Hey all, I was wondering how you approach the infamous issue of “we’re under our pipeline coverage target, we need to plug the gap quickly, and demand gen has to 'step in'.” I get that there are many ways to handle this, but in my experience, short-term fixes usually derail existing priorities, burn teams out faster (in a global company there’ll always be a region underperforming), and rarely deliver meaningful results. More often than not, it feels like stakeholder management - keeping sales/revenue leaders happy - rather than something that really adds much pipeline. This feels especially true in established companies, where anything that works in the short term is already part of the regular playbook. There isn’t much new we can just suddenly add on top. At the same time, simply saying “we’re already focused on things that build pipeline over time” and ignoring requests from stressed sales leaders doesn’t work either. One idea I’ve had is to plan a little extra bandwidth each month for new tests or small adjustments that could support a region if needed. For context, we’re still working out some basics, like even setting up weekly pipeline meetings. And if it helps, this isn’t a VC-backed startup running at a loss, there’s no 'actual' pressure to keep chasing short-term wins over longer-term growth. It’s more about internal performance and whether people meet their goals. Anyway, I don’t want to make this too long. Curious to hear how others handle this. 👂
Agreed! What’s worked for me is splitting capacity: 80% to long erm GTM priorities, 20% for rapid tests. That way sales feels supported, but you don’t derail the engine you’re building. Also, make pipeline reviews a regular operating checklist
One thing we do is look at the breakout of their pipeline. If its super heavy in prospecting deals, then we look at MQL performance (by channel) in that territory and assess whether any that are "quick, easy levers" will actually work. Ive seen companies fall behind on pacing and spend a bunch of money on PPC to drive leads now, only to learn that channel wasnt effective in those territories (for whatever reason).
