“When you don’t look at the pieces of the puzzle that add up to whether something is attainable, you’re shooting in the dark.” — Bec Henrich, Traction Complete Wishful thinking doesn’t drive revenue. But for many marketing and revenue teams, that’s what traditional forecasting boils down to—a reverse-engineered number from the top down, with no real tie to what the funnel can support. Bec Henrich, Head of Marketing at Traction Complete, joined us on Metrics & Chill to explain how marketers and RevOps teams can shift from guesswork to grounded, data-informed planning. Instead of building plans on a hopeful “wishful thinking forecast,” Henrich walks through how to model your funnel with a few basic metrics to create realistic, achievable targets—ones that stretch your team without burning them out. Watch the interview Or listen to it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Model from the Middle: Conversion Rates from Leads to Opportunities Too often, teams start with an ambitious revenue target and work backwards without pressure-testing the middle of the funnel. Bec recommends starting at the middle of the funnel with the activities and leads you can reasonably estimate, then applying your historical lead-to-opportunity conversion rates to forecast pipeline. Bec suggests starting with the things that you can control—like the volume of leads and known activities that you’re doing. For example: Lead estimates based on historical performance Conversion rates (lead to opportunity) Average order value Close rates “You can’t create math for everything, but you want to bring some predictability to what you can contribute as a team to the business” You don’t need a perfect historical dataset to start, either. If you lack historical data, Bec suggests using benchmarks or the most consistent conversion metrics you do have. Even a simple model using these metrics can help pressure-test goals and create more realistic expectations across the team. Clean, Structured Data Is Non-Negotiable A model is only as trustworthy as the inputs it’s built on. Messy CRMs full of duplicate leads, unstandardized sources, and dormant opportunities destroy forecast accuracy. Instead, Bec emphasizes the importance of cleaning and standardizing your data. Before building your model, align on consistent channel definitions, eliminate duplicate leads, and validate opportunity stages in your CRM. “You don’t want to create your model based on rubbish input.” Don’t Forget About Seasonality One of the biggest blind spots in goal setting? Ignoring seasonal trends. Bec advises marketers to avoid dividing annual targets evenly across quarters. Instead, factor in known seasonal spikes (like events or sales cycles) and lulls (like holiday seasons). Not accounting for this nuance can lead to blown-out quarters and demoralized teams. Get Sales and RevOps Bought In “For this to be successful, we as marketers rely on the sales team.” Your marketing model doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Sales needs to buy in, since they own a large part of the outcome. Bec suggests bringing in sales leadership and RevOps early to validate assumptions around conversion rates, average deal size, and expected contribution from each function. Start Simple, Then Evolve (Free Template) Bec suggests starting with a basic model and iterating. Even with three quarters of reliable data, you can begin identifying patterns and testing assumptions. Over time, you can layer in more granularity, like channel-specific close rates or CAC-to-LTV ratios. Not sure where to start? Bec shared a public Google Sheet template that makes this modeling approach accessible to teams of all sizes. All you need is: Estimated leads by channel or activity Historical lead-to-opportunity conversion rate Average deal size Close rate (or a simplified assumption) By linking these metrics, you can adjust activity-level inputs and immediately see how it impacts your forecast. The Bottom Line Creating forecasts with a “healthy level of anxiety” instead of over-promising leads to better planning, stronger execution, and fewer mid-year surprises. By modeling your funnel from real inputs and collaborating across teams, you can shift from wishful thinking to achievable growth. Listen to the full episode with Bec on Metrics & Chill to dig deeper into her process, or check out her spreadsheet template to start pressure-testing your next forecast. Databox Makes It Even Easier With our Metric Forecasts tool, you can view historical data and seasonality, and calculate highly accurate predictions of your most important metrics. For example: Sales can forecast Closed-Won Deals next month Marketing can forecast website traffic next quarter You can look forward one month, one year, or more Adjust your forecasts to account for real-world factors Don’t have enough historical data? Databox helps here, too, with benchmarking data that lets you compare yourself to companies like yours. Browse benchmark data for thousands of business metrics Filter by Size, Revenue, Industry, or Company Type to see how you measure up Save and monitor important benchmarks over time View benchmark lines right on your on dashboards Say goodbye to guesswork and start making more confident, data-backed decisions.