Are you reporting the news or making it?

 Are you reporting the news or making the news? 

I’ve sat through hundreds, maybe thousands, of metric reviews in meetings over the years. Usually, we look at last week or last month, speculate about what happened, and move on. 

Those metrics can show a pattern, but they’re already history. By the time you review them, your opportunity to influence the outcome has passed. 

Hayden Stafford, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Seismic, has seen this play out on leading go-to-market teams at top technology companies. He shared his experience on our RevOps Champions podcast. 

"You've got a revenue strategy that defines the intent of what you're trying to do, but then there's the revenue system that determines the outcomes." 

The gap between these two is where execution breaks down. 

A strategy tells you where you're going.  

A system surfaces whether you're on track and flags issues before you drift off course. 

Without a system designed to surface insights, your team can only report the news:

• Review the pipeline.
• Look at out-of-the-box reports.
• Tell you what already happened.
  

With a well-designed revenue operating system, your team can make the news:

• See downturns coming before they impact your close rate.
• Identify when a new product or location is losing traction.
• Spot churn before renewal conversations begin.
  

The RevOps team members who sit at Stafford’s leadership table are able to make the news because, “They're pointing out areas within that revenue system that might be failing or falling behind." This makes their role one of the most strategic and integral parts of the team because they flag opportunities, risks, and guide critical decisions. 

That kind of contribution doesn’t happen by accident. It requires something most revenue teams aren’t explicitly building for: the capacity to sense change and respond before it’s too late. 

AQ: The Adaptability Quotient

You've heard of IQ. You've heard of EQ. Stafford spoke about a third quotient that's becoming increasingly relevant: AQ or the adaptability quotient. 
He summarizes AQ as questions every revenue leader should be asking, "Are teams able to adapt to the sudden change of the way they run their business and how they use new tools? More importantly, how do I sense and respond to the changes and the signals coming back from our revenue engines?" 
He sees adaptability at this level as having three requirements. First, you need the signals in your system. Next, you need people with the EQ, IQ, and AQ to interpret them. Then, you need systems that recognize what's happening and deliver the right response, whether it’s content, product, or training at the right moment. 
Most revenue teams are evaluated on lagging indicators: bookings, close rates, pipeline coverage. Of course, these matter, but they only tell you what has already happened. 
AQ requires something earlier: signals that predict what will happen next so you can do something about it. 

Transformative Leading Indicators

Stafford calls those earlier signals transformative leading indicators (TLIs).

These data points are precursors to your KPIs. When your revenue operations team watches them closely, it gives leaders insight and time to adapt before a trend becomes a problem.

TLIs might look like:

• Deal velocity slowing two stages before close, signaling a sales problem before deals stall or are lost.
• Early engagement scores dropping among a customer segment before renewal season, giving your team a window to act.

Shifting toward TLIs requires intentionally designing your system to answer strategic questions, not just track activity.

These are key questions that should be architected into your system, where your competitive advantage is built.

Skipping this step is where most CRM implementations fail. The system isn’t broken. It was never designed to answer the right questions.

Developing Your AQ System

Teams can put in enormous effort, but often lack the system to know whether it’s working.

Stafford shared three specific steps for developing an adaptable system.

1. Identify your TLIs. What are the precursors to your main KPIs? Is your system set up to report on those early indicators? If your team can’t name and see these, that’s your biggest gap.
2. Review how your revenue and enablement teams are measured. If the answer involves activity completions that don’t directly correlate to key metrics, they’re only in a position to report, not lead.
3. Evaluate ease of answering performance questions. If you need to know how a new initiative, product or location is performing could you answer the question using one or two dashboards? If not, it’s worth understanding why.

Your answers to these questions reveal whether you’re simply reporting the news or positioned to make it.

Having a conversation about the gaps in your strategy and reality is key to developing your AQ and designing a system that surfaces the right information you can act on.