Qualification inherited
Criteria copied from the growth stage before this one.
Who we helpSoftware & Technology
The motion that opened one growth stage rarely survives the next.
B2B software moves through growth stages faster than most sectors, and the commercial system rarely gets rebuilt as quickly as the revenue number grows. The gap between the two is where the cost sits.
Sector read
The motion outruns the system.
Pipeline inflation
Stage-exit criteria that quietly stopped being enforced.
Shadow forecast
A private number kept instead of fixing the official one.
Handoffs added, not designed
Each new role got a step in the process rather than an owner.
Reporting rebuilt instead of repaired
A new dashboard replaces the definition that quietly broke.
Where the motion outruns the system
What gets reported is not where the problem starts.
The symptom is visible at the surface. The structure producing it sits underneath, and the cost lands somewhere else again.
The symptom is reported at the surface. The cause sits underneath it.
Pipeline inflation
Deals sit in Commit past the point they honestly belong there.
Surface · what gets reportedCriteria inherited
Qualification was copied from the growth stage before this one.
Structure · what produces itStage exits stop being enforced
The gate exists in the CRM but nothing depends on clearing it.
System · where it breaksA forecast nobody believes
A private shadow number replaces the official one, and the gap between them is never priced.
Consequence · what it costsCause and consequence rarely surface in the same place.
What it looks for here
Read the handoffs that speed and tooling can hide.
The dysfunction families do not change for Software and IT Services, and the diagnostic does not assume that territory, qualification or forecasting carries the loss before the evidence is read. It compares how those systems changed across segments, products and growth stages, then tests what the CRM says against what the field describes.
- AEs and SDRs by tenure
- Marketing and customer success
- RevOps and the forecast owner
- CRM stage history
- Win-loss notes
- Pricing, packaging and expansion
Fast stage transitions and short institutional memory change how the strain presents.
What tends to break first
Qualification goes first, and the forecast follows it.
The order is fairly consistent here. Where a motion was built for speed, the mechanism that decays first is the one nobody notices decaying.
Qualification criteria
Stage definitions inherited from an earlier motion stop matching the deals being run. Nothing announces this; the criteria simply stop being applied.
Stage-exit enforcement
Exits become a reporting step rather than a test. A deal moves because the week ended, not because it met a condition.
Forecast reliability
Once the first two have gone, the forecast is describing a pipeline that was never filtered. Confidence in it falls before anyone can say what changed.
Management attention
Leadership starts spending its time re-checking individual deals, which is compensating work: it holds the number up without fixing what produced it.
What happens next
Three ways in, depending on what the evidence already says.
Executive Workshop
Three hours with the people who can change the system. One condition named, in writing, before any evidence is gathered.
Explore the Workshop →Diagnosis
Interviews, the records you already produce and your own rates. What is breaking, what it costs, what to change first.
Explore the Diagnosis →Strain Check
Ten questions, two minutes. A first read on which part of your commercial system is carrying the most strain.
Take the Strain Check → FAQ
Before you assume this does not apply yet.
We just raised a round and are hiring fast, is this too early?
If you already have a repeatable sales motion, rapid hiring is usually when inherited qualification and territory design start costing the most, because the pattern is now repeating across more people at once, so it is rarely too early. If you are still finding that motion, you are likely closer to pre-PMF, where a diagnostic does not fit yet.
Our churn is fine, does that mean our commercial system is fine?
Not necessarily. Retention and acquisition can fail independently, and a healthy churn number can sit alongside a forecast nobody actually trusts or a qualification framework quietly costing deals before they are ever logged.
Do you need access to our product usage data, or just CRM?
CRM and pipeline data first, alongside interviews. Product usage data is sometimes relevant depending on what the interviews surface, and that is scoped in the first call rather than assumed upfront.
We are self-serve with a small sales-assist motion, does this fit?
It depends on how much of revenue that sales-assist motion actually carries. A defined sales motion with enough history to read is what the method needs, whatever share of the business it represents.
Get started
The motion changed as the company grew. What each transition cost is the number worth having.
Use 30 minutes to define the operating question, test what evidence exists and decide whether Kihon has a role at all. No scope is proposed before that is clear.
Discuss the operating problem