Fix a pipeline that stalled

Deals are sitting, the number is slipping, and nobody can say exactly why. Diagnose it in order.

4 steps, 16 questions underneath, read for leading a gtm team

1. 1
   Who you sell to

   Picking a customer worth chasing, and knowing early when a deal is not one.

   How do I get the team to actually use the ICP instead of nodding at a slide and then doing what they want?

   The gist An ICP that lives in a deck is decoration. Make it operational: turn it into fields in the CRM, into the lead scoring, into the list an SDR is allowed to prospect, and into a disqualification reason that a rep is rewarded for using. Then put teeth on it, publish win rate and cycle length split by in-ICP and out-of-ICP so the cost of ignoring it is visible to everyone every month. Reps follow incentives, not documents, so if off-ICP deals pay the same commission you have already lost the argument.

   📄 A Framework for Defining and Refining Your ICP Five questions you can answer this afternoon from data you already have, including the underused one about what objections churned customers gave y... 4 questions on who you sell to →
2. 2
   Outbound that works

   Cold email, cold calls, LinkedIn, sequences and lists. How to start conversations with people who have never heard of you.

   When do I hire SDRs, and how many AEs can one SDR feed?

   The gist Hire SDRs after you can point at a message and a segment that reliably produce meetings, not before. If a founder or AE cannot book meetings from cold outreach, an SDR will not fix it, they will just fail more expensively. When you do hire, hire two rather than one so you can tell a person problem from a process problem. Ratios depend on deal size and cycle length, but the useful discipline is Aaron Ross's original point: separate the person who opens from the person who closes, and measure the SDR on qualified opportunities created, not on activity. Give them a written playbook, a defined list, and at least a quarter before you judge them.

   📄 15-minute summary of Predictable Revenue The origin of the SDR role and of role specialisation in modern SaaS sales, condensed by the author himself so you do not have to buy the book to g... 4 questions on outbound that works →
3. 3
   Running a sales process and closing

   Discovery, demos, qualification, champions, procurement and the last mile to a signature.

   How do I turn random wins into a sales process someone else can run?

   The gist Write it down, then make it boring. Take your last ten closed deals and map what actually happened at each stage, then turn that into templates: a qualification checklist, a discovery guide, a demo structure, a pricing sheet with approved discount bands, and a definition of what a stage change requires. Add a weekly pipeline review with the same questions every time, and run loss reviews on every deal you drop so the playbook keeps improving. Do not set quotas until the process is proven repeatable, because a quota on an unproven motion just teaches you that the rep failed. The test is simple: could a competent new hire close a deal using only what you have written?

   📄 SaaS Playbook: Sales India Built from a masterclass with Mohit Garg, former CRO at MindTickle, and written for cross-border companies selling from India, including how to str... 4 questions on running a sales process and closing →
4. 4
   Forecasting and GTM metrics

   Pipeline coverage, stage conversion, CAC payback, magic number, and calling a number you can defend to a board.

   How do I call a quarterly number I can actually defend to my CEO and my board?

   The gist Build it three ways and show the range, not a single figure: bottom up from deal level commits with entry criteria applied strictly, top down from historical stage conversion applied to today's pipeline (the version that ignores rep optimism), and a capacity view of productive reps times realistic productivity. If the three land within about ten percent of each other, call the middle and sleep. If they diverge badly, that divergence is the real finding and you should present it as such rather than quietly averaging it away. Then say out loud what would have to go wrong for you to miss and what would have to go right to beat it. A number offered with its assumptions is defensible, a number offered alone is just a promise.

   📄 The Definitive Way to Measure and Grade Sales Forecast Accuracy Defines accuracy against the day one forecast rather than the revised one, which is the single change that makes the metric honest. Includes the gr... 4 questions on forecasting and gtm metrics →