Setting a revenue goal gives you a destination, but the number alone does not tell you what has to happen inside your business to reach it. A quarterly goal might depend on returning clients, new customers, referrals, a higher-value offer, a new market or a combination of several revenue sources. Each path creates different decisions about where your time, marketing resources and capacity need to go.
During this week’s Bloom Connections Educational Moment, I walked the room through a process I call Work Backwards From the Money. It is the same process I use when reviewing my own quarterly numbers and one I now use within my client experience at Elite Vivant. Instead of beginning with a marketing tactic, we begin with the revenue goal and work backward through what would have to happen for that money to become real.
The question I asked everyone to carry through the exercise was, “What does the evidence actually say before you decide what to do next?” A revenue plan can make sense mathematically while still depending on assumptions about how customers discover your business, how quickly they make decisions, what they are willing to buy and how many opportunities are likely to become sales. Working backward gives us a way to find those assumptions before we build more activity around them.
During this week’s Bloom Connections Educational Moment, I walked the room through a process I call Work Backwards From the Money. It is the same process I use when reviewing my own quarterly numbers and one I now use within my client experience at Elite Vivant. Instead of beginning with a marketing tactic, we begin with the revenue goal and work backward through what would have to happen for that money to become real.
The question I asked everyone to carry through the exercise was, “What does the evidence actually say before you decide what to do next?” A revenue plan can make sense mathematically while still depending on assumptions about how customers discover your business, how quickly they make decisions, what they are willing to buy and how many opportunities are likely to become sales. Working backward gives us a way to find those assumptions before we build more activity around them.
Start With the Revenue Your Business Is Already Likely to Generate
Before figuring out how much new revenue you need, start with the amount of your quarterly goal that is already likely to repeat. That could include clients on monthly retainers, customers you reasonably expect to purchase again or another predictable source of revenue that does not require you to acquire an entirely new customer.
I call that number your revenue floor. Once you know your floor, subtract it from your total quarterly revenue goal. The amount remaining is the actual gap you need to close.
If your Q1 goal is $50,000 and $20,000 is already expected from existing business, for example, you are not starting from zero. You have a $30,000 gap to solve for. That gives you a much more specific business question than simply asking how you are going to make $50,000.
The next question is where that additional $30,000 is expected to come from. During the Educational Moment, we considered new customers, existing customers purchasing again, higher-priced offers, partnerships, referral channels, new markets and combinations of those sources. Two businesses can have the exact same revenue gap and need completely different strategies to close it, which is why identifying the source of the revenue comes before deciding what marketing activity you need.
I call that number your revenue floor. Once you know your floor, subtract it from your total quarterly revenue goal. The amount remaining is the actual gap you need to close.
If your Q1 goal is $50,000 and $20,000 is already expected from existing business, for example, you are not starting from zero. You have a $30,000 gap to solve for. That gives you a much more specific business question than simply asking how you are going to make $50,000.
The next question is where that additional $30,000 is expected to come from. During the Educational Moment, we considered new customers, existing customers purchasing again, higher-priced offers, partnerships, referral channels, new markets and combinations of those sources. Two businesses can have the exact same revenue gap and need completely different strategies to close it, which is why identifying the source of the revenue comes before deciding what marketing activity you need.
Work Backward From Revenue to the Decisions People Have to Make
For the exercise, I used a business with a $30,000 revenue gap and a $3,000 primary offer. If that business plans to close the entire gap through new customers, the math says it needs 10 people to buy. The calculation is easy, but 10 customers is still an outcome. The more useful question is what has to happen for 10 people to actually decide to buy.
That is where we continued working backward. For illustration, I showed how 10 customers might require approximately 40 serious sales conversations, which might require around 200 people showing meaningful interest, which would require enough of the right people to encounter the business in the first place. Those numbers were examples rather than benchmarks. Your business data needs to tell you what your actual path looks like.
Once you start looking at the goal this way, a revenue question becomes a human behavior question. People need to encounter the business, some need to become interested, some need to move into meaningful conversations and some eventually need to decide to buy. The ratios between those stages are where your own sales and marketing history becomes useful.
This is also why a revenue goal cannot automatically be translated into a need for more leads, more content or more visibility. If you need 10 more customers, the first question is not necessarily how to get more people into the business. You need to understand what is already happening between discovery and purchase before you know which part of that path needs attention.
That is where we continued working backward. For illustration, I showed how 10 customers might require approximately 40 serious sales conversations, which might require around 200 people showing meaningful interest, which would require enough of the right people to encounter the business in the first place. Those numbers were examples rather than benchmarks. Your business data needs to tell you what your actual path looks like.
Once you start looking at the goal this way, a revenue question becomes a human behavior question. People need to encounter the business, some need to become interested, some need to move into meaningful conversations and some eventually need to decide to buy. The ratios between those stages are where your own sales and marketing history becomes useful.
This is also why a revenue goal cannot automatically be translated into a need for more leads, more content or more visibility. If you need 10 more customers, the first question is not necessarily how to get more people into the business. You need to understand what is already happening between discovery and purchase before you know which part of that path needs attention.
Every Number in Your Plan Is Carrying an Assumption
Once we mapped the path backward, we looked underneath the numbers. Every number in a revenue plan is quietly carrying an assumption about what people will do. You may be assuming enough of the right people will discover your business, that some of them will become interested, that interested people will have a conversation with you and that enough of those conversations will become customers. You are also making assumptions about whether the offer, price and timeline make sense for the people you expect to buy.
The timeline deserves particular attention when something in your business changes. Moving upmarket or increasing the price of an offer, for example, can affect how long it takes someone to make a buying decision. If your plan assumes the same sales cycle you experienced with a different offer or buyer, the math may work while the timeline does not.
The goal is not to eliminate assumptions from business planning because some assumptions will always exist when you are planning for something that has not happened yet. The opportunity is to identify which parts of the plan are assumptions and compare them with the evidence your business has already produced.
The timeline deserves particular attention when something in your business changes. Moving upmarket or increasing the price of an offer, for example, can affect how long it takes someone to make a buying decision. If your plan assumes the same sales cycle you experienced with a different offer or buyer, the math may work while the timeline does not.
The goal is not to eliminate assumptions from business planning because some assumptions will always exist when you are planning for something that has not happened yet. The opportunity is to identify which parts of the plan are assumptions and compare them with the evidence your business has already produced.
Your Business Is Already Leaving Clues
When I talk about evidence, I am not talking only about a dashboard. Your website analytics matter, but so do customer behavior, sales conversations, sales history and repeated patterns you can observe across the business.
Look at where your last customers actually came from and how many meaningful conversations it took to produce a sale. Review how many people reached your website and what percentage moved to the next step. Consider how long customers took to decide, where interest tended to stop moving forward and what helped someone trust you enough to buy.
Those clues can reveal a very different problem from the one you assumed you had. You may think more of your ideal clients need to know what you do, but the evidence could show that plenty of people are already discovering the business and are not taking the next step. You may already be having conversations with the right people, but those conversations are not becoming sales. Customers may be buying once without a clear next offer that gives them a reason to continue working with you.
Each of those situations requires a different decision. More visibility will not automatically solve a conversion problem, and generating additional inquiries will not necessarily solve an offer or sales problem. That is why I told the room, “Don’t automatically add more activity on top of a problem you haven’t actually diagnosed.” Find where reality stops matching the assumptions first, then decide what deserves your attention.
Look at where your last customers actually came from and how many meaningful conversations it took to produce a sale. Review how many people reached your website and what percentage moved to the next step. Consider how long customers took to decide, where interest tended to stop moving forward and what helped someone trust you enough to buy.
Those clues can reveal a very different problem from the one you assumed you had. You may think more of your ideal clients need to know what you do, but the evidence could show that plenty of people are already discovering the business and are not taking the next step. You may already be having conversations with the right people, but those conversations are not becoming sales. Customers may be buying once without a clear next offer that gives them a reason to continue working with you.
Each of those situations requires a different decision. More visibility will not automatically solve a conversion problem, and generating additional inquiries will not necessarily solve an offer or sales problem. That is why I told the room, “Don’t automatically add more activity on top of a problem you haven’t actually diagnosed.” Find where reality stops matching the assumptions first, then decide what deserves your attention.
Not Knowing the Answer Gives You Something to Investigate
As we worked through the exercise, I also wanted the women in the room to notice the questions they could not answer. Maybe you do not know how many conversations typically produce one customer. You may not know where your last several customers originally discovered you or how long the average buying decision takes. You may have a revenue goal without knowing how much of it is likely to repeat.
Those missing answers are useful because they show you what needs to be investigated. Instead of responding to uncertainty by adding another tactic, you now have a specific question to take back into your business. Reviewing your analytics, sales history, customer conversations or past clients may give you the information you need to make the next decision with more context.
Working backward can also reveal whether the goal is realistic for the capacity you currently have. If reaching the number requires substantially more sales conversations, more customers or more delivery than you currently manage, the planning conversation may need to include your systems, tools and people alongside your marketing. The goal is not simply to prove that the revenue math works. It is to understand what the business would actually need to support it.
Those missing answers are useful because they show you what needs to be investigated. Instead of responding to uncertainty by adding another tactic, you now have a specific question to take back into your business. Reviewing your analytics, sales history, customer conversations or past clients may give you the information you need to make the next decision with more context.
Working backward can also reveal whether the goal is realistic for the capacity you currently have. If reaching the number requires substantially more sales conversations, more customers or more delivery than you currently manage, the planning conversation may need to include your systems, tools and people alongside your marketing. The goal is not simply to prove that the revenue math works. It is to understand what the business would actually need to support it.
Find Where the Story Breaks Before You Decide What Comes Next
The full process begins with the outcome you want, then moves to what you already know. Identify your revenue floor, calculate the remaining gap and determine where you expect that additional revenue to come from. From there, work backward through what would have to happen for customers to generate that revenue and identify the assumptions being made at each stage.
Then compare the plan with your evidence. If visibility is working but conversations are not happening, you have a different question to investigate than a business that is generating qualified conversations but not converting them into customers. If customers are buying but rarely returning, the opportunity may be somewhere else entirely.
During the Educational Moment, I summarized that final step as finding “where the story breaks” and then choosing what actually matters next. That is what working backward from the money is designed to uncover. The revenue goal gives you the outcome, but the evidence helps you understand which decision deserves your attention before you spend more time, money or energy trying to reach it.
Then compare the plan with your evidence. If visibility is working but conversations are not happening, you have a different question to investigate than a business that is generating qualified conversations but not converting them into customers. If customers are buying but rarely returning, the opportunity may be somewhere else entirely.
During the Educational Moment, I summarized that final step as finding “where the story breaks” and then choosing what actually matters next. That is what working backward from the money is designed to uncover. The revenue goal gives you the outcome, but the evidence helps you understand which decision deserves your attention before you spend more time, money or energy trying to reach it.
About Latifah Abdur and Elite Vivant
Latifah Abdur is the founder of Elite Vivant, a growth and marketing advisory firm, and Bloom Connections, a community created to bring Black women business owners together to connect, collaborate and refer one another. She has been an entrepreneur for nearly two decades and has worked with more than 300 entrepreneurs across branding, websites and marketing through her own firm and partnerships with entrepreneurship programs.
Through Elite Vivant, Latifah helps advisory, consulting and professional service firms make clearer marketing and client acquisition decisions by looking at business context, available data and the growth priorities behind the decision. Work Backwards From the Money is part of that approach and comes from the same process she uses when reviewing her own quarterly numbers.
Learn Something. Share Something. Grow Together.
Educational Moments inside Bloom Connections give women in the community an opportunity to bring what they know into the room and give the rest of us something useful to apply to our own businesses. For this one, you can begin with your own Q1 revenue goal, identify what is already likely to repeat, calculate the gap and start working backward through what would actually have to happen for that additional revenue to become real.
As you work through it, pay attention to the questions you cannot answer as closely as the numbers you can. Your customer behavior, conversations, sales history and analytics may already contain clues about what deserves your attention next. When something you learn through a Bloom Educational Moment changes the way you think about a business decision, put it to use, share what you learned and carry the knowledge forward.
As you work through it, pay attention to the questions you cannot answer as closely as the numbers you can. Your customer behavior, conversations, sales history and analytics may already contain clues about what deserves your attention next. When something you learn through a Bloom Educational Moment changes the way you think about a business decision, put it to use, share what you learned and carry the knowledge forward.
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