Why pretending the pipeline is healthy erodes trust

VPs of Sales: If your front-line manager says "we’ve got a healthy pipeline" but can’t name three winnable deals off the top of their head... That’s not a forecast. That’s fiction. It’s the same story across revenue teams: “Pipeline’s strong. Forecast’s looking good.” But when you press for what’s actually in that pipeline? → Vague generalities. → No deal names. → Zero momentum. Let’s be real: 1. A strong pipeline isn’t vibes. ↳It’s verified. 2. It’s not hope. ↳It’s heat. 3. It’s names, stages, and next steps ↳not stories. And here’s the part most overlook: Bad forecasting leads to bad hiring. You bring on a headcount based on illusion... ...then the math doesn’t math. Revenue misses → Quota gaps → Headcount reductions. The cost isn’t just missed targets—it’s people. And you’re left explaining why. So whether you're hiring, forecasting, or both: Do the gut check. Before the market does it for you.

Reality check y'all. Lying will get you nowhere. And if the "math don't math" as I say, it will come out in the end. Let's go back just under 2 years. I'm chatting with a founder who is looking for a new sales leader and wants some help. I asked some basic revenue questions: Me: What's your ARR? Founder: Just under $2M Reality: Just under $2M if you count monthly customers who haven't paid in over a quarter and should be churned. Me: What's your churn rate? Founder: Sub 3% Reality: Not counting the above, sure. But when you factor in those that should be churned it was closer to 8%. Me: What's your pipeline growth look like? Founder: Highest we've seen in since we launched, pipeline is super-healthy. Reality: "Pipeline" was more "leads" in the system that were non-ICP, not qualified, and not interested. Team was afraid to close them out because of the pressure put on them by the founder. Me: I'd love to see a complete product demo. Founder: Sure Reality: The demo was Figma made to look like the product. Vaporware was being sold with the mindset of we will build once they buy. Only uncovered when I tried to click somewhere and got the infamous Figma blue telling me I was not "on script." The only person you are hurting with these lies is yourself. But shockingly, they then wonder why their new VP of Sales is struggling. They are struggling because you didn't tell them the truth, and sold them a bill of goods. Here’s the truth... if you lie to your team, they can’t help you. If you bring in a sales leader based on fantasy numbers, they’re walking into an impossible situation. VPs of Sales aren’t magicians. They can’t fix: - A pipeline full of ghosts - A product with no real adoption - A pricing model that makes no sense But they CAN help you build something real... if you’re honest with them. The strongest GTM strategies aren’t built on hope, hype, or heroics. They’re built on reality. So before you hire, before you scale, before you throw money at the problem—ask yourself: Are you giving your team the truth… or just the numbers you wish were true?

Ever sat with a £100k pipeline and felt... skint? Last week a sales director showed me his 'healthy pipeline.' 'Look at all these opps!' he beamed. I asked him to try something: Call every prospect who'd said "maybe" in the last 3 months. Tell them it's absolutely fine to say no. His 'healthy' pipeline? Vanished quicker than my Dad in the 90s. See, there's this funny thing about sales. We're all so obsessed with getting to 'yes' that we forget something: A fast 'no' is worth more than a slow 'maybe.' Think about therapy for a second. No good therapist lets their client sit in 'maybe' for months. They help them face reality - even when it's uncomfortable. That's our job too. Next time you hear: 'Let me think about it' 'Sounds interesting' 'We should catch up soon' Ask yourself - am I helping them get to clarity, or just avoiding the truth? Because your pipeline isn't a wishlist. It's a reality check. And 'maybe' never paid a bill.

5x pipeline isn’t a strategy. It’s a lack of one. It sounds smart. Conservative. Predictable. But most teams chasing 5x coverage aren’t actually generating 5x pipeline. They’re generating noise. I’ve seen it firsthand. I’ve done it firsthand. I knew which accounts were real and which ones I added to hit the number. Because when 5x is the target, you learn fast: better to inflate than miss. Better to pretend than explain. Better to add the deal than justify why you didn’t. And that’s where the breakdown begins. Reps do unnatural things to stay out of the red. Managers lose trust in the funnel. Leaders buy visibility tools to try and make sense of it all only to find that more inspection doesn’t fix bad input. The problem isn’t that reps aren’t working hard enough. It’s that they’re working the wrong pipeline. The good news? You don’t need 5x coverage if your pipeline is focused, high-integrity, and built on real intent. Here are a few ways to get there: 1. Define what “high-quality” actually means. Not just ICP. Be specific. Build a rubric. Get alignment across sales and marketing. 2. Track the right ratios. Ratio of Opps in High-Quality Accounts vs. Low-Quality ones is a simple but powerful directional metric. If it’s off, so is your GTM motion. 3. Measure movement, not volume. Time-to-Move. Time-to-Death. Progression rates between key stages. A bloated funnel with no momentum is worse than a lean one that moves. 4. Leverage tooling where it actually helps. A platform like Revic AI helps reps start with better targets, not just inspect deals after they’ve been created. 5. Tighten the funnel. Celebrate disqualifications. Protect rep time. Don’t overfill the top just to hit a coverage ratio that was never tied to win rates. Pipeline coverage isn’t a bad thing. But 5x isn’t a rule—it’s a shortcut when you don’t trust the system. The best teams don’t chase inflated metrics. They build lean, fast-moving funnels. And they win more because of it.

Oftentimes, when speaking with companies, I discover an “On Hold” stage in their pipelines. Please, do not use this type of stage. Remove it immediately. How sales teams justify having this stage: There are deals that, for some reason, can’t be successfully closed in the near future. A customer says, “Let’s keep in touch and get back to discussions in a few months.” What does a sales representative do? They put that deal into the “On Hold” stage. This is completely wrong. 𝐈𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 (𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫) 𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐭. You should move the deal to Closed-Lost and schedule a task for future interactions with the customer. Period. Stop lying to yourself and pretending the deal is still alive. It is not. 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 “𝐎𝐧-𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝” 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬: ▪️ Sales reps tend to put actually lost deals into it, but they are still considered open, massively skewing win rates. ▪️ Over time, your pipeline artificially inflates—not with healthy opportunities, but with dead-weight deals lingering in "On-hold." ▪️ You won’t be able to accurately assess sales performance since key pipeline metrics will be distorted. ❗ I always repeat the same thing to sales teams: Don’t be delusional. Don’t create a false picture of a healthy pipeline when it’s not. Move deals through the pipeline as quickly as possible. If you move a deal to Closed-Lost, it is not the end. Assign follow-up tasks for future outreach. If a new opportunity arises later, create a fresh deal in your pipeline. The end of the story.

That empty pipeline you're afraid of Founders? It might be exactly what your sales team needs. Here's why: Holding onto dead deals creates a dangerous illusion of pipeline health that masks the real problem. I've watched countless sales teams cling to unqualified opportunities like Moby Dick - that mythical deal that consumes all their time while real opportunities slip away. ↳ Dead deals create false comfort and prevent necessary prospecting ↳ Clean pipeline forces reps to face reality and take action ↳ Empty pipeline becomes medicine that drives the right behaviors ↳ Tight qualification prevents wasted time on deals without timeline ↳ Reality of true pipeline health becomes impossible to ignore The results are clear: Teams that ruthlessly clean their pipelines consistently outperform those that cling to dead opportunities. They spend more time building real pipeline instead of chasing ghosts. If you want to learn the exact framework I use to help founders build and manage healthy sales pipelines, check out the Founder Led Sales platform. Founders who have been on the Founder Led Sales Journey, what surprising benefits have you seen from forcing your team to clean out stale pipeline?