Revenue feels unpredictable, even when effort is high. Why?
The surface symptom
The team is busy. The pipeline looks active. But revenue swings wildly. Confidence collapses near the close.
The usual explanations
“Forecasting is hard.”
“Deals slip.”
“Sales is unpredictable.”
Those describe the feeling, not the cause.
What’s actually happening
Unpredictability is a function of low visibility. You either don’t have reliable signals, or you don’t trust the ones you have.
Activity feels reassuring, but it isn’t predictive.
Why this shows up at your stage
As volume increases, intuition stops scaling. Without clear indicators of real progress, numbers become comfort, not necessarily the truth.
Where things usually break
Deals feel strong until they suddenly aren’t
Buyer alignment issues surface late
Confidence feeds off effort, not evidence
Leadership can’t tell what’s real
What to examine first
What actually changes when a deal becomes likely to close?
Where does momentum usually stall?
What do you consistently learn too late?
Which signals are comforting, and which are predictive?
The key insight
When revenue feels unpredictable, it’s time to revisit the fundamentals - not tighten the forecast.
Predictability comes from understanding the signs of real buyer progress, not by tracking activity.
