Pipeline coverage is worthless

You have a pipeline coverage ratio (PLC) of 10x. Is that good? Is it bad? Will you hit target? Will you team understand it?

The only thing you know for sure: It needs a winrate of 10% to work out.

But how do you use it operationally? Well.. It's pretty difficult. We dive into the problems with PLC in this episode.

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (01:26) - Pipeline coverage isn't helpful
• (11:53) - Pipeline coverage gets impacted so many ways
• (13:47) - This is how you can use PLC
• (16:33) - What's the alternative?
• (22:15) - The "boring" answer
• (24:06) - Unblended PLC

PS: Want a masters degree in B2B SaaS? Head over to the revenue letter.

Creators and Guests

Host

Mikkel Plaehn

Marketing leader & b2b saas nerd

Host

Toni Hohlbein

2x exited CRO | 1x Founder | Podcast Host

What is The Revenue Formula?

This podcast is about scaling tech startups.

Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Raul Porojan, together they look at the full funnel.

With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.

If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.

[00:00:00] Toni: Hi everyone. This is Toni Holbein. You are listening to the Revenue Formula.
[00:00:03] In today's episode, we are going to talk about pipeline coverage or P L C.
[00:00:08] Don't use it.
[00:00:10] We're gonna talk about what you should be using instead. Enjoy.
[00:00:18] Mikkel: here we are. Wonderful. Monday morning. Yeah. That's kind of the vibe you get now.
[00:00:25] Toni: No, I actually get, uh, Wednesday afternoon vibes.
[00:00:28] Mikkel: Ah,
[00:00:29] Toni: oh, we're on Monday
[00:00:32] do you think in 20 years we'll still be sitting here and doing like podcasts?
[00:00:37] Mikkel: Yeah. Then we'll, I, well, I don't know, maybe.
[00:00:40] Who knows,
[00:00:40] Toni: know what, in 20 years we should be doing it while we, um, smoking a cigar and drinking mojito
[00:00:45] Mikkel: somewhere,
[00:00:46] we we're gonna regress to almost Mad Men style is what I'm sensing.
[00:00:50] Toni: You know what? Suddenly I feel so much better about the next 20 years.
[00:00:56] Mikkel: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. But I mean, you can never know. You can never predict.
[00:01:02] Toni: Oh,
[00:01:03] Mikkel: Oh,
[00:01:04] and I don't have it yet. I don't have the perfect segue, but I was gonna say, you can't predict where you're gonna be 20 year from now. We even struggled just predicting one quarter, and for that we're using a little something, something called pipeline coverage.
[00:01:16] Yes. And we're gonna cover that today. There we go. Nailed it. I was like worried for a second that I'm not gonna Yeah. Actually get the perfect segue. Done.
[00:01:26] Toni: So, but wonderful pipeline coverage. I mean, we kind of totally got to that topic, uh, randomly,
[00:01:31] Mikkel: dis discuss, well, did we discuss it daily?
[00:01:32] Toni: tell me what, what, what do you think about pipeline coverage?
[00:01:35] Mikkel: Well, it's pretty unhelpful actually. I found out from, uh, studying. I've never used it myself. I've never been in sales
[00:01:42] Toni: way, untrue.
[00:01:43] Mikkel: It's untrue. Okay.
[00:01:44] Toni: Yeah. Yeah. So this, this speaks into the unhelpfulness of it. Uh, you know, remember this big gecko board?
[00:01:50] Mikkel: Yeah. Oh yeah. It was on there
[00:01:51] Toni: It was, it was on there all the time.
[00:01:54] No one ever looked at this. That's why I also know for a fact it's a true fact. is known that PLC is absolutely
[00:02:01] Mikkel: useless. No, but it was like this fuel gauge kind of thing. I was like,
[00:02:04] Toni: that's, that's what it was.
[00:02:05] Mikkel: then there was a number.
[00:02:06] I was like, P l c, what? Is it like TLC or, I don't get it. I don't get
[00:02:10] it.
[00:02:11] Okay. Moving on. Um, so, so at least for me it was, uh, pretty useless. My understanding of what it is, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is you basically would like to know, am I gonna hit this quarter? Do I have enough stuff in my pipeline that is actually gonna get me there?
[00:02:28] That is the intention of the,
[00:02:30] Toni: So how much, how much bigger is your pipeline compared to the targeting you to hit?
[00:02:35] Mikkel: Yeah,
[00:02:36] Toni: That's basically what it is. And then you have this five x, two x, three x. Yeah. And they're basically saying like, Hey, my, uh, my pipeline is five times as large as, uh, the target in hit, or it's three times as large as a target in hit. Right. So that's, that's the idea of, uh, you're covering your pipeline by three times.
[00:02:54] Mikkel: and it was so funny for me because I'm this, you know, almost naive marketer then reading
[00:02:59] about this, almost then reading about this stuff. It was like, well, the problem kind of is you need as rule of thumb to have a three X pipeline coverage and that means a win rate of 33%.
[00:03:11] I was just like,
[00:03:12] Yeah.
[00:03:13] That
[00:03:13] That doesn't sound like it's gonna work out.
[00:03:16] Toni: I mean, so it could, right. So, and that's actually one of the first flaws. So PLC I think, was invented by ibm. Like they invented a lot of different things like, BANT, for example, ibm. And, um, they basically said, Hey, you need a five x PLC in order to hit your target.
[00:03:31] Right? So when they did the big sales kickoff at the beginning of the year, there's like everyone, Hey, you need to have, if, if your target's a million, you need a 5 million in pipeline. Otherwise it's not gonna happen. And obviously what that meant was, you, uh, need to have a conversion rate ish of 20%, right?
[00:03:49] In order to hit this five X plc, you need to have a 20% conversion rate. So how does that still kind of make sense if you have a smaller conversion rate than that? Well, you know, thinking about it, you will create deals that enter pipeline in that year.
[00:04:02] Yeah. Uh, and they will have whatever conversion rate you will have, but at the same time, you will also pull in other deals from previous, from the previous year.
[00:04:10] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:04:11] Toni: And, uh, they might be way further progressed, right? They have been in there already for maybe six months or, you know, nine months if you have an enterprise.
[00:04:19] And that's, you know, that's why we're talking about, uh, ibm. So, you know, it's the enterprise example. And they might enter your pipeline coverage with 90% close rate. Yeah. Or something like that. Right. So in a way that they kind of came up with like, Hey, let's make it five times. Yeah. and I think, and this is the, the one upside that I see, it's extremely actionable in your conversation with sales reps.
[00:04:41] Yeah. Uh, and, and, but as a manager, not as a RevOps person, by the way, as a manager, you can go in and be like, okay. So let's, instead of a year, let's look at this quarter. And you need to hit, I dunno, 200 K. You only have a pipeline right now of 500 k. Yeah. Well, that's only, what is it? Two and a half pipeline coverage.
[00:05:03] Uh, we in the business, we decided it needs to be four. Yeah. So you're, you're short. Yeah. And you're short 300,000 euros of pipeline. Yeah. So now that I'm making this a very, uh, impactful coaching session, I'm gonna tell you now you need to have, 300,000 more on pipeline. Right? so what, first of all, that's a good conversation to have to kind of show someone here's a gap without going through all of this conversion rate, whatever, ACV, complexity.
[00:05:30] Yeah. But the thing is now what, what happens next? It's like the AE is, okay, well I know this deal is only gonna close next quarter, but. Theoretically, uh, there might be a 5% chance it closes this quarter.
[00:05:46] Mikkel: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:47] Toni: Pulling that in.
[00:05:48] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:05:49] Toni: Right.
[00:05:50] Mikkel: And,
[00:05:51] Toni: because pipeline, uh, obviously only looks at what is the dollar amount of that deal.
[00:05:57] Yeah. That might close, towards the end of the, period in this case quarter. It doesn't take into account the probability of that happening. No. That's, that's okay. That's again, part of the simplicity of this thing, right? Kind of let's look at kind of raw pipeline.
[00:06:11] Um, and you know, you can do that. You can, uh, you can, because you walking to the next quarter and maybe you have lost faith in some couple of opportunities already. You're like, ah, in order to make this conversation with Jack, my wonderful manager, a bit easier, let's drag those deals into this, you know?
[00:06:30] Whoops.
[00:06:31] Mikkel: Was that Greg then? Exactly.
[00:06:34] Toni: Um, and what you're gonna do is, and you know, I haven't even talked about some of the, uh, self prospecting pieces here. You could go in, you could increase the deal size, , you could, create another opportunity with something that maybe, you know, half bogus you could, and you could have something totally legit in here.
[00:06:52] A $1 million deal with Coca-Cola. Uh, but chances of that one closing this quarter or next quarter, extremely low. But guess what? Pipeline coverage achieved. Yeah. You have the 800 K that you needed, So there's lots of different ways you can play around and game this whole thing, which then also make it extremely, you know, not, not that useful.
[00:07:11] Um, this is where then the whole friction comes from. You know, the sales manager to then go in call bullshit and all of those deals to kick them out and once he or she kicked them out, it's like pressure on, you need to create more opportunities. And then what guess what's gonna happen? The whole cycle is just gonna continue.
[00:07:27] It's like there's gonna be an ongoing discussion, what should be in the pipeline versus what shouldn't, and I don't think that's actually helping to close any kind of
[00:07:35] Mikkel: deals. No.
[00:07:37] Toni: so that's, you know, that's my fundamental, disagreement with, pipeline coverage. I think it goes a little bit further as well, number one.
[00:07:44] Some people just throw around a number five or four, or three or two without, and it sounds, you know, to the naive
[00:07:53] Mikkel: marketing.
[00:07:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[00:07:54] Toni: Sounds like weird. But they actually don't connect it to their conversion rates, so they're actually, you know, ah, okay. If you have. No one, by the way, no one says that.
[00:08:04] So in Falcon, we had a, a 10 or 12% conversion rate. We're very much, uh, you know, outbound leaning and, and so forth. So really, and you know, really what we needed Yeah. Was an eight x or nine x of pipeline.
[00:08:18] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:08:19] Toni: You know, no one ever, I've never ever seen anyone say, oh, we need a, a. Our PLC targets is 10.
[00:08:26] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:08:27] No one else. Well, we missed on revenue and opportunities, but you know what, we hit the PLC target.
[00:08:32] Toni: And so that's what I'm kind of saying is like people, the people sometimes get lost with a connection between the multiple and um, and the numbers behind it. So that's kind of a thing. But then the other piece that I think is extremely dumb is, um, is when.
[00:08:46] when do you need what pipeline coverage actually to hit your target? and I can tell you what, if you, if you graph it out and you should totally graph it out, by the way, what's the pipeline? For a specific quarter and when, yeah. So let's just say you have, you're looking at Q1 pipeline and you're November, you will have a little bit of pipeline already parked for q1.
[00:09:10] Yeah. It's like, ah, it's not gonna be Q4 deal. It's not gonna be a Q five deal
[00:09:13] Mikkel: I was gonna say,
[00:09:14] Toni: yeah. Um, it's a Q1 deal. Yeah. So, you know, you park it in there already and it will be relatively small compared to what you have in q4. And then as you progress throughout q4, More and more deals were crystallized and okay, it's actually a Q1 thing, right?
[00:09:30] Where then there's a, a massive shift happening between quarters is in the last week or so of q4. And, and the first week of Q1 is, you will close win a couple of, Q4 deals. You might even close lose a couple of those. Uh, but for many of those opportunities, they were just pushed, get pushed into q1.
[00:09:50] So you would suddenly see an immense kind of, deflation happening off your Q4 pipeline. Yeah, that makes total sense. That's expected behavior. And at the same time, you will see a spike in the q1, pipeline happening because obviously all of these things are being pushed over into this thing then, and it's unclear when in, in the quarter.
[00:10:11] You will see it's peaking out at some point. At some point it's peaking out. So the Q1 pipeline is gonna be at, you know, wherever it's gonna be. And then it's gonna start dropping slowly and then quickly. Yeah. and when, well, it's gonna be the exact same pattern that you had in q4. It's gonna be towards the end of it.
[00:10:28] You win a lot, um, and so forth. And some of these things pushing over. So this was pipeline. Yeah. That kind of makes a lot of, you know, sense. Obviously you have this double counting happening where there's, you know, one opportunity is counted as pipeline in Q4 and in Q1 and maybe even in q2. That's kind of weird, but you know, that, that does make sense to a large degree.
[00:10:49] Now if you overlay that with pipeline coverage, though, it gets extremely weird weirdo, which is why I don't think it's useful, in many cases to use this as a, as a management tool. Yeah, right. Because, Okay, let's look in, you know, you are in November and you're looking at, uh, q1 and you have some pipeline in there.
[00:11:10] No one will do that. I'm just, it's just an example. And you see all my pipeline coverage is 20%. So instead of 300% two x, you know, whatever. It's just, you know, point 0.2 x, huh? Uh, so that's obviously an issue, but no one cares about that. So now you're walking into q1. On the first day you will have whatever coverage.
[00:11:32] and you know what, that might be good. It might also be bad. There's literally no way of calculating, you know, what that number should be on the first day. Yeah. I, I give you a trick in a, in a, in a minute or two when, uh, you know, of how you can actually use that potentially. But I'm just saying kind of, there's, there's no way you can calculate no.
[00:11:53] What, what is the right number? What's the wrong number here? Now what makes this extremely, difficult now to manage is that there are so many ways the pipeline coverage can be impacted. Right. We talked about the pipeline itself already. So deals can be pulled in, deals can die, deals can uh, be pushed out.
[00:12:12] Yeah. But they can also close win. If you close win a deal, it drops out of pipeline. Yeah, that makes sense. Right. marketing Mikkel.
[00:12:22] Mikkel: makes sense.
[00:12:23] Toni: But what now happens is that, which also logically makes sense. The gap for you that you need to cover to your target decreases,
[00:12:30] Mikkel: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:31] Toni: right? So you have a deal that drops out of pipeline, it drops into target achievement.
[00:12:38] That gap between where your target is and where your actuals are is now shrinking a little
[00:12:42] Mikkel: bit. Yeah.
[00:12:44] Toni: And you know, already here, okay, is it actually gonna be a net positive coming out of this gonna be a net negative because you lose a deal and and, and this is where this just becomes extremely unhelpful and an overall way to manage this thing, right?
[00:12:57] Because it's, that so much stuff can happen with your pipeline coverage. Yeah. some of that, is kind of easy logic. Some of that is starting to be convoluted logic. Yeah. Yeah. And on top of that, it's like, well,
[00:13:10] Since I now understand that my pipeline coverage won't be an even five. Throughout the quarter it will fluctuate a lot. When should it be where?
[00:13:22] And when should the alarm bells go off? Yeah. And, and that is basically completely, it's, it's just, it's just, it's just not there. I'm sorry. It's just not there. It doesn't make any sense. You can't have any kind of opinion about it. Further than that looks good, you know, or that looks bad.
[00:13:40] And where it really then ends up being kind of useful is really in the AE conversation, not on your funnel management.
[00:13:47] Mikkel: Yeah. So you said you could use this plc. Yeah. So how, how do you actually use it? Right? You, you mentioned the AE scenario is great for management.
[00:13:56] what does that look like?
[00:13:57] Toni: um, you know what, maybe I need to kind of take this back. I'm not sure how to use PLC. but you can use the pipeline graph and the way you can use the pipeline graph, and it's a little bit like silly, but it's powerful. I believe. you start plotting this whole thing, like I, , explained earlier, right?
[00:14:13] So whenever there's a deal that has a closing date in a specific quarter, that adds to pipeline of that quarter. And as more deals add up, you know, as pipeline in that quarter, kind of that graph kind of increases. Yeah. What you're gonna see, you're gonna see multiple, curves, of each quarter, kind of overlapping to a degree.
[00:14:34] That in itself isn't quite useful. What is useful is that you want to see those peaks. They're gonna always, you know, end up being around the same one or two weeks of the quarter. By the way, you wanna see those peaks increasing time over time? Yeah. Right. Every quarter, every quarter's pipeline, should have a larger or higher peak than the one before.
[00:14:54] Yeah. And best case, that increase is correlating with the increase you have in targets.
[00:15:01] Mikkel: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:01] Toni: If those two things kind of match. Then you, then you can use it as an early warning sign to say like, okay, things are kind of going well. Uh, because you know, the peak is 10% or 20% higher than q3. Yeah. Which matches my target that actually needs in q4, which is 20% higher.
[00:15:19] So that could maybe actually work out, looking at pipeline, uh, looking at pipeline coverage. I dunno, I think this is. And, you know, many, some people might kind of really not like to hear this, and I think there might be some different, ways to maybe use it in, uh, very large enterprise businesses and kind of motions.
[00:15:38] But generally speaking, I think the PLC is gonna be all over the place most of the time. Uh, if you plot it out, maybe you see a pattern that works for you and that you can expect going forward that it's not just. data mining, cherry picking kind of pattern, but it's a robust pattern that you could use.
[00:15:54] Yeah. then maybe it might help you. but otherwise I think it's, um, it's, it's really, I I would rather focus on pipeline itself. Yeah. Yeah. Use that as a metric. It has its flaws as well, by the way. But use that as a metric. And compare, you know, where you, where you're capping out every quarter in terms of pipeline and as a whole.
[00:16:13] Yeah. And compare that to the previous quarter and you know, the target that you need to hit.
[00:16:17] Mikkel: It also does strike me almost just as a health kind of indicator that's not really doing much because you will do the forecasts and have that conversation, which is gonna be, you know, we can hide our opinions about it, but it's gonna be a little bit more accurate at least. Right?
[00:16:33] So what is the alternative if you're.
[00:16:35] If you wanna, in a very accurate and structured way, wanna manage your revenue funnel. I'm not just talking about this quarter, but also next, right, because you're kind of talking about, well, the challenges, you're pushing things over to next quarter is a normal thing as you, talk with people and they go like, Hey, I need the budget and it's not gonna be until next quarter.
[00:16:53] Right? So it's a normal thing. How, how do you then do that? How do you manage the funnel then?
[00:17:01] Toni: so I think, and again, some of this stuff depends a little bit what your motion is
[00:17:07] Mikkel: Mm.
[00:17:07] Toni: if you're SMB versus mid-markets enterprise. Yeah. And let me try and kind of piece it all together. I think having, with the AE conversation around, the amount of pipeline they have without, creating some kind of a weird pressure that the AE needs to come up with adding pipeline, because that will lead to bad behavior.
[00:17:26] Yeah. I think it's good to have that conversation by the way and say like, Hey, you know, you need to be extremely lucky in order to convert that into, you know, the target and, and what's the action plan to fix that. Right. Kind of approaching it like that, I think it's is much more helpful. Then you have, your ongoing forecasting sessions, right?
[00:17:42] The weekly sales execution meetings, like Yeah. Where you know, what is closing this week, next week, and so forth. And, um, and that will kind of give you the track towards, you know, target in that sense. Yeah. And I think then the, the other thing is, And this is where all of all of these different things overlap, by the way.
[00:18:00] Right? Your pipeline is also counted in your forecast and so forth. Yeah. But I would have a look at how many new deals are you receiving or being added to your pipeline. As an indicator of, um, you know, what's the deal flow looking like and how is my pipeline going to potentially look like going forward?
[00:18:19] Right. There's some leading indicators to your, your AEs book of business and the portfolio that they're working. Yeah. I would look at these, these three items, and depending whether on your SMB or enterprise, you'll be leaning on some of them heavier than on others. Right. If you're very much enterprise, forecasting will be the game to play for you.
[00:18:41] Yeah. Yeah. Uh, because it could be that you're in January and your, your next year is gonna close in October, and that's totally fine.
[00:18:47] Mikkel: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:48] Toni: Mm. That's like, oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Let's work towards that. What are the different things that need to be achieved? Where are we? You know, and then there's the ultra focus on where are we in the process.
[00:18:57] Yeah. You're forecasting them to be October. Okay. What, you know, tell me what are the things that need to happen in order to actually hit that deadline. Yeah. Right. And that will be a very fruitful, very long conversation. and obviously, you know, as part of that conversation, you can also have, well, what's your pipeline then looking like for, you know, that that is a seven 50 K deal.
[00:19:16] You have a 1 million target. Do you have a smaller one that maybe could fall on either side of that? And then you have a conversation around this, right. When you're mid-market, obviously your forecasting will be more towards the end of the month and the end of the quarter. You have all of those back loaded ness in there.
[00:19:29] Right. and you don't wanna, you know, it's too many deals to walk through them all the time, even in a one-on-one scenario. So you wanna have more pressure on, you know, this flow and the system actually working out. Yeah. Right. And then it's more on, okay. Uh, how's pipeline overall looking and are you getting new pipeline and enough of that, right?
[00:19:47] Yeah. Yeah. And are you able then to convert that Right. Have more focus on that If you are like smb, I would throw forecasting out the window. If, if I were you
[00:19:58] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:19:59] Toni: it's, uh, I would even, I would even throw pipeline out the window. Yeah. I would just focus on how many deals are you getting?
[00:20:07] Yeah. What's your conversion rate? What's your ACV? Yeah. Is it higher or lower than your peers? Yeah. Or your last quarter and so forth. I would only focus on that stuff actually. And that's sometimes pretty funny. It's because everyone is telling everyone, oh, you need to forecast and need to be like, you know, what's the forecast for the end of the quarter Toni?
[00:20:27] And when I was working on this really SMB company and it was January and they asked me about forecast for end of March, I'm like, So number one, that's what a sales forecast means. Yeah, right. It's open opportunities. And you know what I think will actually close by the end of the quarter, but it's the second week of January and I have two weeks sales cycles.
[00:20:49] I've literally another, what is it, eight weeks to generate pipeline and deals. Yeah. I don't know. You know, if I, if I told you my actual sales forecast for the quarter, on the deals I have live right now, yeah, yeah. It would be pretty disappointing. Dear boss.
[00:21:02] Yeah.
[00:21:03] So I can't actually give you the forecast.
[00:21:05] So this is where it's then a mix between, uh, sales forecasting and, and modeling. Really kind of, that's where the blend starts to happen much earlier because. What needs to be part of your quote unquote forecast, also needs to be the opportunities you're gonna create tomorrow and then close in two weeks from now.
[00:21:20] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:21:20] Toni: And and that then means your forecast, quote unquote, also, that needs to include opportunities that you are expecting to open. Yeah. Based on new hires, based on other things and so forth. Yeah. Right. So that's why talking about pipeline and pipeline coverage in smb, I don't think it's super useful. Um, Again, I think one application for that can be, uh, you have a one-on-one with your AE.
[00:21:45] You look at the, uh, book of business that they're working on, the deals that they're working on, and if that is a specific size compared to what they need to kind of close, you can kind of use this ongoingly, right? Kind of what's your, what's your pipeline look like? And, you know, comparison to your target.
[00:21:59] You kind of get a. It's a nice rule of thumb kind of feeling. Right. Especially, you know, for, for, for this, again, are using pipeline or plc, it doesn't matter right now, but there's, there's some shorthands in here that I'm sure some people are using successfully in order to kind of do this specific management.
[00:22:15] Right. But for you reporting to your CEO where you're gonna have your number at, I think using PLC is in that case, pretty poor actually. Right? Yeah. and in general, I think kind of zooming out fully here. going away from the, the people management and kind of what is your best guess?
[00:22:32] I think, uh, boringly. So, uh, the answer is, uh, the revenue formula, not the podcast. Um, but basically kinda the logic, right? What were the opportunities you created? When, what is your historic conversion rate? Uh, what's your historic ACV? What's your historic, average, uh, sales cycle? And you look at the opportunities that you created in the last six months and when, and then math it out, um, that will get you incredibly close.
[00:23:00] there are additional things to consider, obviously. And then again, if you're a company that closes one deal per quarter, which is, you know, sometimes it's good, you know, you could be a scale up and that could be your pace. Yeah. Then kind of that math approach, is probably not gonna yield the best results.
[00:23:15] Then you are the one to be like, okay, let's talk to Jimmy the AE and dig into that deal. Right. That might be the better way to actually do it.
[00:23:26] Yeah.
[00:23:27] Mikkel: I wonder what Jimmy is like.
[00:23:31] Toni: Jimmy's a cool guy, girl, actually, you know what? It's
[00:23:33] Mikkel: Yeah. But, um, I think it makes sense also. So the thing is PLC as a concept, it's, it's so easy to kind of apprehend and probably even math out versus the revenue formula.
[00:23:43] You will need to spend a bit of time on this, right? You, you really need to get that understanding of the business through Yeah. Um, in order to use it. But I, I still think. It, you will probably have to find another way to manage your pipe. You know, your funnel actually, and plc great for managing AEs. you can totally use it when you're enterprise.
[00:24:02] but beyond that, you need to kind of reconsider what, what can you do instead?
[00:24:06] Toni: No, and I mean, so if, if you wanted to take some of this PLC stuff a little bit to the next level, and you know, I'm just coming up with this
[00:24:13] Mikkel: on the fly
[00:24:13] Toni: about it. Maybe you need to have different PLCs for inbound versus outbound opportunities.
[00:24:18] Mikkel: Wow. Unblended plc,
[00:24:21] Toni: unblended plc. It's the next thing. I feel Chris Walker's gonna talk about it tomorrow.
[00:24:26] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:24:29] that's
[00:24:29] the cutting edge. That's the cutting
[00:24:32] Toni: you know? But, but if, if you're honest, if you're honest about it, and you can kind of play the in, uh, outro here, but if you're honest about it, that is, That's something that you should actually be considering, right?
[00:24:42] Kind of if someone gets a lot of outbound stuff and Oh, I'm hitting my plc. Um, also not helpful. Anyway, I think you, you know what, to make this a bit more opinionated. Yeah. Uh, ditch plc.
[00:24:55] Mikkel: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
[00:24:57] Wow. Sorry, you just, I'm striking the working title here now and then Ditch.
[00:25:00] Toni: Guilty. Yeah. That's,
[00:25:02] Mikkel: But, but anyway, you know, we should try and totally get Chris Walker on this show.
[00:25:08] I'm gonna, I'm gonna put my ass on the line here and say he's actually gonna, I'm gonna get him on the show, I promise you that.
[00:25:15] Toni: Sure
[00:25:15] Mikkel. Sure. Mikkel as a spoken, like a true, naive
[00:25:21] Mikkel: Yeah, exactly. I love it. That's the only thing I do.
[00:25:22] Toni: So what, what is it that I need to do if you achieve that?
[00:25:26] And what is it that you need to do if you don't get to achieve it? Mm.
[00:25:29] Mikkel: Mm, can I think about it until the next episode?
[00:25:34] Toni: Sure.
[00:25:35] Mikkel: I wa just want it to be really, really good.
[00:25:38] Toni: Okay. Wonderful.
[00:25:39] Mikkel: Thank you so much, Toni.
[00:25:40] Toni: Thank you, Mikkel. Thank you. Everyone's watching. Bye-bye. Bye.