Annual Planning Part 3

Setting Revenue Targets

I find Annual Planning to be less effective when either of the following happens:

• Starts too late

• Does not involve key stakeholders and/or departments

• Involves too many people (too many cooks in the kitchen)

• Uses tops down only (very common)

• Uses bottoms up only (very uncommon)

So let’s fix that. As a RevOps leader one of the most impactful partnerships is with the finance team. You already have a relationship with your CRO and CMO. So why not make it a trifecta where GTM and Finance work together. Without this partnership, planning can run unchecked. It may result in something like this:

“Our target next year is double our sales”.

“Out target next year is X% growth”.

Why?

Because that’s the target that will drive the appropriate valuation hell or high water. Make it happen.

A balanced planning motion has a tops down (above) and a bottoms up approach. It looks something like this.

Credit: financealliance.io

So today let’s walk through revenue target setting and the initial cascade down to the organization. And remember in a previous article I broke out a simple mental model for building a Revenue Operating Plan. Here’s the article and the framework once more.

What is in a Revenue Operating Model?

Mental model

1. Define the Revenue Operating Model (this week)

   1. Lead generation

   2. Meetings

   3. Opportunities

   4. Wins

   5. Retention

2. Setting up the 3 Cs: Coverage, Capability, Capacity (next week’s post)

   1. Outbound vs Inbound

   2. Roles

   3. Top Sales Rep Profile(s), SDR Profiles

   4. Repetitive Hiring Program

   5. Repetitive Onboarding Training