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What We Fix · Revenue operations audit
Most revenue functions were never designed. They accumulated.
Almost no company designs its revenue function in one sitting. It builds up over years: a hire here, a new tool there, a promotion that worked once. We take it apart, map it and measure what is actually true, plan the changes in the right order, and then make them with you.
How a revenue function ends up the way it is
Most companies arrive at their revenue function through small, steady changes made over the course of years. It is rare that anyone, at any one moment, pulled the whole process apart on a whiteboard.
Instead, the business hired and onboarded, adopted one piece of software and then another, and tried this tactic, that promotion, a round of discounts, the latest trend online. Perhaps you’ve made TikTok videos, or implemented a version of Salesforce. There is so much information available that it’s difficult to know what to include, and harder still to know what to leave out.
The result usually works, in the sense that revenue arrives. What it rarely does is explain itself: why a deal closes, why one month is weaker than the last, or which part of the system is doing the work.
Stage one
Audit: mapping the revenue process
Our approach starts by mapping everything out, down to the smallest facet of the process. Two rules decide what goes on the map.
Rule one
If someone is making a decision, that decision is part of the process.
Rule two
If a behaviour reliably occurs, it needs to be documented and measured.
Work as imagined, and work as done
Work as imagined
The process as managers, onboarding documents and CRM stages describe it.
Work as done
The process as people actually carry it out.
Researchers in human factors and organisational psychology draw this distinction for a reason. The gap between the two is rarely visible from the top, and it is usually where revenue leaks.
A sociotechnical system
A revenue function is people, software and process working on each other. Fix the software without the behaviour around it, or the behaviour without the software, and the old gap opens up again. So we map both together.
Illustration
The same five steps, as described and as they actually happen
On paper, the sale runs in a straight line. In practice, enquiries wait for a callback, qualification gets skipped when the diary is quiet, discounts create second quotes, and closes depend on a chase nobody has written down.
Illustrative example, not client data. The audit produces this map for your business, stage by stage.
Measure what is actually true
What is being measured today? Before anything changes, we need to find out precisely what is true, and that can only be done through careful measurement.
You can only rely on measurement once the process is consistent. If five people run the same step five different ways, the numbers describe the variation rather than the step. That is why we map first and measure second.
Before mapping
Five people, five versions of the same step. The average describes nobody.
After mapping
One defined step. Now the number means something.
How we gather the detail
This stage involves long, discursive conversations and a lot of whiteboard. We look at the nature of your business from every angle, using methods that surface what documents and dashboards miss.
Whiteboarding
Every piece of the puzzle on one wall: lead sources, roles, tools, handoffs and decisions, so the whole function can be seen at once.
VisualProcess mapping
Swimlane maps of each stage from first enquiry to completed sale, showing who acts, which system records it and where each handoff happens.
MappingStructured staff interviews
A sit-down interview with every member of staff involved. We use the critical incident technique from organisational psychology: rather than asking how the process works in general, we ask about specific recent deals won and lost. It brings out the tacit knowledge, the judgement calls and workarounds, that never makes it into a process document.
Instead of askingHow does the sales process work?
We askTalk me through the last deal you lost.
Time squares
A simple grid each person fills in across a normal week, showing where working time actually goes. It is the most direct measure of work as done.
MonTueWedThuFri
The output: the whole function, mapped and measured
Once the map is complete and the measurements are in, we construct a plan for your specific business. That is the second stage.
Stage two
Planning: what changes, and in what order
In the planning stage, we identify the areas of focus for immediate improvement in the business and apply tried and tested tools and concepts for process improvement to each of them. This might mean using certain software, setting the system up properly and training the relevant staff on how to use it. It might mean redefining a role, or moving a decision to the person best placed to make it.
A course of change across every level
- Ownersagree the plan
- Managersown the reporting
- Sales and sales developmentrun the new process
- Systems and softwarecarry the data
We outline a set of steps that maps a course of change across the different levels of the business. We agree those changes with you, and then we set about implementing them.
Start where the system is held back
Every revenue function has one point that limits everything behind it. Eliyahu Goldratt’s theory of constraints makes the case that improving anything other than that point mostly adds to the queue in front of it. If quotes take a week to go out, a better lead source only means more people waiting for a quote. So the first steps of the plan are aimed at the constraint, wherever it turns out to be.
- Define the stages of the sale
- Record them the same way
- Measure conversion by stage
- Set targets the team can be held to
Smaller goals first
It’s not always as simple as identifying a problem and pasting on a solution. At times there are intermediary steps, smaller goals which have to be accomplished first to push us on our way towards the bigger ones. A team can’t be held to a conversion target until every stage of the sale is defined and recorded the same way by everyone.
The organisational psychologist Karl Weick described these as small wins: concrete, finished pieces of progress that are small enough to achieve, and that make the next step easier to take.
Every change has a cost, and so does no change
We take a markedly revenue-centric approach to change. It is always about quantifying the cost of a change made or not made, and the opportunity missed while the business waits. A lead left two days for a callback has a value you can put a figure on. So does a quarter spent deciding on a CRM.
This matters because people weigh the risk of changing far more heavily than the cost of staying as they are. Behavioural researchers call it status quo bias, and it is at its strongest in a business that is doing well enough. Putting a euro figure on both sides of the decision takes some of the emotion out of it, and shows which changes will pay for themselves first.
Cost of changing
- Time to train the team
- Software and set-up
- Disruption while it beds in
€a figure, worked out with you
Cost of not changing
- Leads waiting two days for a callback
- A quarter spent deciding on a CRM
- Deals lost at the same stage every month
€a figure, worked out with you
Both sides get a figure before anything is decided.
Sometimes the plan is to wait
Sometimes the plan involves waiting to see what the reaction to certain steps will be. In systems thinking, delay is part of almost every system: cause and effect are often far apart in time. Peter Senge makes the point in The Fifth Discipline that organisations regularly make things worse by acting again before the first change has had time to work through. A new follow-up cadence can take a full sales cycle to show in the numbers, so we set the review point before we make the change, and we wait for it.
Change madereview point already set
The effect works through the system
Review pointread the numbers
Next step decidedkeep, adjust or drop
In discussion at every stage
At all stages we are in discussion with you, to make sure the plan reflects what is important to you.
From the numbers
Where revenue is being lost.
From you
What the business is for, and what it will and won’t trade to get there.
The output: an agreed plan of change
A sequenced set of steps across each level of the business, with the cost of each change made or not made, the smaller goals that come first, and the points at which we stop and review. Then we move to action.
Stage three
Action: making the change, one measured step at a time
With the insight gathered through the audit and the plan, we can begin the process of change. This is done incrementally and carefully. We make small changes and measure the outcomes, to make sure things are moving in the right direction before we take the next step.
Small changes, measured
Each change runs as a short loop: change one thing, measure what happens, then keep it, adjust it or drop it. In quality improvement this is the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, which W. Edwards Deming developed from Walter Shewhart’s work on process control. It is slower than changing everything at once. The advantage is that when a number moves, you know which change moved it.
The work runs across your people and your systems, usually at the same time.
On the road with the sales team
We go on the road with sales staff. We give them our prescribed flow for the sales process and then see how it holds up at a real kitchen table, in front of a real customer. Alongside that we look at how they track their pipeline, how they structure their follow-up, and where their own process differs from the one on paper.
PeopleTraining the team you have
We train existing staff on new processes and software, and run report writing sessions with the people who will own each report: how to fill it in, what it’s telling them, and what to do when a number goes the wrong way.
PeopleSales development and the CRM
We train sales development leads on qualification, the questions that qualify a customer in or out and the signs of genuine interest, and just as hard on CRM data hygiene. A stage skipped in the CRM disappears from every report built on top of it. How we train the first call.
People and systemsHiring and onboarding
Where the plan calls for new people, we help bring them in, with job specifications, handbooks and onboarding guides, so a new hire learns the system as it now stands rather than the habits of the person beside them.
PeopleSoftware, new or adjusted
We’ll implement new software where it’s needed, or change what you already have if that serves the business better. Often it does. Ripping out a system the team knows well has its own cost, and that cost goes into the plan like any other.
SystemsDirecting the marketing agency
We direct your agency’s activity using the reporting and accountabilities put in place in the earlier stages. Once lead-to-survey rate and conversion are measured by channel, the brief changes. Why lead supply should be planned against capacity.
Before: briefed onThe cheapest leads to buyVolume this month
After: briefed onLeads that become sales, by channelWhat the team can handle each week
Until it holds without us
We stay involved until the numbers hold without us. Everything we put in place is written down and owned by someone in your business, so it survives a busy month, a new hire or a rep moving on. That is what we mean by sustainable growth.
The output: a system your team runs
Trained people, documented processes, software set up to suit the business, and reports that get read every week. The measure is revenue moved, not recommendations made.
What the team is left with
- Job specifications
- Process documentation
- Handbooks for each role
- Onboarding guides
- Reports, and staff trained to run them
- A trained sales and sales development team
Questions about the revenue operations audit
What is a revenue operations audit?
A structured diagnosis of everything that turns demand into revenue: lead sources, the sales process, software, reporting and the people who run it. We map how the function actually works, measure what is true, and finish with a plan built for your business.
How long does the audit take?
The audit is the first stage of an engagement and typically means two weeks inside the business. That time covers discovery sessions, whiteboarding, process mapping, time squares and a sit-down interview with every member of staff involved in the revenue process.
What happens in the planning stage?
We identify the areas of focus for immediate improvement, put a cost on each change and on leaving things as they are, and set out a sequence of steps across every level of the business. Smaller goals come first where the bigger ones depend on them. Nothing is implemented until you have agreed the plan.
What does the action stage involve?
Implementing the agreed plan in small, measured steps. That includes training existing staff on new processes and software, hiring and onboarding new staff, going on the road with sales reps, training sales development leads on qualification and CRM hygiene, setting up reporting, and directing your marketing agency.
Who from our team needs to be involved?
Everyone who touches the revenue process, not just the leadership team. The detail that matters most usually sits with the people doing the work rather than in documents or dashboards, so we interview each of them individually.
Revenue operations audit
Find out what your revenue function is actually doing.
A 30-minute call to understand your business and whether an audit would pay for itself.