MAKING

YOUR
NUMBER
IN 2020
An inside look at
how the top 16%
grow faster than
their peers
 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

SBI completed a 21-month extensive

research study, revealing breakthrough
findings on how “market leaders”
(top 16%) were able to grow organically in
excess of their industry and competitors.
SBI reviewed many organizational elements
to reach its conclusions. The one unifying
thread for all market leaders was how they
executed the annual planning process.
Our research revealed 4 simple and
compelling truths that separate market
leaders from their peers.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 4

MINDSET OF THE MARKET LEADER 7

1. DESIGN PRINCIPLES 7
2. PROGRAM VS. PROJECT 7
3. STRUCTURED DECISION MAKING 9
4. EXECUTIVE COLLABORATION & ALIGNMENT 9

REVENUE GROWTH MATURITY MODEL (RGMM) 11

WHAT MARKET-LEADING COMPANIES DO 13

THE 4 SIMPLE TRUTHS OF MARKET LEADERS 14

SIMPLE TRUTH 1: SET NUMBERS CORRECTLY 14
SIMPLE TRUTH 2: INVENTORY POTENTIAL BETS 15
SIMPLE TRUTH 3: PLACE BETS 16
SIMPLE TRUTH 4: CREATE A SUSTAINABLE REVENUE GROWTH PROGRAM 17

ACTIVATING THESE INSIGHTS 18

APPENDIX 1: SUMMARY OF RESEARCH 19

APPENDIX 2: KPI DEFINITIONS 20

APPENDIX 3: ANNUAL PLANNING TOOL 21

 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

INTRODUCTION

Revenue leaders typically exhibit a renewed sense of optimism when they start working on refreshing the go-to-
market strategy for a new year. Yet this optimism often withers when confronted by a series of hard questions
that must be answered. The process of assembling the annual operating plan has become increasingly difficult
over the years for a variety of reasons:

1. Stress: Organic growth is hard to get and easy to measure. There has never been a more difficult time to be
a revenue leader. Whether for a public company or one owned by a private equity firm, organic growth is the
primary driver creating enterprise value.

The link between organic revenue growth and enterprise value has long been validated
by Harvard Business Review and Forbes. The market leaders who grow faster than their
competitors and industry enjoy higher enterprise value.

2. Options: Executives believe they have more options to generate growth than in years past, but determining which
one to choose is hard.
3. Time: Executives are time starved. They want to work on the business, but they can’t find the time because they
are busy working in the business. As a result, the planning process is not zero-based. Instead, it usually ends up
following the previous year’s effort with a few modifications.

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When you take into account each of these three sources of frustration, it is not surprising that most executives
commit the cardinal sin of annual planning: incrementalism. In other words, your planning efforts result in nothing
much more than a handful of tactical improvements.

SBI identified two reasons why incrementalism creeps into the planning motion:

01 LACK OF CLARITY
Leaders did not have clarity on what
02 LACK OF CERTAINTY
Leaders were not certain which bets
to do and in what order to drive would generate what results in the
topline growth. timeframe needed.

The consequence of incrementalism is that executives who take this approach are more likely to miss their number,
according to our research. And it is not because they are not working hard.

Quite the opposite.

One of the most overused terms in the boardroom while we conducted this research was transformation.
Sales transformation. Go-to-market transformation. Commercial transformation. At first glance, transformation may
sound like the antidote to incrementalism. In reality, the reason one must transform is one fails to evolve. Instead
of a process of continuous improvement and evolution, companies that fall off pace require these inherently risky,
incredibly difficult transformations. The results tell us that transformations are no more successful than in the past,
despite years of thought leadership written on the topic.

The majority of transformations fail, not because of strategic intent, but because — in an effort to catch up —
companies try to take on too many initiatives in too short a timeframe in the wrong order with not enough of the
right people.

Conversely, our research revealed a level of simplicity exists in market leaders (defined as those growth executives who
were growing at least 37% faster than their industry and competition). Market leaders felt the same pressures of stress,
options, and time — but they did a few critical things differently than average and laggard companies.

This report explores what these market leaders are doing differently.

OVERVIEW OF SBI’S RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This is SBI’s 13th annual research report.

The number one question we are asked from August through November of every year is “What are you seeing
as the must-dos to make my number next year?” For the previous 13 years, SBI conducted our research from
April through March, which allowed us to analyze the results and produce a body of work to help executives
build their annual plan.

This year, we took a different approach. We leveraged the 7,063 responses we collected over the last
21 months via our online Revenue Growth Diagnostic. In parallel, supplemented with our traditional sources
of insight, we compiled research collected using 15 different discovery tools from thousands of B2B sales
organizations. These tools are summarized in Appendix 1.

Using the Revenue Growth Maturity Model, this report summarizes the insights from
market-leading organizations that grow revenue faster than their industry and competitors.

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

ABOUT SBI

SBI is a management consulting firm specializing in revenue growth and dedicated to helping you make
your number.

SBI’s Revenue Growth Methodology allows you to grow your revenue faster than your industry and
competitors. It can do this because it is built on emerging best practices, which are powerful differentiators
used only by market leaders. Emerging best practices are superior to the more common and pervasive
best practices.

SBI is comprised of a blend of senior revenue growth leaders and top tier management consultants. This
allows us to masterfully blend strategy and execution. We are drawn to clients with aggressive goals and
unreasonable timelines, because we enjoy working on projects with a lot on the line.

Our business is built to overserve a small number of clients. Because of this, we tend to develop deep and
long-lasting relationships with our clients. We are proud to say SBI has the highest NPS scores in the industry.

ABOUT THE REVENUE GROWTH METHODOLOGY

The Revenue Growth Methodology (RGM) is a management method used to accelerate the rate of revenue
growth. It accelerates revenue growth by getting the functional strategies of sales, marketing and product into
alignment with the CEO’s strategy for the company, faster than the company’s industry and competitors.

ABOUT THE REVENUE GROWTH MATURITY MODEL

Developed by SBI, the Revenue Growth Maturity Model is used by organizations to assess how they rank in
terms of revenue growth capabilities. This 5-level model is used to prioritize and sequence the key initiatives
that help the company accelerate its revenue growth faster than its industry and competitors.

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

MINDSET OF THE MARKET LEADER

1. DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Growth executives use a concept of design principles as they build their annual plan. For purpose of clarity, a design
principle is a set of factors that form the basis of any good strategy or plan. The way market leaders did this was by
naming key factors to examine in their annual planning process.

Below are examples of top factors that are likely to have changed since last year that should be influencing your
design principles.
Factor Look Back – Fact Base Look Forward– Beliefs
Market Historical Growth Rate Economic Outlook by Sector
Possible New Entrants
Competition Competitor Growth Rate by Solution
New Solutions Being Introduced
Solutions Currently Purchased White Space Opportunities
Customers Current Dollar Retention New Markets
Win Loss Interviews New Channels
Sales Force Quota Attainment, Employee Turnover Rebalancing Territories
Market leaders use these to explain why they are doing what they are doing in their annual plans.

2. PROGRAM VS. PROJECT

Most companies (the 84% who are Levels 1-3 in the RGMM) view the annual planning cycle as a project. This means
that they dust off last year’s plan, add a percent growth, and then add comparable amounts to the marketing budget
and to sales headcount.

Here are some examples of how this plays out along various dimensions of the planning process.
Conventional Wisdom (i.e. Project approach) Emerging Best Practice (i.e. Program approach)
Data Used Decide each year on how to define success Consistent KPIs with agreed upon definitions
Timing Start in Q3 and finish by November 30th Continuous
Collaboration Done in siloes and rolled up at the end All key revenue growth functions contribute to the plan
Real-time agile approach with integrated weekly
Adjustments Annually
leadership cadence

A $5B SaaS company was struggling to scale. As an organization focused on the SMB
segment, their Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) was flat, while Customer Acquisition
Costs (CAC) were increasing. After an assessment, the firm decided to undergo a rapid
transformation, deploying a more scalable inside sales motion to align to how its buyers
wanted to be served. The management team selected this as its single transformation
initiative, and as a result was able to move quickly. Over a 2.5 year period, this resulted in a
2.5X increase in Enterprise Value, outpacing competitors and the market overall.

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

While a project approach is comfortable, it actually reduces the chances of making the number. Non-
market-leading companies struggle to understand what their customers expect from them, how
their competitors are responding, and how they need to respond. Therefore, they struggle to make
rapid evolutionary change, let alone transformational change, to organic growth capability.

The programmatic approach to building the annual operating plan is part of a broader program that GIANT
market leaders are driving. These leaders recognized they had certain internal factors they had to
address (setting of quotas, compensation plans, board-approved operating plans, new product
GOAL
launches). They also looked at the upcoming year’s operating plan in the broader context of their
multi-year growth program and how it took them a step closer to their optimal state. It was another
cycle in a broad-based growth strategy, not a project over 10-16 weeks to prep for a new year.

5YEAR

3YEAR

3-5 Year Annual Quarterly Weekly

Big Bets Key Initiatives Priorities Goals

1 1 1 1
2 2 2 2
3 3 3 3
4 4 4 4
5 5 5 5

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

For market leaders, what drives the programmatic a great, good, or bad week, and this is aligned with
approach is a clear, unique, and emotionally engaging whether progress was made towards the quarterly
company purpose. This clarity allows the executive goals. The instrumentation and operating rhythm that
team to clearly define what they will and will not do. market-leading companies had was something that
The result of this purpose, which many would define clearly separated them.
as a “North Star” or future state, is what many refer to
as a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” (or BHAG), as coined by 3. STRUCTURED DECISION MAKING
Jim Collins. While important, this can be too distant for
teams to connect to. By breaking this down into Companies with average or subpar growth usually don't
3- and 5-year goals, the management team can document their strategies, nor why they made the
more readily align to those goals. This was where decisions they did when they did. As a result, the team
market leaders started to separate themselves. cannot review in a structured manner if something is
They were able to articulate an end state on 3-5 key working. Perhaps the assumption on timeframe was off,
multi-year initiatives. or the leading indicators weren’t present.

By clearly articulating a quarterly goal aligned to this A four-step, structured decision-making process is
3- to 5-year goal, quarterly "sprints" become the focus described in depth starting on page 14. Market leaders
points for the organization – allowing each team to prepare for this session by outlining their beliefs and
break down into aligned goals, which drive cross- making bets that align to those beliefs.
functional interlock. This will allow you to be sufficiently
agile in adjusting strategic execution. 4. EXECUTIVE COLLABORATION &
Lastly, these quarterly goals can be broken down ALIGNMENT
into weekly tasks for each work team. Each goal
can be clearly understood by an individual and agile Market leading companies build the annual plan with
adjustments can be made as needed. Each leader, work high executive collaboration among the following
team, and individual then has 3-5 weekly priorities executives: CEO, CFO, CRO, CMO, CPO, and Success/
on which they are laser focused each week. It is then Services. Many companies say they know this, but
clearly visible to each individual whether they had executive misalignment is growing, not shrinking.

RESULTS SHOW THE OVERALL CONSENSUS IS THE SALES STRATEGY NEEDS TO IMPROVE THE PARTNER
STRATEGY AND ALL PHASES OF SALES SUPPORT...
12
Revenue Growth Diagnostic Results
10 10
8 8
6
5 5 5 5 5 5 5
4 4 4
2
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
-2
-3
-4 -4 -4
-6
-8 -8 -8 -8
-10
Phase 1: Phase 2: Phase 3: Phase 4: Phase 5: Phase 6: Phase 7: Phase 8: Phase 9: Phase 10: Phase 11: Phase 12: Phase 13: Phase 14:
Revenue Accounts Buyers Prospecting Opportunity Account Coverage Partner Organization Territory Compensation & Sales Revenue Sales
Plan Management Management Plan Strategy Design & Talent Design Quota Operation Enablement Tech Stack

Phase 1: Phase 2: Phase 3: Phase 4: Phase 5: Phase 6: Phase 7: Phase 8: Phase 9: Phase 10: Phase 11: Phase 12: Phase 13: Phase 14:
Revenue Accounts Buyers Prospecting Opportunity Account Coverage Partner Organizational Territory Compensation Sales Revenue Sales Tech
Plan Management Management Plan Strategy Design & Talent Design & Quota Operations Enablement Stack
Min 0 0 0 0 -4 0 -3 -4 0 0 0 -8 -8 -8
Average 1 1 3 1 0 5 1 -2 4 2 3 -2 -2 -1
Max 5 5 5 5 5 10 4 0 8 5 5 0 0 4

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Executives are cognitively aligned but not emotionally aligned. What does this mean? They agree on the problem:
“We are not growing fast enough; why are our topline results not better?” The breakdown occurs on the solution. When
executive leaders don’t reach consensus on the solution, the company takes on too many initiatives.

SBI found that market leaders made no more than 3 “bets” to drive commercial excellence. Those with subpar
growth had 5-8 bets. Market leaders win by doing less and doing it better. Below is an example of a commercial team
with too many priorities.

KEY INITIATIVES FOR IMPROVED COMMERCIAL EXECUTION

KEY INITIATIVE OBJECTIVE STATUS
Build a consistent message and framework to help position the Why Change
Acme Messaging for Acme. Develop a whiteboard and supporting materials that can be used
& Framework by sales and supporting functions to effectively and quickly communicate the
Acme Advantage.
Generate qualified pipeline to provide coverage for New Product. Execute
GTM for New
evolution to drive 80% of revenue from installed base. Drive new logo growth
Product
with product bundling.
Sales Incentives & Make best use of Total Rewards for High Performing Team comp $ across
Compensation retention, commissions, bonuses, etc. Make comp strategic.
Pipeline
Jumpstart visibility and process in generating pipeline to enable us to achieve
Generation &
our goals of net pipeline growth.
Growth
Support the company’s objective to put “customers at the center of what we
Customer
do” by identifying and implementing initiatives that improve the experience
Experience
that customers have while doing business with us.
Competitive replacements drive true growth. Competitive Programs is
simply a vehicle to consolidate, align, and rally greater productivity with
Competitive
existing Acme resources. The goal is to deliver a highly focused competitive
Programs Rollout
replacement factory-like sales effort to whichever targets are selected by
leadership
Define the selling proposition for Acme SaaS (company, solutions, products)
SaaS Strategy and align the GTM model design to that proposition (incl. enablement,
incentives, and operations)
Renewal Rate End-to-end improvements across system and processes to drive 1% YoY
Increase by 1% increase of Renewal Rate
Redesign Support Modernize/rebuild CS organization. Optimize customer touch points by
Delivery Model coverage tier, across post sales customer-facing roles.

Key: Complete On Track At Risk Delayed/Attention required

Having fewer priorities enabled market leaders to stay focused on the few critical KPIs that measured progress —
typically confined to a single dashboard. These KPIs are embedded in the operating cadence.

However, executive teams in Level 1-3 companies do not share data, much less agree on bets or KPIs. Sales kickoff
PowerPoints contain data and metrics that are not aligned to the CEO, CMO, and CPO.

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REVENUE GROWTH MATURITY

MODEL (RGMM)

The RGMM is a tool developed by SBI to help its clients identify the probability of making their number.
The visual and legend below shows the latest version of SBI’s RGMM.
SBI also uses this model within client engagements to determine which strategies and tools can be deployed, and in
what sequence, to effectively drive change within the organization. This model has 5 levels:

THE REVENUE GROWTH MATURITY MODEL

Component LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2 LEVEL 3 LEVEL 4 LEVEL 5
Definition Chaos Defined Implemented Managed Predictable
Strategic Corporate Corporate Corporate and Strategies reflect Market and
Alignment documented deployed, functional built customer and customer focused
functional collaboratively market insights strategies
documented and but operate in documented,
cascaded siloes cascaded, and
iterated quarterly
or faster
Market and Anecdotal Some functions Customer and Capture customer Sophisticated,
Customer are collecting market insights insights at scale; real-time
Understanding data and using in captured and competitive listening paths in
their siloes shared cross- intelligence place providing
functionally program in place 360-degree view
of customers and
competitors
Account Anecdotal Basic, know what Preliminary view Prioritized view Complete
Knowledge view of customers buy of white space of white space understanding
largest opportunities of customer
accounts footprint, white
space, and
purchase intent
Coverage Haphazard Key account Account:rep Separation of CLTV and CAC
Model programs in ratios aligned to key accounts, aligned by market
place for largest benchmarks field, inside, segment
accounts and channel
understood
Level of Processes Processes Processes well Processes Agile, interlocked
Process not defined defined, but not defined and designed across processes which
Discipline consistently consistently functions and result in minimal
followed followed within consistently customer friction
functions followed

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

Component LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2 LEVEL 3 LEVEL 4 LEVEL 5

KPIs Descriptive Descriptive Descriptive Descriptive Diagnostic
statistics statistics and diagnostic and diagnostic and predictive
captured, captured statistics in place; statistics analytics cascaded
siloed data consistently; some predictive benchmarked consistently
some diagnostic statistics in place externally; throughout
statistics predictive functions and
deployed statistics in place levels
Annual Fire drill Siloed, disparate Well managed Programmatic Programmatic,
Planning views of fact base project with agreed upon multi-year view
fact base aligned to strategy
Growth Rate Below At industry; On par with Ahead of industry Ahead of
Relative to industry and behind some industry; some and some industry and all
Industry / competitors competitors competitors competitors competitors
Competitors outpacing
% Chance
to Make the 52 65 74 87 95
Number
% Companies
43 24 17 9 7
2019

Level

5
Level

4
Level

Level
3
2
Level

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WHAT MARKET-LEADING COMPANIES DO

There were many things Level 5 companies did.
But as we uncovered after months of debate and review,
four “simple truths” stood out. The market leaders got
those four things right during the annual planning phase,
and that propelled them to Level 5 status on SBI’s RGMM:
1. Set Numbers Correctly
2. Inventory Potential Bets
3. Place Bets
4. Make the Revenue Growth Program Sustainable
In our research, we found that market leaders exhibit the
following behaviors in their annual planning motions:
•• Demonstrate disciplined data governance and hygiene
•• Leverage a collective fact base that has been vetted
•• Allow only the critical few KPIs (both leading and
lagging) to inform strategic decisions
•• Set revenue targets that are realistic and supported by
bottoms-up evidence
•• Follow a disciplined process to inventory potential
strategic bets
•• Manage annual planning as a program supported by a
platform and not as a project
•• Choose the critical few strategic initiatives vs. many
tactical ones
•• Display rigorous execution of agreed upon plans
•• Deploy an agile cadence to manage execution over time
•• Make quarterly adjustments to the plan in a structured
and cross-functional fashion
Within the context of these four truths, SBI will lay a
framework that enables organizations to make a choice.
Should you catch up with industry and competitive
growth rates? Or should you maintain a comparable
growth rate when compared to your peers? Or, as is the
case with market leaders, should you grow faster than
your industry and competitors?
Making this choice is fundamental. It defines how you
should plan, execute, and manage the strategy.

A private equity firm helped spin out a $200M e-commerce company, which was at
Level 1 on the RGMM. This company deployed a lead generation and revenue marketing
function that accelerated their revenue growth past competitors and industry.
Once the lead generation engine began to show return, they kicked off a go-to-market
transformation, including direct sales and a change to the partner model. Within 3 years,
this company reached Level 5 (along with a 7x enterprise value improvement). They were
purchased by a strategic buyer who is continuing to accelerate the growth trajectory.

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

THE 4 SIMPLE TRUTHS OF

MARKET LEADERS

SIMPLE TRUTH 1: Validate Your Number

SET NUMBERS CORRECTLY
We have all been there: You get assigned a 15% revenue
growth number, and it feels like it fell from the air. We
have all felt the pressure to buckle down and get there
however we must. But is your number realistic?

Market leaders have a Revenue Operations team that

produces a fact base to validate the number. First, they
look at the growth of the overall economy and market.
15% is very different for an industry growing at 2-3%
versus one growing at 20%. Furthermore, they look at the
growth rate of competitors. Lastly, Revenue Operations
must look beyond the “Total Addressable Market.” This
requires building a fact base at the account level and
understanding what these accounts can spend.

Through our thousands of engagements and expert panels with private equity leaders, CEOs, and marketing and
sales leaders, we have developed the B2B High Growth “Core 10” KPIs. These are what market-leading Revenue Operations
teams are building. SBI’s statistical analysis has demonstrated that with these 10 KPIs, we can effectively determine where
a company is on the RGMM and identify their probability of making their number. By avoiding the trivial many and focusing
on the critical few, market-leading Revenue Operations teams benchmark themselves on these core metrics.

Revenue Operations teams cross sales, marketing, pricing, and customer success to ensure that these teams are
working off common data definitions and infrastructures. They also own the data hygiene, as this ultimately ensures
that all parties – including Finance – agree on the fact base.

Leading Indicators Lagging Indicators

•• % Revenue (or Bookings) Invested in Sales and Marketing •• % of Bookings Attributed to Marketing
•• Pipeline Coverage Ratio •• Annual Bookings per FTE
•• Sales Representative Turnover •• Dollar Retention Rate
•• % Selling Time •• Revenue Mix (Existing, New, and Expansion)
•• Quota Attainment by Representative
•• Win Rate
* For definitions on each of the KPIs, see Appendix 2

A $400M tech-enabled business services company was experiencing flat growth.

This company transformed from Level 2 to 4 via a marketing and go-to-market
transformation to deploy their resources more effectively. Once that change was
completed and revenue growth outpaced the industry, the company shifted its focus
to a CX transformation, which has put them on a path towards Level 5.

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

SIMPLE TRUTH 2:
INVENTORY POTENTIAL BETS
To decide on the highest potential choices, we must first clearly define each possible initiative. We must clearly identify a
scope – which includes executive sponsor, start date, end date, and definition of success.

In the Revenue Growth Maturity Model, there is a stark difference in how market leaders manage their annual
planning process. These companies, which comprise the top 16% of revenue growth capabilities, take a phased
approach to building their annual plan (as described below) rather than the series of projects undertaken by companies
that are Level 1-3.

Belief Bet Expected Results Learning Next Steps

50% of reps made quota Deploy new sales 70% of reps make quota
last year enablement in 2020
Assess current 10% improvement in
Bookings per FTE flat
representatives bookings per FTE

Phase 1: Outside-In (What)
Step 1: Do we have market validation of our number? Are
there defined competitors in this space? What are their
growth rates? Level 2+ companies have well-established
market listening paths that provide this information and
factor it into their growth targets. Market leaders know
how fast each market segment is growing, so they can
design the right solution(s) for that space.
Step 2: From which accounts will we make the number?
This is a key differentiator between companies at
different levels on the Revenue Growth Maturity Model.
All companies, of course, have a view of their current
accounts, but what does this look like for Level 4+
companies? At these companies, they programmatically
review their accounts (generally on a quarterly basis) and
understand the answers to these questions:
•• What solution(s) are in place for each account?
What makes Level 4+ companies effective is that
these issues have been resolved programmatically
vs. the “fire drill” once per year that Level 1-3
companies experience.
•• What is the White Space of this account? In other
words, which solution(s) do we offer that they have
not yet purchased?
•• What is the Propensity to Buy for each account?
Also called “Purchase Intent Modeling,” this is
an understanding of what firmographic and
psychographic factors determine when an account is
in market. For Level 4+ companies, they can tailor the
go-to-market strategy so that they are focused on
the most likely accounts.
•• Is there a robust data architecture and cleanliness
plan necessary to enable this level of discussion? For
Level 5 companies, this segmentation is offered as
a platform. This data is maintained and updated real
time, so salespeople can view their territories and
continuously re-prioritize their efforts.
Step 3: Do we have the right coverage of each account?
For Level 4+ companies, they have moved beyond
gut feel and are making data-driven decisions. They
understand whether their customers want to be
served directly or through a partner. They understand
if customers want to buy digitally, over the phone, or in
person. This generally varies by segment but is factored
into the coverage plan for each account. The power of
a programmatic approach is that these exercises are
integrated and inform one another. When done together,
the iterations between steps result in a better product
that can drive actionable decisions.

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

Phase 2: Inside-Out (How)
In SBI’s Growth Culture Survey of B2B Sales
Professionals, three actionable themes consistently
come up that drive seller satisfaction and their perceived
ability to make their individual number.
1) Pipeline: Market-leading companies have demand
generation programs in place, and these are aligned with
the sales team to ensure enough pipeline in the ideal
customer profile by rep is being generated. A feedback
loop is in place so that the demand generation strategy
can be refined on an agile basis.
2) Territory: Sales reps need enough “White Space” to
make their number. At market leading companies, these
territories and quotas align to the White Space identified
during the account segmentation plan. Sharing this
information in a transparent and easy-to-understand
manner is important to drive sales rep satisfaction.
3) Market-Based Compensation Plan: A key to sales
rep retention is paying them competitively with
the market, but the plan must also align with your
company’s strategy. At market-leading companies, both
goals are accomplished. However, the most successful
compensation plan is dependent on an achievable quota
where greater than 65% of the sales force activates the
variable components. Best-in-class companies offer
compensation plans that have clear objectives and are
consistent, transparent, and simple.

SIMPLE TRUTH 3: PLACE BETS

Your gut feeling is not enough to decide which of these bets to place. From the
“outside-in” approach, you can quickly determine the revenue impact of each initiative.
It is important to use a consistent approach across your bets, so we recommend
looking at 3-5-year horizons, and applying your EBITDA or operating income margin
(by product line).

Many companies are tempted to simply pick the best ROI, but this overlooks the
importance of execution. Market leaders take a self-aware view of what the company can realistically achieve. This
is a place where the leadership team can collaborate by leveraging a tool to measure the team's ability to accomplish
each change.

Level of Effort: Measure of the overall scale of the effort. This includes both the capacity (do you have people to do
the work) and the capability (someone who has done this before).

Time to Realization: This should align to your Board’s planning horizon. In many private-equity-backed companies,
this may align to a targeted exit date. Will the initiative(s) bear fruit within that timeframe?

The graphic below is an example of how a Level 2 company prioritized and selected its big bets for the coming year.
They took this realistic view of what is achievable and prioritized the initiatives highlighted in green. This set them on a
path to Level 4.

Improve
Customer
Accelerate Renewal
Territory, Quota, Experience
and Maintenance
LEVEL OF EFFORT

Buying and and Compensation

Programs Revenue
Sales Design
Marketing
Customer Process
Journey
Map Fully segment and
prioritize accounts
Revenue
Win/ Loss Operations People Plan
Program

Prospecting
Process
Pipeline and Forecast
Management

TIME TO REALIZATION

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

Companies who have successfully advanced through the RGMM have done this through taking a 2-3-year roadmap
view and selecting 2-3 initiatives per year, broken down into achievable quarterly objectives. The graphic below shows
a company advancing from Level 3 to Level 5, in a sequenced 3-year roadmap.

EXAMPLE OF THREE-YEAR BIG BET TIMELINE

2019 2020 2021
Strategic Initiative Activity Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
1
Segmentation
1. Accounts 2. Markets and Buyers 3. Refresh
$ STRATEGIC
CLARITY GTM
1. Mkt Intel, Planning, and Execution 2. FY21 Revision 3. FY22 Revision
AND FOCUS
Milestones GTM Strategy & Market, Account, and Buyer Segmentation Complete
2

FLEXIBLE, FIT Sales Strategy 1. Partners, Org Design 2. Territory, Comp and Quota Design and Rollout 3. Support and Enablement
FOR PURPOSE
3 PROCESSES Milestones Partner Strategy Finalized Territory Designed Comp and Quota Set

EMPOWERED Talent
1. Planning and Acquisition 2. Management and Support
AND ENABLED
4 TEAM Milestones Talent Plan Finalized Initiatives Staffed for Execution

Product
1. Planning and Development 2. Launch and Support
CUSTOMER-
CENTERED Pricing
1. Positioning and Structure 2. Price Setting and Execution 3. Governance and Systems
5 SOLUTIONS
Milestones Product Strategy Set Prices Set

Customer Success
DYNAMIC 1. Planning and Process 2. People and Execution

ALIGNMENT Marketing
TO CUSTOMER 1. Digital, Campaign, Content, Budget Planning 2.Program Execution Defined 3. Support
PATH
Milestones CS Accounts and Stakeholders Identified Market Programs Identified

4/15/2019

SIMPLE TRUTH 4: CREATE A SUSTAINABLE REVENUE GROWTH PROGRAM

Market leading companies use a variety of techniques
to convert strategy into execution. The Revenue “A good plan violently executed right now
Enablement Team is accountable for: is better than the perfect plan executed
next week.”
•• Data architecture and cleanliness (ensuring that all - General George Patton
functions are using the same data)
•• Cascading KPI platform (real time data)
The Revenue Enablement Team is accountable for taking
•• Leading cross-functional interlock
the market and customer insights and training the
commercial team on how to be more effective.
Market-leading companies deploy sophisticated market
listening platforms to capture insights from competitors
Market leading companies deploy an agile methodology
and customers. These are distilled into insights and
to keep the “flywheel” going.
shared throughout the commercial team.

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

ACTIVATING THESE INSIGHTS

A $2.5B enterprise software company transformed from Level 2 to Level 4 of the RGMM.
After establishing a fact base, they made two big bets to accelerate their growth: They
1) shifted their renewal motion to an internal Customer Success Team and 2) deployed
a formal product launch process to accelerate growth of their emerging product. The
complexity of this change required deployment of a Growth Transformation Office to
ensure all functions were aligned. Upon completing the first shift, they are deploying a
best-in-class marketing function, which will get them to Level 5 of the RGMM.

You now have an opportunity to leverage these emerging an annual program connected to the broader 3-year
best practices. Tactical projects will only generate plan. It builds momentum in your company versus
incremental improvements. starting over every year.

We have assembled from our research the approach To see where you are on the Revenue Growth Maturity
used by market leaders. The first step is to build a plan Model, click here. You can also see the annual planning
to make your number in 2020: tool in Appendix 3.

1. Set Numbers Correctly. Establish a data-driven fact

base and set of KPIs as well as deploy a Revenue
Operations capability. The entire executive team
must agree on a fact base that is market- and data-
driven, with a shared set of aligned KPIs. And there
must be a group (Revenue Operations) to hold the
teams accountable.
2. Inventory Potential Bets. Market leaders have design SBI helps executive teams consistently
principles that govern their options to deliver the make their numbers and grow revenues
annual number. These design principles govern how faster than their industry and their
the annual plan is built. Inventorying bets forces the competitors.
company to be stage appropriate and ensures the
effort to make the annual number is part of a bigger
program.
Contact us today to speak with a
3. Place Your Bets. Market leaders make bets. Big
revenue growth specialist.
bets. But they select in a given year only a few of
them (typically, no more than three). They rally the
entire commercial organization (product, marketing,
sales, customer success/services/support) around
these bets. The bets are published, and goals
are architected against them and known by the
entire company.
4. Create a Revenue Growth Program. Market leaders
have an execution methodology mindset. While there
are a proliferation of planning tools available, market
leaders proved that annual planning was just the
first step. The planning effort must be supported by

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

APPENDIX 1: SUMMARY OF RESEARCH

In addition to our 15 data collection techniques across 4 lenses, we now have access to 7,063 responses to the
Revenue Growth Diagnostic.

Research Method Description Number Completed

Direct surveys or one-to-one interviews of
Customer – Buyers 38,922
buyer personas.

Corporate – Strategy Documents Review and discussion of strategy documents. 4,428

Corporate - Metrics Calculation and capture of Key Performance

319
Benchmarked Indicators in SBI’s proprietary database.

Corporate - Executive Interviews One-to-one interviews of C-level individuals. 5,276

Comparison of products across direct and

Market – Mystery Shops 825
indirect competitors.

Analysis of direct and indirect competitors of in

Market – Competitors 617
the industries in which our clients compete.

Direct 1:1 feedback from Sales, Marketing, and

Field – Personnel 21,933
Corporate individual contributors.

A “Day in the Life Of” where an SBI consultant

is embedded with a sales representative to
Field – DILO 657
capture insights from their normal customer
and internal interactions.

SBI reviews a proposed emerging best practice

Field – Expert Panel Days 3,227
with select experts.

Field – Front-Line Managers Direct 1:1 interview of front-line sales managers. 9,293

A 10-15-question online survey completed on

Revenue Growth Diagnostic 7,063
SBI’s website.

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

APPENDIX 2: KPI DEFINITIONS

KPI Definition
% Revenue (or Bookings) •• Total dollars invested in sales (includes people, programs,
Invested in Sales and travel, etc.) or marketing, divided by total revenue
Marketing •• Note: SaaS companies typically view this on bookings

•• (Total dollars sold YTD + dollars of opportunities in all stages)

Pipeline Coverage Ratio
divided by the annual revenue target or quota

Sales Representative •• Number of sales representatives that left (voluntary

Turnover and involuntary) divided by total sales rep headcount

•• The amount of time invested in activities that drive value for

% Selling Time customers (including face to face, phone, digital touches) and
the preparation time divided by the working hours in a year

•• Following your selected revenue attribution method (i.e., first

% Bookings Attributed to
touch, last touch), what percent of bookings resulted from
Marketing
marketing activities

•• Divide annual bookings by FTE in the sales organization (this

Annual Bookings per FTE includes quota carrying sales, pre-sales, customer success,
sales support, sales enablement, and sales support)

•• All dollars from renewal customers divided by all dollars

Dollar Retention Rate available for renewal (this excludes any expansion but does
account for churn and price increases)

•• In reviewing the revenue plan, each dollar is assigned to one

of three categories: Existing (existing customer continues
Revenue Mix (Existing,
to buy), New (a customer who has not bought in the last
New and Expansion)
24 months or longer), and Expansion (existing customer
buys more)

Quota Attainment by
•• Annual bookings divided by annual quota
Representative

•• The number of opportunities that are Closed-Won divided by

Win Rate
the total number of Opportunities Created

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 MAKING YOUR NUMBER IN 2020

APPENDIX 3: ANNUAL PLANNING TOOL

Market leading firms have programmatic annual planning processes that allow them to undertake multi-year
transformational journeys. This tool is designed to help Revenue Growth Leaders move from a project-based approach
to a sustainable program.

We know We can clearly articulate We can collect KPIs on

our industry our key initiatives for an ongoing basis
growth rate the coming year

We know
We know our the level of
competitors’ We know effort needed
growth rates the leading to execute These KPIs
We agree indicators on the are cascaded
on the data that will prioritized through the
source(s) for measure initiatives organization
these KPIs success We know Ongoing
We agree on for each We know
the time to cross-
the top KPIs initiative the expected
realization functional
to measure revenue,
for the interlock
operating
prioritized meetings are
income,
initiatives in place
We have and costs
benchmarked for each
our KPIs initiative
to similar
companies

ESTABLISH INVENTORY PLACE YOUR EXECUTE YOUR

FACT BASE BETS BETS BETS

Validate Your Number Expected Next

Belief Bet Learning
Results Steps

CEO CFO REV OPS CMO CSO

Establish Fact Base

Inventory Bets

Place Your Bets

Execute Your Bets

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 AUGUST 2019

Written By:
FRED PENTEADO

© 2019 Sales Benchmark Index