“So we’ve got the ARR target. Sweet. Now what?”
Once you’ve locked in your ARR targets by team (and if you haven’t yet, what are you doing?! Go check out Part 1 of this series!), the next question is inevitable:
Where does the revenue actually come from?
Pipeline planning is the bridge between where you’re hoping to land and how you can actually get there. It lays the groundwork for tangible numbers that your team can rally around. Done well, it turns revenue goals into clear demo targets, channel plans, and shared ownership across the GTM organization, and most importantly, it gives your team confidence that there is a path to hitting their goals.
Let’s get into it.
☎️ Translating Revenue into Demos
Every company defines its funnel a little differently, but in B2B SaaS, there’s usually a moment that kicks off the sales cycle. For SupplyPike, that moment was when we showed a demo of our product.
The demo was our clearest signal of real buyer intent and the most reliable predictor of pipeline creation. Your equivalent might be a discovery call, technical evaluation, or trial start - the key is anchoring on the stage that actually moves deals forward.
For simplicity, we’ll use demos as the anchor metric for the rest of this series. Your company may use a different milestone, but the logic holds regardless. Just substitute the stage that best represents meaningful buyer intent in your funnel in the calculations below.
Two key metrics will help you determine how many opportunities you need:
Conversion rate, which represents the percentage of prospects that move from one funnel stage to the next
For this series, we will be focusing on the conversion rate from Demo → Closed-Won, but you can slice and dice conversion rate data at any step of the funnel - we’ll get into this in a future installment of Deal Desk!
Average Contract Value (ACV), or the average annual revenue generated by a single customer
Step 1: Revenue → Pipeline
Your conversion rate determines how much pipeline you need to hit your revenue target.
Pipeline Needed = Revenue Target ÷ Conversion Rate
In layman’s terms, if 20% of your pipeline closes, you need roughly 5x pipeline to hit plan.
Step 2: Pipeline → Demos
ACV then translates pipeline dollars into the number of demos required.
Demos Needed = Pipeline Needed ÷ ACV
Said another way, if the average Closed-Won deal is worth $10,000, you can back into how many demos it takes to fill, say, a $1,000,000 pipeline.
Together, these determine how many demos are required to support your revenue goals:
Demos Needed = (Revenue Target ÷ Conversion Rate) ÷ ACV
This gives you a clear demo target, which then becomes the foundation for lead planning, channel allocation, and headcount decisions down the line.
At this stage, continue to sanity-check your assumptions. If historical averages are available, they should be your starting point. From there, you can thoughtfully stretch or tighten both conversion rate and ACV goals based on what you know is (or might be) changing.
For example, if you’re launching something customers have been asking for, or your positioning is getting sharper, you can justify being a little more optimistic on conversion. Similarly, if you’re moving upmarket or are planning price increases, it may be reasonable to adjust ACV upward.
Repeat this exercise across any segments or pods that make sense for your business. Taken together, this gives you a clear view of total demo demand across the org.
🧮 Example 1: Let’s Do Some Math
Building on the example we had in Part 1, let’s calculate demo targets for the Enterprise team with a $360K revenue goal.
Assumptions:
Revenue Target: $360,000
Conversion Rate: 20%
ACV: $25,000
Step 1: Calculate Pipeline
$360,000 ÷ 20% = $1,800,000
Step 2: Calculate Demos
$1,800,000 ÷ $25,000 = 72 demos needed
📈 A Note On Pipeline Planning for Upsells
When it comes to upsells, it’s important to note that the math doesn’t change, but the context does.
Upsell planning uses the same framework as New Sales: revenue targets, conversion rates, ACV, and demo volume. The difference is that upsell teams operate within a finite market. Unlike New Sales, you can’t simply source more accounts.
Account Managers and Customer Success Managers are typically constrained by:
The number of accounts they support
Where those accounts are in their lifecycle
The realistic opportunities for expansion
Because of that, upsell pipeline planning requires some additional validation.
We still start by translating upsell revenue targets into demo volume using historical conversion rates and ACV. But before locking those numbers, you should pressure-test them against reality by asking questions like:
Does this level of expansion make sense given our customer base?
Are accounts mature enough to support this much upsell activity?
Is coverage balanced across AMs and CSMs?
This step ensures upsell goals are ambitious without being disconnected from the actual opportunity in the book of business.
💡 Pro-Tip: Demo Scheduled vs. Demo Completed
Not all demos are equal. That was a hard lesson for us to learn. 😮💨
In the early SupplyPike days, we planned our pipeline around demos scheduled. That worked when show rates were high. As we scaled, no-shows started to become a real issue. At one point, 30%+ of booked demos didn’t happen. Woof. On paper, our funnel looked healthy. In reality, it wasn’t.
When our conversion rates stopped behaving the way we expected, we shifted to planning and goaling our BDR team around demos completed, which are demos that actually happened, and met our qualification criteria. (Christine actually talked about this in her article on the 5 don’ts of goal-setting!)
Importantly, our BDR team was always compensated for demos completed. But using scheduled demos as the headline metric gave us a misleading leading indicator and masked where the funnel was breaking down. Once we made the switch, our view of pipeline health became far more accurate and far more useful.
🗺️ Lead Source Planning
Once demo targets are set, the next question is where those demos should come from. This is where channels enter the picture.
Most B2B SaaS GTM motions rely on a mix of:
Outbound (BDR-led prospecting and cold calls/emails)
Inbound (website traffic, gated content)
Events & trade shows
Partners
Channels matter because demand behaves differently depending on where it comes from, and each team contributes to pipeline in its own way. For example, outbound is more controllable but is typically capacity-bound. Inbound compounds over time, but is market-driven. Events can be high intent but lumpy.
The strongest GTM motions are built on a healthy mix of channels working together.
Assigning Demo Targets by Channel
The goal of channel planning isn’t to guess where demand might come from - it’s to intentionally decide where demand should come from.
Sales leaders, this is when alignment really comes into play. Channel goals should never be set in a vacuum - that is a recipe for disaster (ask me how I know 😩). They require close collaboration with leadership across any relevant channels, as those folks can provide you with context around capacity, timing, and constraints. Aligning early helps ensure channel expectations are fair, resourced, shared, and prevents surprises later in the year.
Together, allocate your total demo target across channels using a mix of:
Historical performance
Planned investment (budget, headcount, focus)
What you know is changing in the year ahead
For example:
60% of demos from outbound
20% from inbound
20% from trade shows or events
💡 If you’re early-stage, it’s normal for most demos to come from outbound. That was true for SupplyPike as well. As brand awareness grows, inbound and partner-driven demand typically increase, often improving CAC and efficiency as customers begin to seek you out.
📝 Turning Demo Targets Into Channel Plans
Once demo targets are set by channel, each functional owner should translate those goals into a plan using the levers they control. Sales leaders, you may not own the day-to-day execution, but you should still have visibility into the strategy behind it.
If your org has reliable data, you can even extend pipeline planning above the demo. The idea is the same: once you know how many demos a channel is responsible for, you can work backward to understand the volume required at earlier stages of that channel’s funnel.
For example, if inbound is expected to deliver 50 demos and you know your website converts 5% of its visitors into demos, you’ll need roughly 1,000 visitors to support that goal. From there, Marketing determines how to drive that traffic.
ACV can also add another useful layer. If you’re expecting higher ACV from a specific channel, or historical data shows that certain channels skew Enterprise, that should inform who you target and how. For example, if trade shows have typically yielded higher-dollar deals (and you expect that trend to continue), you can tailor trade show messaging and collateral to better-suit Enterprise prospects.
🧸 Building in Padding (On Purpose)
A common mistake in GTM planning is assuming 100% attainment across the board. A girl can dream.
Alas, in reality, that’s not how sales teams usually perform, and planning that way actually means the business only hits its number if everyone is perfect. In fact, if everyone is hitting (or exceeding) 100% of your number, you may actually have set your goals too low. 👀
A more realistic assumption (and a common industry standard) is planning around ~85% average attainment.
If you plan around that reality, the math changes slightly. You need to goal above your true target to account for normal variation in performance.
Hedged ARR = ARR Target ÷ Hedged Attainment
For example, if your revenue target is $3M and you’re assuming an 85% attainment for your team:
Hedged ARR = $3,000,000 ÷ 85%
Hedged ARR = $3,529,412
This is the number you should goal your team to.
How much you overgoal should reflect the maturity of your GTM motion, confidence in your funnel and channel assumptions, historical attainment patterns, and, honestly, your tolerance for risk. 👀 Early on (or if things feel a little unpredictable), more padding is your friend. As things start to settle, you can start to pull that back on the hedge. (Psst - in Part 3, we’ll also cover what happens when you hedge too much. Yes - that’s a thing!)
☎️ Up Next: Bridging Top-Down Strategy with Bottoms-Up Execution
With pipeline and channel targets defined, the last step is making sure those numbers turn into something your ICs can actually execute against.
In Part 3, we’ll shift from top-down planning to bottoms-up execution: translating demo and pipeline goals into individual quotas, capacity models, and headcount plans. We’ll cover how to size roles responsibly, account for ramp and coverage, and provide pointers on how to run your plan through real-world constraints.
See ya in Part 3️⃣!
Stacy
📚 Stacy’s Book Challenge
This year’s goal is…81. 1 more than last year. 😮💨 Follow along as I try to get there.
As of this post, I have read 3 books - I added True Grit and The Girl Who Played with Fire! True Grit was my first 5-star book of the year (and I don’t give out that many 5-star reviews!). I’ve never watched the movie either, so I really need to get onto that. 🤠
I’m currently reading:
East of Eden - about halfway now!
The Will of the Many - why do I keep giving myself 700+ page books 😭
Follow me on GoodReads! 🤓