You're flying blind without a pipeline model

✍️ “Can I see your pipeline model?”

Travel back to December 2023 with me for a sec. 

I was about six months into my time at UserEvidence.

I quickly realized the skill set that got me here was not the same one that would make me successful in this new VP role. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. 

I started meeting with Kyle Lacy for one hour every Friday for coaching and mentorship. He asked me a simple question:

Can I see your pipeline model?

I confidently pulled up what we had: a basic ARR plan with top-level metrics on new business bookings, renewal bookings, and headcount needed to hit our numbers.

Kyle quickly looked at the Google Sheet and said, “This isn’t a pipeline model.”

My lightbulb moment

He explained that my spreadsheet was the kind of necessary stuff you needed to set a board plan.

Not what our go-to-market team needed every week and month to see whether we were creating enough pipeline to hit our new business number.

We weren’t looking at win rates, average deal sizes, or sales cycle lengths—the types of metrics that actually help you set accurate new business pipeline goals.

Our Sales, Sales Development, and [then] one-person Marketing team were essentially flying blind with no clear idea of what each team needed to deliver so we could hit our quarterly targets.

Creating an actual pipeline model

I spent a ton of time in January with Kyle and Matt Avero-Sturm to build our first real pipeline model.

Matt is the best RevOps mind I’ve ever met. He dug deep into our historical data and cleaned everything up as best he could.

We looked at each pipeline source (Outbound, Inbound, Events, and Referrals) over the last four quarters to find critical metrics like:

• Sourced opportunities (#), pipeline ($), and bookings ($)

• Average win rate

• Average contract value

We checked, then checked, and checked again to ensure our inputs were directionally accurate.

We modeled for three potential Q1 scenarios and presented all three to my co-founders Evan and Ray:

1. Conservative: 10% QoQ improvement in sourced opportunities, win rate, and ACV

2. Best case: 20% QoQ improvement in the same metrics

3. Aggressive: Huge QoQ improvement that would have us meet the board plan

Scenario planning helped us gauge what was realistically achievable and where we could push ourselves. We picked the Likely scenario to use for Q1.

Using the pipeline model

Every Monday morning has become a pivotal part of my weekly routine.

I review the previous week’s progress across all channels, update the weekly pacing, and track actuals against our forecasts.

When we kicked off Q2 (we’re on the Salesforce fiscal year), we updated the inputs/assumptions based on our actual Q1 performance. 

The plan is to do this same exercise at the start of every quarter so we can better understand our progress relative to our board plan. 

Looking back, I'm not sure how we ever worked without a pipeline model. It’s a compass guiding us toward our pipeline North Star.

Our pipeline model is also a tool that’s now a template. You can download it here and make a copy.

🤓 Stuff I’m learning (and digging) right now

• My Reed Between The Lines debut - Devin and I had a real, no-filter convo about things I hadn't discussed before. This video interview is one of my all-time favorite personal and career moments. The production is next level too.

• Coda.io's website - I'm always searching for new B2B inspiration. Jason Oakley (one of our marketing advisors) showed us this website during our monthly working session last Friday. I love the clarity, design, and structure.

• Hatch's new 9% Content show  - Their new show launched this month. It breaks down the content strategies B2B companies can use to build trust with the 95% of buyers who are out-of-market today but will buy in the future.

💰Opinions are cheap and proof is gold

We deviated from our usual format for episode 9 of The Proof Point after Robert Kaminski called out Calendly’s homepage on LinkedIn, and their Head of Product Marketing (Jeff Hardison) responded in the comments.

We invited them for a healthy debate about Calendly’s homepage messaging.

My biggest takeaways:

• Marketers and salespeople are over-indexing on “selling the outcomes.” It’s time to think about why someone visits your homepage in the first place.

• There’s a balance to strike between minimalism and compelling narratives, especially when trying to drive freemium adoption AND enterprise-level deals.

• If you’re not experimenting and regularly testing your messaging, you should be. Blend quantitative data with qualitative feedback to see what lands best.

Listen on Spotify, Apple, or head over to YouTube watch the show.

UserEvidence, who?

UserEvidence is a customer evidence platform that helps B2B marketing teams generate verified proof points that credibly prove the value of your product.

Using custom surveys at key moments throughout the customer journey, you can capture case studies and testimonials, as well as competitive intelligence, product stats, and ROI data.

Turn happy customers into your best sellers with UserEvidence.