You’ve just closed a new round of funding. The board is excited, the investors are bullish, and they’ve handed you a revenue target that looks more like a hockey stick than a realistic growth plan.
As Michelle Pietsch, a seasoned expert in scaling early-stage sales teams, explains on The Go-to-Market Podcast, this jump, say, from $500,000 to $4 million in one year, is a common but perilous expectation.
The core problem is that most early-stage companies lack the historical data and operational rigor to know how they will achieve such exponential growth. This gap often leads to missed targets, team burnout, and wasted resources. This article breaks down Michelle’s expert framework for moving beyond aspirational numbers. We’ll provide a practical guide to data-driven revenue goal setting, enabling you to build an achievable plan that aligns your team and satisfies your stakeholders.
“You reach 500,000 in revenue and then you think that it’s going to be easy to go from 500,000 to three or 4 million in one year. Without a true plan… you give them this outrageous number and no one can tell you how you’re supposed to get there.” – Michelle Pietsch
The Root Causes of Unrealistic Revenue Goals
Setting ambitious goals is essential for growth, but when those goals are untethered from reality, they set teams up for failure. Companies often fall into this trap for a few common reasons, creating a cycle of missed targets and demoralized teams. Identifying these pitfalls in your own process is the first step toward building a more sustainable plan.
The Scalability Gap
In the early days, success is often driven by the founder’s charisma, personal network, and relentless hustle. While this initial traction is crucial, it’s rarely scalable. The problem, as Michelle points out, is that this early success is often untracked. Leaders “don’t really have the story of success that they can bring back to the table.”
They can’t pinpoint which lead sources converted, what the sales cycle looked like, or why certain deals closed. This creates a dangerous scalability gap. When it’s time to hire a sales team, leaders mistakenly assume the founder’s success can be replicated simply by adding headcount. Without a documented, repeatable process grounded in data, new hires are set up to fail, and the company struggles to move beyond its initial, personality-driven wins.
Post-Funding Pressure
After a funding round, the pressure intensifies. As Michelle notes, “you just got your round of funding. The investors in the board are really excited, but now it’s go time.” The conversation quickly shifts from a strategic discussion about “what can we achieve?” to a tactical one about “what number do they want to see?”
This external pressure forces leaders to commit to figures without a concrete plan to back them up. A common and costly mistake is to immediately hire a large team to chase the big number. Michelle cautions against this approach, advising leaders to first look at the “productivity rates of your current team and how can you make them really, really productive with what you have.” Adding headcount to solve a process problem only burns cash and leads to widespread burnout.
Red Flags in Your Planning Process
Is your revenue plan built on a solid foundation or just aspiration? Here are three red flags that indicate your goals may be unachievable:
1. No one can articulate the “how” and the “why.” If leaders can’t explain the specific plays, required resources, and underlying assumptions needed to hit the target, it’s not a plan; it’s a number on a slide. It reflects the exact problem Michelle describes: “you give them this outrageous number and no one can tell you how you’re supposed to get there.”
2. The plan lacks departmental ownership. When the revenue target is seen as solely a “sales and marketing problem,” it’s doomed. True GTM success requires a cross-functional commitment where product, marketing, sales, and customer success all have clearly defined roles and objectives.
3. The budget doesn’t match the expectation. A plan to triple revenue requires a corresponding investment. If the budget for essential activities like paid advertising, outbound tools, or headcount doesn’t align with the revenue goal, the plan is disconnected from reality.
A Data-Driven Framework for Realistic Revenue Goal Setting
Moving from an aspirational target to an executable plan requires a shift in mindset from accepting top-down targets to building a bottom-up, data-driven plan. Instead of starting with the number, start with the data. This bottom-up approach builds a credible, defensible forecast that aligns your team and builds trust with stakeholders.
Auditing Your Historical Performance
Michelle’s core advice is to start by understanding the past. Before you can project future growth, you must analyze how you achieved your current revenue. She urges leaders to ask, “you hit 500,000 in revenue, but how did you get there?” This involves a deep dive into your historical data.
- Key Metrics to Analyze:
- Revenue by product/service line: Identify which offerings have the most traction so you can focus resources effectively.
- Lead sources: Where did your best customers come from? Was it inbound, outbound, or partner channels?
- Conversion rates: How many leads did it take to generate a demo? How many demos did it take to close a deal? What was your average sales cycle?
This historical audit provides the baseline for any future projection, transforming your revenue goal setting process from guesswork into an informed science.
Sizing the Engine: Aligning Goals With Market Reality and Team Capacity
Once you understand your own performance, you need to contextualize it within the broader market and your team’s actual capacity.
First, look externally. As Michelle suggests, analyzing your market share and competitors’ pricing and positioning helps “defend anything that’s based on your position relative to your competition.” This market intelligence allows you to set realistic targets grounded in industry dynamics. To see how your team’s performance stacks up, you can benchmark your metrics against industry standards using resources like the 2025 Benchmarks Report.
Next, look internally at your team’s capacity. Evaluate the current productivity of your Account Executives and SDRs. Before you hire more people, you must understand what a realistic quota looks like and how you can make your existing team more efficient through better tools, training, or processes.
Deconstructing the Pipeline: Assigning Ownership Across the GTM Funnel
A revenue target is not just a sales quota; it’s a Go-to-Market goal that requires a collaborative effort. Michelle confirms a common pipeline sourcing mix: Marketing generates 25-30%, SDRs source around 40%, and AEs self-source the remaining 30%.
By breaking down the total revenue goal into pipeline sources, you create shared accountability across the entire GTM team.
- Marketing owns a clear pipeline or MQL target.
- SDRs have a specific outbound meeting or opportunity goal.
- AEs are responsible for supplementing their pipeline with self-sourced deals.
This approach ensures every department understands its contribution and fosters a collaborative culture focused on a unified objective. For more detail on translating these targets into individual responsibilities, explore best practices for setting individual quotas.
How to Confidently Counter Unrealistic Expectations
Armed with a data-driven plan, you are now prepared to have a productive conversation with your executive team and board. The goal isn’t to be difficult; it’s to be a strategic partner who can present a credible path to sustainable growth.
Do Your Homework, Show Your Work
You can’t walk into a boardroom and simply say, “that number’s insane,” as Michelle puts it. You must present a well-researched alternative.
Steps to Prepare for the Meeting:
1. Build your data-driven forecast based on the framework above, using your historical conversion rates and market data.
2. Create two scenarios: the board’s “aspirational” plan and your proposed “realistic” plan.
3. Articulate the gaps and risks in the aspirational plan. For example, explain that hitting the target would require spending “half of the funding you just received” on paid ads with no guarantee of success.
Presenting a data-backed plan is a critical first step, but it’s not enough. You also need a system for Performance-to-Plan Tracking to monitor progress in real-time and make agile adjustments as market conditions change.
Frame the Conversation Around Ownership, Not Excuses
This conversation is not about assigning blame; it’s about demonstrating leadership and building a unified plan. Frame your proposal around proactive ownership and collaboration.
Use language that inspires confidence: “Here is the number I am confident we can own, and here is the cross-functional plan for how we will get there together.”
Walk stakeholders through the specific plays each team will run to achieve the proposed target. This shows you’ve thought through the execution and are committed to success. By presenting a credible, unified strategy, you build trust and position yourself as a leader who can deliver. Companies like Udemy have streamlined their GTM planning with Fullcast, turning chaotic GTM planning into a collaborative engine for faster, more predictable execution.
Build a Plan You Can Believe In
Effective revenue goal setting is not about dampening ambition; it is about channeling it into a strategic, achievable plan. By grounding your targets in historical data, market realities, and cross-functional ownership, you can shift your organization from a culture of hope to a culture of execution.
The most powerful tool a leader has is a credible plan. When you can confidently articulate not just the “what” but the “how” and the “why,” you empower your team to drive sustainable growth and build unshakable trust with your stakeholders. This data-driven approach transforms reactive pressure into proactive leadership.
Annual planning is often a source of friction and guesswork. If you’re ready to transform your GTM planning from a chaotic, spreadsheet-driven exercise into a dynamic, data-driven process, explore Fullcast’s 10 Steps to Sales GTM Planning eBook.
