Points of View

No. A deal review checks the health of an opportunity. Coaching builds a rep's underlying judgement. Treating them as the same produces manager dependency, not scalable capability, and that distinction quietly shapes everything from qualification quality to forecast accuracy. Most managers believe they coach their teams every week. What they actually run is a deal review. The two activities look almost identical from the outside, but they leave very different things behind. A

Forecast misses are almost never caused by poor forecasting. They are caused by weak management disciplines upstream: in qualification, pipeline coverage, coaching, and deal progression. The forecast is a readout of how well those disciplines are being held. Fix the system, and the number takes care of itself. When a forecast misses, the instinct is to fix the forecasting. That instinct is almost always wrong. I have sat in too many quarter-end rooms where a capable, honest t

Qualification fails when treated as a one-off gate because a complex deal changes continuously after creation. Treating it as a continuous discipline, embedded in cadence, coaching, and pipeline reviews, keeps your most expensive resources pointed at winnable deals and prevents pipeline fiction from accumulating unchallenged. Most teams qualify a deal once, at the moment they are most optimistic about it, and never qualify it again. That single habit is where pipeline fiction

Fractional leadership is often introduced into conversations for the wrong reason. It typically appears framed as a financial alternative, a way to reduce cost, a temporary solution while a permanent hire is delayed, or a pragmatic compromise in uncertain times. That framing is understandable. It is also deeply limiting. The most effective organisations do not use fractional leadership to save money. They use it to multiply capability, accelerate progress and reduce executio

Curiosity is one of the most powerful skills in any revenue organisation. Yet in almost every sales audit, deal review and leadership session we run, the same pattern appears. Teams believe they are being curious. But client centred curiosity often switches off much earlier than leaders desire. And when curiosity shuts down, so does value creation. Deals stall. Assumptions creep in. Client validation becomes shallow. Stakeholder mapping narrows. Pipeline fiction starts to app

As a Revenue Leader, you’re under pressure: growth targets, hiring challenges, churn risk, market volatility. You can’t control all external factors, but you can control your sales culture. Strategy, technology, product - they shift. People, behaviours, culture - that stays. Investing in culture is not a “nice-to-have.” It’s the most sustainable, controllable lever to drive performance, retain talent, reduce attrition cost, accelerate execution, build trust, and create differ

Why the 3x Rule Is Simply Wrong Pipeline coverage is one of the most important levers in revenue leadership. It shapes forecasting accuracy, territory performance, deal behaviour, and ultimately the confidence a business has in its commercial engine. And helps clarify where the team needs to focus. Yet most organisations still rely on a default view that has been repeated for years without scrutiny. “We need 3x pipeline.” It is one of the most widely used statements in sales

How first line sales managers stay focused on what really drives performance. First line sales management is one of the most rewarding and demanding roles in any organisation. Your targets are fixed. Everything else is fluid. Your team and their requirements, the market, competitors, the economy, your clients and their challenges, and even your own organisation all shift constantly. If you are a first line sales manager – get good at these core disciplines and your team, and

Strategic Leverage not Operational Coverage For businesses navigating complex GTM environments, fractional leadership is a strategic lever that delivers outcomes, clarity, stability, and performance. Effective revenue business view it as a strategic lever to be deployed to keep the revenue engine running optimally; not to plug a short-term gap in your hiring or organisation model. Fractional sales leadership is not impactful because it saves money. It is impactful because it