A mid-sized IT and professional services consultancy had a healthy client base and a revenue line that moved almost exactly with billable headcount. Growth meant hiring, and hiring was the only lever anyone was pulling.
The Situation
The forecast was really a list of proposals out, with no consistent way to weight probability or timing. Sales cycles were long and multi-stakeholder, but had no defined stage-gates, so deals could sit in limbo for months with no clear next action. Delivery teams were effectively running the commercial handoff by default, because nobody owned it formally.
Leadership could see the pattern — revenue only grew when headcount did — but had no structured way to break it without just hiring faster.
What We Did
- Mapped the real sales cycle end to end, including every informal handoff between business development, delivery leads and account partners.
- Designed a stage-gated pipeline with explicit exit criteria, so deals had a defined next action instead of sitting in limbo.
- Built a lightweight forecasting model weighted by stage and deal age, replacing the informal “proposals out” list.
- Identified and scoped a recurring advisory retainer line alongside project work, to begin decoupling revenue from headcount.
The firm didn’t need to sell more. It needed a pipeline that could tell the difference between a deal in motion and a deal that had quietly stalled three months ago.
The Outcome
- Stalled deals became visible and actionable instead of sitting invisibly in a proposals list.
- Leadership gained a forecast they could defend with actual stage and timing data, not a gut-feel number.
- A recurring retainer line began contributing revenue that didn’t require new billable headcount to deliver.
The firm had never lacked demand. It lacked a pipeline that could tell the difference between real momentum and hope.
Related: Sales Process & RevOps · Professional Services & IT Consulting · The Kinked Curve.
Recognise a version of this in your own business? The Curve Diagnostic is the same fifteen-minute starting point we used here.
Take the Curve Diagnostic