Working With Filament
Establish the Historical Baseline
We typically look across five years of price, units sold, forecasts, revisions and actual results for each significant earned-revenue program, adjusting for any COVID/post-COVID anomalies.
That longer view helps distinguish sustained trends from unusual years and lets us compare what the organization expected to happen with what actually happened.
The information is usually already there. The expertise is knowing where to look and what it means.
The objective is to identify the historical patterns and assumptions that should inform future revenue decisions.
Identify the Drivers of Demand
Revenue can increase because more units were sold, prices increased, or both. Understanding the difference is essential.
Is the potential customer base growing or shrinking? Are existing customers buying more or less? Is growth coming from established programs or new products and services? Are strong performers masking declining demand elsewhere?
We also look across the product portfolio to understand which offerings are growing, which are declining and where the strongest opportunities for future revenue may exist.
Understanding what is driving demand creates the foundation for better revenue decisions.
Explore Revenue Opportunities
Revenue growth does not always require another new program.
We examine pricing alongside demand — including what happened after previous price changes, whether pricing has kept pace with inflation and how pricing compares with other associations in the market.
We also look for opportunities within existing products and customer relationships: increasing purchases among current customers, improving product mix, and using CRM and promotion more effectively to introduce customers to relevant products and services.
The objective is to identify practical opportunities to improve revenue from the programs, products and customer relationships that already exist.
Evaluate Forecast Assumptions
We review previous forecasts, the assumptions behind them, revisions made during the year and eventual results.
Sometimes several individually reasonable conservative assumptions compound, producing a forecast that materially understates likely performance. We also compare management's historical expectations about its market with what subsequently occurred.
The goal isn't simply to determine whether previous forecasts were right or wrong. It is to understand why — and use that knowledge to build better assumptions.
Develop the Revenue Strategy
Demand, pricing and forecasting are interconnected. We combine the analysis with your organization's knowledge of its industry, customers and mission to develop a more defensible view of future revenue.
The result is not only a more defensible forecast, but a clearer understanding of where revenue can be improved today and where future growth is most likely to come from.
The result is a revised forecast, pricing recommendations where appropriate, and specific opportunities to improve earned-revenue performance.
Start a Conversation
A 30-minute conversation is usually enough to discuss your organization’s forecasting and revenue optimization challenges, explain how we approach those issues, and determine whether there is a good fit. From there, if appropriate, we can discuss any next steps.