When growth stalls and nobody trusts the pipeline

A UK B2B SaaS business I worked with this summer was missing plan, and the CRM couldn’t say why. Deals ran across four overlapping pipelines, and each seller recorded them their own way. The CEO and finance lead needed a forecast they could defend in front of the board.

Getting there meant two splits. One separates first-time new business from everything else in the pipeline. The other separates ARR the business won through its own sales motion from ARR it inherited.

What the pipeline held

Seven in ten open deals sat at the first stage, and fewer than one in five carried a next action. Nine in ten lost deals had no loss reason recorded. By value, about a third of the pipeline was first-time business with an ICP-fit buyer; renewals logged as new deals made up much of the rest.

I rebuilt the forecast on billings. Committed exit ARR came in at under half of weighted exit ARR, and the gap to plan was wider than the figure the team had been managing to.

The growth line had been carried by the base

I rebuilt twelve months of revenue from the ledger and the CRM. Logos already under contract the year before accounted for 87% of it, and new logos made up 8% of the customer count. In the largest vertical, more than four in every five pounds of ARR traced back to relationships that predated any sales process.

The retained base had been doing the work. Renewals and expansion kept the top line growing while new-logo acquisition barely moved.

Why blended numbers hide a stall

Payback and sales efficiency only mean something when you calculate them on sold ARR. On a blended revenue line, the board sees steady growth and a sales cost that looks reasonable. On sold ARR alone, the cost of each new logo is plain to see.

Four pipelines became one

The team moved every deal into a single pipeline with shared stage definitions and a written standard for what each seller records. A weekly pipeline health report now flags deals that have stalled or lost their next action. The board gets separate targets for net new ARR and renewal ARR, each with a named owner.

Where to look in your own numbers

Pull last year’s ARR by logo and flag each as new or existing at the start of the year. Then go through your open pipeline for deals parked at the first stage and renewals recorded as new business. If existing logos carry more than 80% of ARR, or most open deals are in that state, clean the pipeline before you add to it. Report new and renewal ARR as separate lines at your next board meeting.

Related: why a CMO or VP of Sales won’t fix a split funnel, or read the case studies.