Revenue Operations
The system underneath the growth.
The operating system beneath growth: funnel modelling, sequencing, forecasting and capacity planning across markets. The infrastructure that made a number repeatable.
What changed
Growth that could not be forecast was luck, and luck does not survive a bad quarter. Revenue operations was the layer that turned activity into something a team could staff, forecast and improve: the difference between a good quarter and a good machine. It also taught me how convincingly a dashboard can measure the wrong thing. That is where much of the writing starts.
The diagnostic
A funnel model earns its place when it predicts. Feed it last quarter's inputs and see whether it reproduces last quarter's result. Most models are built to explain the past, not to risk being wrong about the future. A model that cannot be wrong cannot help you plan.
The method
Four moves, in order.
Modelling the funnel
End to end: conversion, velocity and capacity, market by market.
Sequencing the motion
So effort landed where it converted, not where it was comfortable.
Forecasting from the model
Holding the number when the mood in the room wanted a different one.
Clearing the constraint
Find the bottleneck, clear it, then find the next one. There was always a next one. Pretending otherwise was how teams optimised something that was already fine.
The question that remained
One shared number changed more behaviour than any dashboard. Why that holds, and what happens when a funnel is measured everywhere except at the constraint, is still being worked out.
Further reading
- What AI actually changes in revenue operations Two field experiments and a staggered rollout. Two of the harms an average cannot see; the third it records as an improvement.
- The one number a commercial team should share. Alignment is not agreement, and it is not a workshop. It is one number both sides can move, both sides are judged on, and neither side can move alone.
- The funnel bottleneck nobody's measuring. The funnel you instrument is the one your CRM can see. The most expensive interval in it happens between two systems, and shows up in neither.
- Why growth compounds, and activity doesn't. The quiet difference between moves that make the next move easier and work that resets when the quarter ends, and why the second is much easier to fund.
Explore another area
Bring the question you're working on.
Research, a guest lecture, or a commercial question.
A short note is enough to give it shape.
Get in touch →