Growth strategy
The pipeline is £2.4m. A third of it has no next meeting in the diary.
Deal stage is a matter of opinion. Whether something is booked in a calendar is not, and the gap between them explains most forecast misses.
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Growth strategy
Payback is 14 months. Half the cohort has gone by month nine.
Payback periods are calculated on an average customer who does not exist, and the arithmetic fails in one specific, expensive…
Pricing
The estimate was accurate on average. The jobs you won were not.
Unbiased estimating can still produce a portfolio of loss-making work, because winning a quote is not a random draw from…
Pricing
The competitor cut price 12%. Most of your customers will never hear about it.
A rival drops price and the instinct is to match. The arithmetic of matching, and the question of who is…
Pricing
The list price is £2,400. The invoices range from £1,150 to £2,400.
Most businesses know their list price. Far fewer know the distribution of what they are actually paid, and the shape…
Growth strategy
The win rate is 42%. A third of the pipeline never chose anyone.
Most sales reviews measure how often you beat a competitor. The larger leak is usually the deals where the buyer…
Operations
Three people can do the complex work. It’s 60% of the pipeline.
Headcount looks adequate and utilisation looks healthy, yet the schedule keeps slipping, because capacity was counted in hours rather than…
Market analysis
Churn is 6%. Net revenue retention is 100%. Revenue is flat.
A high customer retention rate and a stagnant revenue base can coexist comfortably, and the reason is usually sitting in…
Operations
The terms say 30 days. The money arrives on day 54.
The gap between the payment terms you agreed and the cash you actually collect is rarely a customer behaviour problem,…
Growth strategy
Revenue grew 31%. The overdraft doubled.
Profitable growth can drain cash faster than it generates it, and there is a simple ratio that tells you the…
Take it further
This is the general pattern. Your business is the specific case.
Everything here is free to read with an account, and always will be. What it cannot do is tell you which of these applies to your numbers, your market and your constraints. That is the work we do with clients.