Blog · Territory, capacity and quota planning
Four handoffs in a revenue operation and the measure for each, from exports the company holds: lead to meeting, meeting to opportunity, opportunity to closed, and closed to renewed, with the conversion, the time and the leakage at each, per segment and per source, the identity that ties the funnel's counts to the ledger, and the one page that shows where the revenue operation loses the most.
Marketing reports leads, sales development reports meetings, sales reports closed deals, and success reports renewals. Each figure is right and none of them says where the revenue operation loses the most. Four handoffs, each with a conversion, a time and a leakage, from the same exports, do. This guide sets them out and reconciles them to the ledger.
| # | Handoff | Conversion | Time | Leakage in value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lead to meeting | meetings ÷ qualified leads | days lead to meeting | leads dropped × expected revenue per meeting-stage lead |
| 2 | Meeting to opportunity | opportunities ÷ meetings | days meeting to opportunity | meetings dropped × expected revenue per opportunity |
| 3 | Opportunity to closed | won ÷ (won + lost) | cycle days | lost × average won value |
| 4 | Closed to renewed | renewed ÷ due at first renewal | churned first-year revenue |
Identifiers only.
leads − stage 1 leakage − stage 2 leakage − stage 3 leakage = closed customers, by cohort of lead date closed customers' first-year revenue = ledger new-logo revenue for the cohort
A closed opportunity with no invoice, or a new customer with no opportunity, fails the second and is listed.
Cohort: leads qualified in the first half.
| Handoff | Referral | Inbound | Paid | Outbound | All |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Lead to meeting | 71% | 38% | 14% | 22% | 29% |
| 2 Meeting to opportunity | 64% | 44% | 31% | 33% | 43% |
| 3 Opportunity to closed | 52% | 29% | 18% | 17% | 27% |
| 4 Closed to renewed | 94% | 88% | 71% | 79% | 84% |
| Handoff | Leakage in value, all sources |
|---|---|
| 1 | $1.9m |
| 2 | $2.4m |
| 3 | $4.1m |
| 4 | $0.8m |
The largest leak is at close, and within it the paid and outbound sources close at a third of the referral rate. The operation's first fix is qualification at handoff 2 for those two sources, so that fewer opportunities reach handoff 3 to be lost there, and the page says so with the values.
Each team's own metric. Four right numbers and no page.
Funnel not reconciled. The closed count and the ledger's new customers differ and nobody knows which is right.
One source, one segment. The paid-lead problem averaged into the referral strength.
Leakage as a rate. Fourteen percent is a rate; one point nine million is a priority.
Mapped once, the leads, activities, pipeline, ledger and contract register produce the four conversions, times and leakages by source and segment, and the identities every month. Covirage builds this from the exports as they are. The sales insights solution describes the setup, and the meeting conversion guide covers the second handoff in depth.
Because a funnel figure across all sources hides that referrals convert at three times the rate of paid leads and enterprise deals take twice as long. The fix for a leaking handoff is different by source and segment, and the split says which one to fix.
Leads or opportunities that dropped at a stage, valued at the expected revenue of those that passed it. It turns a conversion rate into a dollar figure per stage, and the largest figure is where the operation starts.
Closed-won opportunities in the period, joined to the ledger's new customers with first invoices in the period. The counts and the revenue should match; where they do not, an opportunity closed without an invoice, or a new customer with no opportunity, is on the exception list.