Situation

Marc Barach, the newly hired VP of Marketing at Fond and veteran marketing leader, was looking forward to leading the revenue planning process for the upcoming year. And as a new executive at the company trying to get fully up-to-speed and support end-of-year sales goals, he had an enormous amount to do. That’s why he was surprised when Fond’s revenue planning timeline was accelerated.

“I knew I had a unique and fresh perspective to offer, and I wanted to leverage that by overseeing the planning process for the upcoming year,” said Barach. “But, when our CEO said we needed to start planning sooner than we had anticipated, and we had to complete our plans more quickly, I needed some support.”

Barach still wanted to take the lead, but he needed help analyzing data, modeling out different scenarios and ultimately crafting a plan that reflected where the business needed to go.

Approach

With just two weeks to deliver a revenue plan that took into account multiple streams of business, Barach sought the help of Owl.

“I had worked with Owl, and I knew they had a rare combination of quantitative and qualitative skills,” said Barach. “They could analyze data and outline different models in spreadsheets, but they could help us clarify and think through on our business challenges.”

Stapleton Consulting began by gathering and analyzing data to make sure everyone–both at Stapleton Consulting and on the Fond executive team–had a shared understanding of the company’s business situation. They worked with Fond to answer three fundamental questions:

  • What was the company’s past performance, and what tactics had driven that performance?
  • What were Fond’s goals for the upcoming year?
  • What did Fond expect to change in the future, and what did it expect to stay the same?

Over the next two weeks, Owl worked with Barach, as well as Fond’s VP of Sales, Mark Richter, to iteratively develop a revenue plan that was comprehensive and built on the answers to those questions.

"I had worked with Owl before, and I knew they had a rare combination of quantitative and qualitative skills."

- Marc Barach

Solution

At the end of the two week planning period, Owl delivered a final revenue plan that included:

  • Detailed models for four sources of business: direct sales, demand generation, channel sales, and up-sells/cross-sells
  • A list of manipulable variables for each detailed plan
  • Callouts for the biggest assumptions–those factors that, if they didn’t play out as the plan expected them to–could significantly alter the results
  • Color-coded cohorts to indicate which leads and sales opportunities would convert to new business over time
  • An overall revenue plan that synthesized the four detailed models, allowing for a quick and comprehensive understanding of where the business should be at different intervals

“I achieved exactly what I was hoping to: I was able to think through the big strategic issues facing the business and clarify our path forward in a revenue plan,” said Barach. “Simply put, their work was outstanding.”