ABCABC CompanyRevScoreboard · the ten things
ABC Company is fictional. Figures come from a real sales organization; every name has been changed.
03 of 10 · The Scan

Pipeline Coverage Ratio

From the annual plan to each seller's week: one chain of arithmetic.

1The question

Is there enough pipeline to hit the number, by your math?

2Why it matters

Most teams carry coverage as folklore: “we need 3×.” Nobody asks whose win rate that assumes. 3× works only if you win one in three.

Your required multiple is 1 ÷ your win rate. At 14% it is 7×. At 33% it is 3×.

An annual number nobody has divided down into weeks isn't a plan. Sometimes the arithmetic shows the plan needs more than the team can physically do. Then the plan itself is the finding, and week one is a better time to learn that than the fourth quarter.

What the research says

People estimate by adjusting from an anchor, and the adjustment is usually too small. A “3×” carried over from someone else's business is an anchor nobody measured on yours.

Tversky & Kahneman (1974), Science 185(4157), 1124–1131 · doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124

Twenty-five years of research on judgmental forecasting: human judgment is indispensable and systematically biased, so structure it rather than trust it.

Lawrence, Goodwin, O'Connor & Önkal (2006), International Journal of Forecasting 22(3), 493–518 · doi.org/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2006.03.007

People's predictions of their completion times were too optimistic, because they focused on future plans, not past experience. Plans built on hope rather than history run late.

Buehler, Griffin & Ross (1994), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67(3), 366–381 · doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.3.366
CEvidence grade C. Practitioner craft. Applied the same way every time, and labeled honestly as craft. Practitioner-built, applied the same way every time so the ruler never moves.
What it doesn't settle. No study validates any particular coverage multiple, including the one computed here. Coverage is a planning heuristic. The arithmetic is just arithmetic.

3What to collect, every time

Input A number the CRM can't give you: the plan, quotas, working weeks, spend.Field Does the field exist, is it required, and who fills it in?Definition Your own definition of a thing we then compute against.Prediction Your answer now, in writing, checked against the record later.
Input
The annual plan, in writing, and whether it includes renewalsThe only outside number. Never mix new business and renewals.
Definition
What “revenue” means in that numberBooked, recognized, annual or total contract value, or cash.
Input
Who carries a quota, and the quotas by monthThe roster the plan is divided across.
Input
Working weeks per seller per yearAfter holidays, kickoff and training.
Prediction
Your win rate and average deal size, from memoryChecked against the export. The gap is useful.
Prediction
The coverage multiple you run on today, and where it came fromPlaced next to the multiple your win rate requires.

4How it's computed

  1. Win rate = won ÷ closed, on your own recent deals.
  2. Required coverage = 1 ÷ win rate.
  3. Coverage held = open pipeline $ ÷ plan $ still to close.
  4. The chain: plan ÷ average won deal = deals needed; ÷ win rate = opportunities needed; ÷ sellers ÷ months = each seller's month.

5What ABC's record shows

Coverage against the 2026 plan

As of 2026-07-23
2026 plan
$2.80M
Won year to date
$647K
62 deals
Still to close
$2.15M
Open pipeline
$4.20M
only 135 of 267 deals carry an amount
Coverage multiple
Held today
1.95×
Team target
4.0×
Required by your win rate
7.4×

Required = 1 ÷ win rate (13.5%: 128 won of 946 closed, deals created 2025–2026 by the team in the weekly report). Counted in dollars instead (won $ ÷ closed $ on the 673 closed deals that carry an amount), the win rate is 8.2% and the requirement 12.2×. Either way, the 4× target was far short.

The team ran on 4×. Its own win rate requires 7.4×, and it held 1.95×. The 4× anchor made a 5.45-point gap look like a 2.05-point one.
The chain: from the plan to each seller's month
$2.80M
annual plan
÷
$12,342
average won deal
=
227
deals to win
÷
13.5%
win rate
=
1,677
opportunities needed
÷
14
seats in the 2026 plan
=
10.0
new opportunities per seller per month

The 14 seats include 6 that start partway through the year (no January goal: new hires and open seats). For scale: this team created 523 opportunities in 2025 and 690 in 2026 through 2026-07-23, against the 1,677 a year the plan needs. Working weeks per seller are an input the client supplies; with them, the last box becomes each seller's week.

6What a sales leader does Monday

  • Replace the folklore multiple with yours in the forecast call.
  • Give every seller their own number of new opportunities per month.
  • If the chain asks for more than the team can do, take it to the plan owner this week.

7The founder version

Building your first CRM? Do this now, so you can answer the question in a year.

  • Track won and lost deals from day one. You can't compute a win rate without losses.
  • Divide your annual goal into a monthly count of new conversations, then check it every Monday.