every quarter.
Each is a strategy decision whether or not anyone took it. Where it was left to default, the plan carries a number nobody can defend.
- 01
ICP and segmentation
The ideal customer profile says which companies the plan is built to win and keep; segmentation says how the market is cut so that each part gets the motion and the price it needs. Where the profile on the slide is wider than the one in the renewals, the plan funds segments that close small and leave early, and the revenue mix it promises is not the mix the company can keep.
What we check: revenue, win rate and retention by segment over three years, against the segments the plan funds and the profile it names.
- 02
Which motion runs where
Sales-led, partner-led and product-led motions each win a customer at a different cost and keep one at a different rate. A plan that names the motion for each segment can be costed; one that lets motions overlap pays twice for the same account and discounts to settle who owns it. The partner motion added for reach is often the one nobody has costed.
What we check: the cost to win and keep a customer in each motion, the accounts where two motions meet, and who decided which runs where.
- 03
Coverage, capacity and territories
Coverage says which accounts are worked and by whom; capacity says how many ramped people can work them; territories are the map that joins the two. The plan assumes every seat filled on the first day and every person at full output, and the territories are last year's with the new hires drawn in. The accounts no one had the hours to open are the part of the plan that was never going to arrive.
What we check: ramp, attrition and attainment as the plan assumed them and as the last three years recorded them, territory by territory.
- 04
Quota and compensation design
Quota is the board number divided by seats; compensation is what the company pays to reach it. Where quota is set before capacity is known, the plan is met by few and carried by many, and the comp plan pays for whatever was easiest to close rather than what the plan needed: volume over fit, new logos over renewals, discount over price.
What we check: the spread of attainment against quota for the last two years, and what the comp plan paid for against what the plan asked for.
- 05
Pricing, packaging and the assumptions under the plan
At plan level, pricing and packaging are a choice about which customers pay what for which bundle, and the plan carries that choice in its deal size and its discount rate. Under it sit ramp, win rate, deal size, attrition and price, and each has a number someone assumed; a plan for a new market rests on them with less history behind each. Where the assumptions stay unrecorded, the plan cannot be wrong, only missed.
What we check: each assumption in the current plan, the record it came from, and what last year's actuals say about it.
What it costs
What a plan on default settings costs.
None of these is a line in the plan, and each is paid in the year it covers. Most of it is revenue that was never pursued, which no report records.
Two motions on one account
A partner and a direct seller on the same deal: two costs of sale, one dispute over credit and a discount to end it.
Capacity that was never there
Seats empty for a quarter and hires at half speed, while quota and the board number assumed both at full output.
A comp plan that bought the wrong year
Variable pay that rewarded what was easy to close, not what the plan needed, and a revenue mix the company will pay to keep.
The evidence
What others record on coverage, motions and contract length.
Four published figures, three from one investor's annual surveys and one from the research the method stands on. Your own figure sits in the plan's assumptions and in the actuals beside them.
- 01
3.6x
Average pipeline coverage for account executives, down from 3.9x the year before: the buffer the plan carries for the deals that will not close, as the companies surveyed set it rather than as the board number needs it.
ICONIQ, The State of Go-to-Market in 2025, survey of GTM executives at 205 B2B SaaS companies, n=168, p. 16, April 2025
- 02
35 to 40%, 25 to 35%, 18 to 22%
Win rate by where the opportunity came from: "higher win rates on opportunities sourced through Sales and Channel/Partnership motions (35-40% and 25-35%, respectively) vs. Marketing-sourced opportunities (18-22%)". A plan that gives every motion one win rate has already mis-sized two of them.
ICONIQ, The State of Go-to-Market in 2025, survey of GTM executives at 205 B2B SaaS companies, n=37 to 74 by ARR band, p. 18, April 2025
- 03
2% to 13%
The share of new-logo subscriptions signed for under a year, 2% in 2025 and 13% in 2026, with one-year terms at 38%: the deal size and renewal rate the plan assumed were set on longer contracts.
ICONIQ, The State of Go-to-Market in 2026, survey of GTM executives at 150+ B2B software companies, n=157, p. 24, March 2026
- 04
At least half
Of the hidden costs measured in companies is revenue that did not arrive rather than money that was spent, so what a plan leaves unpursued outweighs what it overspends.
Savall and Zardet, Renouveau du contrôle de gestion, EMS, p. 18, from ISEOR's database of measured hidden costs
As the company grows
The plan gains assumptions faster than it gains records.
A plan borrows its assumptions from the stage before. Each stage leaves one more number in it that nobody recorded.
Where to start
The Diagnosis reads the plan against the year it produced.
Diagnosis
€15,000 flat · two months from the day we get access
The five choices above, read from interviews with the CEO, the CRO, the owner of each motion, finance and RevOps, and from three years of actuals set beside the plan's assumptions. You end with which assumption the year rests on, what it cost at your own rates where it was wrong, and which choice to make first. Operation then reworks the plan with the people who will carry it: €50,000 more within 30 days of the Diagnosis briefing, or €65,000 with it included.
Book a strategy callDetails →In the plan, or in the system that runs it? Compare all six functions →
FAQ
Before you write next year's plan.
Is this strategy consulting?
No. We do not write a new strategy on the first day. We read the plan you have against the records that show how the year went, price the gap, and fix the choices with the people who own them. Where there is no plan written down yet, Build writes the first one.
Who is interviewed?
The CEO, the CRO, the owner of each motion, finance, RevOps and the managers who carry the quota. Nobody is interviewed who was not on a list you saw first.
We re-plan every year. What would this add?
A record of which assumptions the last plan rested on, which were wrong and what each one cost, so that next year's plan starts from actuals rather than from last year's deck.
Where are the forecast and the CRM read?
On the Revenue Operations page, with the COO and the head of RevOps. This page reads the plan; that one reads the system that carries it. The Diagnosis covers both, from whichever seat you start.
Get started
Bring next year's plan and the assumptions under it.
Half an hour on ramp, win rate, deal size and attrition: where each number came from and what last year says about it. Where the plan holds, we say so and stop.