Tired of firefighting this Q? Focus on next Q instead
Tired of firefighting this Q? Focus on next Q instead
Future you will thank you
How much of your day-to-day is dedicated to this quarter?
If you’re like most revenue leaders I talk to, it’s probably too much.
I’m talking about this feeling when you enter a new quarter, and you know that your pipeline is padded and your first forecast call reveals how soft everyone’s deals are.
And it doesn’t help that in SaaS today there are sooooo many tools focused on pipeline management and forecasting.
Because of that - guess what - everyone is only focusing on that: Pipeline and Forecast.
And don’t get me wrong, this is super valuable work.
But all of that analysis is only valuable for this quarter.
And there’s very little tooling out there to help you figure out next quarter.
And as I many times said to myself:
“Who cares about next quarter?”
I have a problem in this quarter.
Next quarter is future Toni’s problem.
And today-Toni would rather focus on firefighting so I can keep my job.
The problem? You won’t ever escape the hamster wheel.
This way of operating is ok for a quarter or two when the ship us burning.
But then you have to snap out of it.
Otherwise: repeat sensation of “padded pipeline” and “soft forecasts”
Move up in your funnel
So how do you get out of this firefighting mindset?
The way I look at it, you basically need to go up one level in your funnel.
As an example, let’s say you’re a CRO.
You’re probably spending all of your time on:
Forecasting calls
Pipeline management reviews
Executive sponsorships of every deal
Late-stage negotiation calls
All valuable stuff, but if you’re not careful, they can quickly become all you do.
Instead, spend your time on the friction points between teams (e.g. sales/marketing and sales/CS). That’s where a CRO should be spending the majority of their time.
Things like:
Making sure hiring works and is on time
Making sure that SDRs are performing the right way
Making sure your VP Marketing is executing those campaigns properly
Making sure that CS is building a strong pool of customers to be up-sold
And if you are a switched-on RevOps reading this, then help your CRO to focus on that stuff instead.
With my VP Sales, I had a very simple deal:
You guys focus on this quarter, I’ll manage the next one.
If you, as a CRO, are stuck in this Q all the time, you gotta ask yourself if you have the right VP Sales.
P.S. If you want to fix next Q but don’t know where to start, we’re solving that exact thing and more. Feel free to request a demo on Growblocks.com or send me an email.