Demandgen · 2019-09-29 · 2440d

Pipeline Management Strategy: Prioritizing Next-Quarter Pipeline Over Rolling Forecasts

Dave Kellogg argues that startups should stop obsessing over annual pipeline coverage and instead focus on quarterly pipeline metrics, particularly next-quarter pipeline generation. He contends that marketing should ensure each quarter begins with 3x pipeline coverage and provides frameworks for tracking this-quarter, next-quarter, and all-quarters pipeline to enable accurate forecasting and course correction.

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Metrics in this report

Average Sales Cycle Length

90days

example

Used in article examples

Forward-Four-Quarter Pipeline Coverage

2x to 4xmultiple

range

Sales targets across industry

Next-Quarter Pipeline Coverage Acceptable Minimum

1.5xmultiple

p50 threshold

By week 3 of current quarter

Next-Quarter Pipeline Surplus Slippage Rate

35%%

empirical

Of this-quarter surplus carrying to next-quarter

Quarter-Start Pipeline Coverage Target

3.0xmultiple

recommended

Quarterly pipeline to plan ratio