Buyer fit
The intake identifies role, buying committee, authority, timeline, procurement path, and whether the person can move a technical opportunity forward.
- Decision role captured
- Procurement path visible
- Timeline stated
Checklist
Find the leak first.
Use this checklist to inspect one path from inquiry to qualified pipeline. The goal is not to brainstorm more automation. It is to identify the leak worth fixing with a narrow Revenue System Sprint.
Qualification leak
Are serious opportunities separated from curiosity?
Start where expert time gets wasted. A technical revenue system should know enough about the buyer, use case, project readiness, geography, budget, and integration path before a high-value person joins the conversation.
Technical fit
The system captures enough use-case, environment, integration, compliance, site, or infrastructure context to route the opportunity correctly.
- Use case described
- Constraints known
- Integration path named
Urgency fit
The team can tell the difference between research, vendor comparison, active project, RFP/RFQ, expansion, and a stalled opportunity.
- Project stage tagged
- Need date captured
- Next step owned
Expert time leak
Is sales engineering protected?
In technical markets, the hidden cost is often not ad spend. It is founder, engineer, solutions architect, or SME time spent on deals that should have been filtered or prepared better.
Bad-fit calls
The team tracks how many calls require expert time but fail basic fit, budget, project, geography, or implementation readiness checks.
- Bad-fit reason recorded
- Expert-hours visible
- Disqualify path clear
Weak handoff
Every serious inquiry has context before a technical person joins: buyer role, problem, constraints, current system, desired outcome, and expected next step.
- Discovery context ready
- Owner assigned
- Missing info flagged
No escalation rules
The team has explicit rules for when to involve engineering, leadership, partner teams, legal, security, procurement, or implementation.
- Escalation triggers defined
- Internal owner clear
- Response SLA set
Proposal and pilot leak
Does every serious conversation create a next step?
Complex B2B deals die quietly when the proposal process is heroic, manual, and invisible. The checklist looks for a controlled path from discovery to pilot, proposal, RFP/RFQ response, and follow-up.
Proposal follow-up
The team can see which proposals were sent, who owns the next step, what changed after the call, and when the buyer should hear from you again.
- Proposal status tracked
- Follow-up owner set
- Decision date visible
Demo-to-pilot
The move from demo to pilot has a named conversion point, proof requirement, buyer commitment, and next-step workflow.
- Pilot criteria known
- Proof point captured
- Buyer action required
RFP/RFQ workflow
RFPs and RFQs do not depend on scattered docs, inbox memory, or a single person knowing where every answer lives.
- Response owner assigned
- Reusable answers organized
- Deadline risk visible
Visibility leak
Can leadership see where complex deals stall?
The CRM must reflect the real sales motion. If leadership cannot see stage, owner, technical risk, next action, and commercial value, the team cannot manage the leak.
Trusted CRM fields
Pipeline fields are simple enough to fill in and meaningful enough to run the weekly revenue meeting.
- Fit score trusted
- Stage reason required
- Next action visible
Pipeline stages
Stages match the real buyer journey: inquiry, qualified, discovery, demo, pilot, proposal, procurement, close, nurture, or disqualified.
- Stage definitions written
- Exit criteria clear
- Stale deals flagged
Weekly review
The team reviews a short list of stuck opportunities, proposal risks, expert-time waste, and high-value next actions.
- Stuck deals surfaced
- Risks reviewed
- Actions assigned
Decision
If the leak is real, scope the sprint.
A strong sprint starts with one constrained problem, one operating metric, and one owner. If the checklist exposes the leak, the audit turns it into a build plan.
Strong fit
The leak is tied to high-value opportunities, repeatable buyer behavior, CRM access, an owner, and a number leadership already cares about.
- High deal value
- Operational owner
- Measurable leak
Nurture
The offer is real, but lead volume, sales cycle, CRM quality, implementation ownership, or proposal workflow needs more clarity first.
- Collect more evidence
- Clean the source data
- Revisit after volume
Not fit
The issue is product-market fit, a pre-revenue idea, low-ticket consumer demand, or no access to the systems that would need to change.
- No clear owner
- No valuable leak
- No system access
Next step
Start with the audit.
If there is a measurable leak worth fixing, the Revenue Audit tells us whether the Revenue System Sprint should exist.
Apply for a Revenue Audit