REVENUE CADENCE PLAYBOOK

Tom Williams, Head of Align at Clari.

TEAM PERFORMANCE

4 Rep & manager 1:1 5 Team weekly meetings 6 Sequence of events

RETENTION & EXPANSION

8 Customer QBR / EBR 9 Account inspection 10 Churn SOE

FORECAST & ANALYTICS

12 New logo forecast 13 Churn / expansion forecast 14 Exec staff & board update 15 Funnel analytics 16 Quarterly retrospective & model update

WHAT NEXT

18 Cadence rollout recommendations 19 Download Clari’s cadence checklists 20 Running revenue with Clari

ARE YOU GOING TO MEET, BEAT OR MISS ON REVENUE?

The answer to the most important question in business lies in your Revenue Cadence: the ongoing motion of revenue moments that revenue teams leverage across quarters to deliver predictable, repeatable revenue precision.

As students of revenue ourselves, we’re constantly learning from the best revenue orgs in the world. With this revenue cadence playbook, teams at every level of maturity should be able to spot unidentified revenue leak faster and run revenue more predictably and efficiently.

No matter where you are in your journey, Clari is here to help.

REVENUE MOMENTS

● New logo 1:1 & pipeline inspection ● Weekly team meetings ● End of quarter SOE

REVENUE MOMENTS TEAM PERFORMANCE

REP & MANAGER 1:1 1:1s between reps and managers are criminally underleveraged. They’re treated as a means for managers to interrogate their reps about deal health instead of a having a collaborative, strategic discussion about how to create and convert revenue. By focusing on this set of rotating topics, teams are able to capture revenue that would have otherwise leaked.

FREQUENCY REVENUE MOMENT DESCRIPTION KEY METRICS

Weekly

Prospecting & strategic account penetration

Never let prospecting slip, even if there are lots of in-flight deals. Look at activity metrics, but judge on outcomes and encourage Reps to disqualify bad deals as fast as possible.

Outbound calls, emails, social touches; Accounts touched; Opportunities created; Pipeline created; Pipeline coverage ratio

In-flight deal review Make sure rep has qualified the opportunity against your org’s qualification framework, not just feelings. Managers should commit to reading the rep’s deal notes in advance of the meeting. This avoids wasted time “reporting the news” and shows reps that capturing notes isn’t just busy work.

Buyers engaged; Next meeting date; Days in stage; Total deal length

Bi-Weekly (alternate weeks)

Committed deal review Pressure-test every deal in the commit: what’s the steps to close? What’s the best and worst cases, any pull forwards to cover potential slips? [Consider running weekly in final month of quarter.]

Total Committed Revenue; Best Case / Most Likely / Worst Case forecasts

Sales skills review Review calls together and focus on a specific selling skill like active listening, multithreading, asking for the next yes, establishing a POV etc. Stage conversion rates; Quota attainment; Sales cycle duration; Win rates; ASP [Compared to peer benchmarks]

Monthly Career conversations Every seller needs a career path. Check in once a month to make sure they’re moving forward on their own path and that they’re satisfied with progress. Percentile performance across team

TEAM PERFORMANCE WHO Manager | AE

Week to week, month to month, reps and managers live in Clari. 1:1’s are based on a factual and less emotional sales process. We’ve seen our sales reps collectively gain more confidence in calling their forecast.

Dillon Blake VP, Revenue

Operations at Motus

4

TEAM DEAL REVIEWS Every team from the Manager’s squad up to RVP needs to agree on their numbers and

present those numbers up the chain. If the way teams judge deals are different, or if you

use different nomenclature, then there’s a huge risk of revenue leak. These don’t all

have to be 60 min meetings. Use your Revenue Platform to capture the facts async and

spend your time together focusing on strategy instead of reporting the news.

FREQUENCY REVENUE MOMENT DESCRIPTION KEY METRICS

Bi-Weekly

Committed Deal Review For a deal to be Committed, the Rep needs to be absolutely certain this deal has everything needed to close. And close on time. Think of this as the regular run up to the SOE meeting.

SOE: Deal value prop; next step; executive engagement; mutual action plan status; open risks; internal asks

Big Deal Review Expose major deals to a wider set of leaders in and out of revenue team to maximize odds of winning. The earlier you bring in add’l people, the more likely you’ll close. Executive alignment is especially important on large deals.

SOE: Deal value prop; next step; executive engagement; mutual action plan status; open risks; internal asks

Monthly

Slipped Deal Review “Slipped” refers to deals that had their close date changed from the current Q to a future Q. These reviews solve for two problems – (1) how to make sure the slipped deal doesn’t slip again and (2) how to tighten process so that Committed deals close as predicted.

Duration in stage; MAP / process adherence; compelling event; business case customization

Won Deal Review Celebrate the win, but also look critically to see if the Rep did anything different that can be replicated: message, use case, new deck, change order of milestones.

Call summaries, business case, MAP milestone customization

Lost Deal Review Review major lost deals to see if anything different could have been done, and if deal might be resuscitated if the fundamentals were strong. Check if proper qualification process as applied, and if it was, consider revisiting the qualification criteria to discover why this deal advanced as far as it did.

Stage at Lost; MAP / process adherence; double check stage exit criteria

TEAM PERFORMANCE WHO Manager | AEs

Clari has played an integral role in improving our revenue execution process. The rich data captured helps our direct sales team call their number with more confidence and accuracy.

Kelly Steckelberg CFO at Zoom

5

#

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS An end-of-quarter Sequence of Events (SOE) is a high pressure crucible, but it gets results. Every meeting, each rep is expected to share what the sequence of events is for that deal to close, essentially, who needs to do what. SOE gives the leader an opportunity to pressure test commits and offer insights, is a forcing function for process and stage documentation, and acts as a backstop moment for executives to step in and support critical deals.

FREQUENCY REVENUE MOMENT DESCRIPTION KEY METRICS

Month 1 One SOE meeting at the end of the month

Small Team SOE Front Line Manager (FLM) and their direct reports review the path to close for each open deal set to close in quarter.

You need to know the following on every deal. Include the date is was done and the person who did it

● Exec Demos Needed? ● Presented Proposal? ● Who will sign the deal? ● Procurement Process? ● Legal Review Needed? ● Security Review Needed? ● Budget Approval by CFO? ● Mutually agreed-upon close date? ● Commercial Terms Reached ($/Product/Term)?

Month 2 Biweekly

Small Team SOE Front Line Manager (FLM) and their direct reports review the path to close for each open deal set to close in quarter

Month 3 Weekly, then M-W-F,

then daily in last week Large Group SOE

Large group format for all reps with a deal closing in quarter. ONly reps with open deals are invited. As deals are closed, Reps are excused from the meeting until all deals are closed or the quarter ends.

TEAM PERFORMANCE WHO CRO | Manager | AEs

Clari Align [mutual action plans] helps me as a sales leader understand where deals sit in the sales cycle, allowing for a more streamlined deal inspection process and more effective coaching.Greg Donohue

VP of Sales Kofax

6

● Customer QBR / EBR ● Account Inspection ● Churn SOE

REVENUE MOMENTS RETENTION & EXPANSION

CUSTOMER QBR / EBR Done right, the Quarterly Business Review and Executive Business Review will prove ongoing value to the customer and give the selling organization an opportunity to realign should customer priorities be shifting. Every minute is precious in these calls, so send a written report in advance so your time together is focused on value and business impact.

FREQUENCY REVENUE MOMENT DESCRIPTION KEY METRICS

Monthly Account Health Check

This is an internal moment when the Account Manager collaborates with Customer Success team to rate Green / Yellow / Red. For Yellow or Red accounts, don’t wait for the QBR. Be proactive and recommend additional enablement, professional services or a different mix of products to get them back on track.

Calculate a “usage per week” statistic that correlates to a positive outcome for the customer. Define your Health Score rubric with your Customer Success Team to reflect value received and likelihood to renew.

Quarterly Customer QBR

In the QBR, review value delivered against the goals you set in the previous quarter and set new goals for next quarter.

Reserve time to talk about new priorities and recommend additional SKUs or services to help them achieve those priorities.

Usage data; account health status; whitespace / add’l value; customer strategic initiatives

Biannually Executive Business Review Earn time with the customer’s senior leadership by showing how your partnership is making their strategic initiatives possible. Get a pre-show huddle with your champion so you understand their latest priorities before you make recommendations. Make your champion look smart and everyone wins.

Customer strategic initiatives; progress towards partnership goals enabled by your partnership

RETENTION & EXPANSION WHO CRO | FLMs | Reps

I’m not only in Clari during QBRs and forecasting calls; it’s the first tab I open to see how we are trending for net new, renewals, and out quarter pipeline.

Russ Keefe CFO at Corelight

8

ACCOUNT HEALTH INSPECTION

FREQUENCY REVENUE MOMENT DESCRIPTION KEY METRICS

Biweekly (alternate weeks)

Current Quarter Renewals What accounts are at risk of churn? For accounts with partial churn (for example from seat reduction beyond your control), can you make up the difference with new products?

Net dollar retention best/ worst/ most likely; Churn budget vs. forecast to date; MAP status & deal score

Current Quarter Expansion Although upsell / cross sell tied to a renewal have a hard date, it’s easy for off-cycle deals to slip. Apply the same rigor that you’d apply for new logo deals.

New revenue best/ worst/ most likely; Off cycle vs. on cycle deal value; MAP status & deal score

Next Quarter Renewals A full quarter is barely enough time to turn around an at-risk account, so you need to know your early warning signals. Time in stage; MAP status & deal score

Next Quarter Expansion What accounts are green AND have upside? Look for upsell of the current SKUs with different teams and uses cases, and look at cross sell of new products Seats vs. total headcount; Seat count of each SKU

Monthly Customer QBR / EBR Prep Review the QBRs coming up for your book of business a month in advance. Usage data; account health status; whitespace / Add’l value; Customer strategic initiatives

Quarterly

Book of Business Account Strategies

Present a review of your book of business at the start of the year and craft account plans for your top 10-20% accounts, check in at quarterly and make adjustments as necessary

White space analysis

Health trends Did any Green accounts churn last quarter? Your health indicators may be behind the times. Look to see if you need to change your KPIs Account health; churn actuals

WHO Manager | AMs

Customer success is central to generating recurring revenue. To drive smooth renewals, we needed the visibility, predictability, and alignment that Clari provides.Jeannine Crispino

VP, Customer Success at 6sense

RETENTION & EXPANSION9

These critical revenue moments can either be incorporated into a Rep/Manager 1:1 or given their own team meeting. Either way, the minutes will fly by, so practice good async status updates in your Revenue Platform and spend this valuable time together on strategy to move deals forward instead of an interrogation or reporting the news.

CHURN MITIGATION SOE In tougher macro economic conditions, customers may churn entirely, but more likely they’ll be looking for places to reduce spend either through reduced seat count or canceling the add-ons they don’t use.

Give Churn SOE its own meeting so senior leadership can spot trends earlier and you have time time for product swaps and other ways to maintain spend.

Frequency Revenue Moment Description Key Metrics

Biweekly Risk Meeting Meeting with Account Manager, Front Line Manager and leadership from Customer Success team to identify and triage any accounts at risk of churn. Account health score; renewal date; account value; product usage data

Monthly Win / Loss Analysis Celebrate the wins together, especially if the AM used a new approach to close the deal. Look critically at lost deals. Don’t accept “gone dark” as a valid reason. Dig deeper: business value or access to power are likely culprits.

Closed-Lost Reason; CI analytics

End of Quarter Churn SOE As you get closer to EoQ, focus on the renewals that you’re relying on to hit your NDR. Make sure you have an SOE for every renewal, just the same as you do for new logo.

SOE: Deal value prop; next step; executive engagement; mutual action plan status; open risks; internal asks

WHO Manager | AMs

Clari has allowed me to have a clearer view of my sales performance. I know how well I am performing and exactly where I need to focus on to meet my targets.Alex Marantelos

Manager, Customer Success at Confluent

RETENTION & EXPANSION10

● New logo forecast ● Churn / expansion forecast ● CRO call & board meeting ● Funnel analytics ● Quarterly retrospective & model update

REVENUE MOMENTS FORECAST & ANALYTICS

NEW LOGO FORECAST Senior leadership has the scope to look down at individual deals and up at the broader landscape. Depending on the size of your org, there could be multiple layers of management and roll ups. Leadership should meet on Mondays to game-plan out the week and on Fridays to update your forecasts.

FREQUENCY REVENUE MOMENT DESCRIPTION KEY METRICS

Weekly

Current Quarter

Roll up each FLM’s forecast by Commit / Most Likely / Best case / Worst Case. Beware of making decisions on stale data: Make sure everyone is keeping their deals up to date and commit to updating on the same day of the week. If an FLM is overriding their team’s forecast, explain why and take notes so you all remember the thinking in later meetings.

Best case; Worst case; Most likely (Call)

Major deals Leading indicators are infinitely more valuable than lagging indicators. Always look for risk in major deals even at early stages, checking for relationships, insights and resources that be brought in the moment any risk is spotted.

SOE; Stage progression; MAP Status; Executive Engagement

Bi-Weekly (rotate each week)

Next Quarter If you rely on in-quarter closes for a large percentage of your revenue, keep close tabs on the early stage deals to give advance notice if your in-quarter funnel is changing.

Best case; Worst case; Most likely; Pipeline coverage (mid-funnel) In Quarter deal value vs. last Quarter / last Year; Current Quarter deals at risk of slip (that may get pushed into Next Quarter);

2 Quarters Out Unless you have a very fast sale cycle, you need to be forecasting 2+ quarters out to give the team enough time to change direction if there’s a problem. Best case; Worst case; Most likely; Pipeline coverage (early and MQL incoming)

WHO CRO | Leaders

CEOs & CFOs want to work with CROs who lead with process, methodology, and data. Be that CRO who can layer intuition with a platform like Clari to deliver forecast projections with accuracy and confidence.Mark Parrinello

CRO at SentinelOne

FORECAST & ANALYTICS12

CHURN / EXPANSION FORECAST In a downturn, your existing customers are your lifeline. Treat them with respect and be relentless in looking for expansion opportunities that truly add value for your customer. They already trust you, so decision making is faster.

FREQUENCY REVENUE MOMENT DESCRIPTION KEY METRICS

Weekly Current Quarter Renewals

Roll up from each team. You should have a churn “budget” to draw down against. Special focus on accounts within 6 months of renewal and for Red and Yellow accounts where renewals are at risk.

Account health, renewal dollar value (best case, worst case, most likely)

Current Quarter Expansion

Roll up from each team. Special focus on accounts that landed small, on larger companies with a relatively smaller spend, or multi-division accounts where you can replicate success.

Account health, renewal dollar value (best case, worst case, most likely)

Bi-Weekly (rotate each week

Next Quarter Renewals If you rely on in-quarter closes for a large percentage of your revenue, keep close tabs on the early stage deals to give advance notice if your in-quarter funnel is changing.

Account health, renewal dollar value (best case, worst case, most likely); Mid-funnel stage coverage

2 Quarters Out Renewals How long does it take your team to move to move an account from Red to Green? That’s the BARE minimum for how far ahead to look long ahead of renewals you

Account health, renewal dollar value (best case, worst case, most likely)

At Risk Accounts Quantity which major deals are at risk and devise a save strategy. Look for commonalities across red accounts, or any major changes in selling environment that will impact buyers.

Account health, renewal dollar value (best case, worst case, most likely)

WHO CRO | Leaders

Clari gives us visibility and rigor across our net new, cross-sell, upsell, and renewal business, making our entire revenue process seamless and predictable.

Jon Jung VP of Sales Ops and

Strategy at Zscaler

FORECAST & ANALYTICS13

EXEC STAFF & BOARD

FREQUENCY REVENUE MOMENT DESCRIPTION KEY METRICS

Weekly Executive Staff Forecast Roll up the forecasts from your leaders and pressure test until you’re confident, then share your Best / Worst/ Most Likely with your company’s executive staff every week. Be as accurate as possible and don’t hide bad news.

CURRENT QUARTER (by segment or region) New Logo; Net Dollar Retention Best / Worst/ Most Likely

NEXT QUARTER (by segment or region) Pipeline coverage; New Logo; Net Dollar Retention Best / Worst/ Most Likely

TWO QUARTERS OUT (by segment or region) Pipeline coverage; Long range forecast

Monthly Board Flash There should be no surprises at the actual board meeting. Set expectations with a short note each month reporting performance against plan. Spend more time on risks than accomplishments.

Quarterly Board Meeting

Yes, you need to share results, but the why is more important. Break down KPIs by segment or region to illustrate differences in performance or highlight upcoming risk. After reporting actuals, show pipeline and next quarter forecast. If you’re seeing changes in the assumptions powering your financial model, share the trends and what you’re changing in response.

WHO CRO | eStaff | Board

Public companies need business-wide visibility. That’s why we partner with Clari. Now our revenue teams have an accurate pulse on our business, so we can deliver the predictable results our board and shareholders expect

Brian Distelburger Co-Founder at Yext

FORECAST & ANALYTICS14

AI is getting better, but we still need an accountable human to make a final call and provide insights to what the numbers mean for business. The CRO Call needs to balance predictive analytics against external macro and value judgements on rolled up forecasts to come up with a single number that the rest of the organization can rely on for everything from building up inventory to investing in marketing to making headcount decisions.

FUNNEL ANALYTICS

FREQUENCY REVENUE MOMENT DESCRIPTION KEY METRICS

Monthly Trend Check In dynamic conditions, the ground shifts fast. Use your revenue platform to compare QoQ for key metrics. If close rate, top of funnel or time in stage is changing rapidly the faster you understand the causes, the faster you can adapt.

Current vs. last quarter comparison for Close rate; S0-S1 advancement rate; S0 count & dollar value

Quarterly

Closed-Lost Analysis

Segment your data by team. In early stage, if only some teams have problems, then look at enablement. If everyone is seeing a decline, then Marketing may need to adjust their ICP or MQL criteria. Late stage lost is more expensive. Use CI analysis to dig deeper than the dropdown of closed-lost reasons and spot trends that you can address: lax mid-stage process, lack of mid-late funnel collateral, poor business case or CFO engagement.

Closed lost at stage; Closed-lost reason; Conversation smart summaries; MAP status at close

Pipeline council

Meet with Demand Gen and Enablement teams and construct a strategy to address weaknesses. Demand can deliver better leads, Revenue teams can run targeted plays, Product can fix friction points, Competitive can improve positioning, Enablement can teach better objection handling. Measure the impact on your KPIs, reporting monthly in Pipeline Council and adjusting as necessary.

Current vs. last quarter comparison for each KPI you identified, but any leading indicators for those KPIs.

WHO CRO | Board

Simply put, we have greater visibility and richer information in real time. With Clari, we’re able to significantly de-risk our forecast, which creates more predictable revenue, resulting in more value for our shareholders.

Ed Meyercord President & CEO at Extreme Networks

FORECAST & ANALYTICS15

Understanding stage conversion is one of the biggest unlocks in running revenue and stopping revenue leak. It’s one of the few moments where marketing, enablement, revenue excellence, product and sales leadership all converge. Are deals choking from because of product-market fit or pricing? Do specific reps have a skills deficit? Where is your leak?

QUARTERLY RETRO

FREQUENCY REVENUE MOMENT DESCRIPTION KEY METRICS

Quarterly

Root Cause Analysis Dig into opportunity details to understand why assumption(s) are off. Can underperformers be fixed or can you boost any of the other levers enough to compensate? How long will it take to see the impact of any change? What does that mean for your “new normal”?

Usage data ; Account Status

Assumption vs. Actual Measure win rate and ASP (average selling price) vs. actuals. Look at a trailing 5 quarters to understand rate of change. What’s worst case and when does it hit?

Change over time of Win Rate & ASP by segment

Biannually

Reprioritize KPIs Pure QoQ growth is good in a 0% interest economy, but in tighter macro, you need to focus more on net dollar retention of customer base, close rate (assuming reduced top of funnel) and COGSs. Make sure the KPIs you report on match the new normal

Customer strategic initiatives; Progress towards partnership goals

Reset Goals Given the new normal, is there a path to plan? Reset SDR comp and Marketing goals to drive the new behavior you identified in the RCA. Reset rep attainment / comp plans based on what’s attainable or risk a demoralized team who totally flame out and can’t even deliver what’s possible.

Usage data; Account Status; Whitespace / Add’l value; Customer strategic initiatives

WHO CRO | RevOps

We can now roll-up our number and on a weekly cadence, I can deliver a number and know where it's changed, and if I want to know why it changed I have that as well. It's super simple.Ari Klionsky

SVP, Sales Operations at Five9

FORECAST & ANALYTICS16

In the Quarterly Retro, the CRO, Business Ops team and Revenue Ops team use actuals to optimize the financial model and adjust the revenue strategy accordingly. In highly dynamic environments, assumptions can change fast, so you need to keep your hand on the pulse.

● Cadence rollout recommendations ● Download Clari’s cadence checklists ● Running revenue with Clari

REVENUE MOMENTS WHAT NEXT?

ROLL OUT STRATEGY Revenue precision is a journey. Start with the most impactful moments (bolded below), then over one or two quarters add more structure as your teams can handle it.

WHAT NEXT WHO CRO | FLMs | Reps18

MONTH WEEK 1:1S & SQUAD MEETINGS ROLLUP MEETINGS (NEW LOGO & CUSTOMER BUSINESS ) GLOBALS

1

1 CQ New Logo / Churn / Expansion Forecast CQ Roll-up | QBRs Revenue Retrospective (all hands)

2 NQ New Logo / Churn / Expansion Forecast CQ Roll-up CRO Staff | Global AE Monthly All Hands

3 CQ New Logo / Churn / Expansion Forecast CQ Roll-up | Churn Risk Meeting Board meeting (CRO only) | Pipeline council

4 NQ New Logo / Churn / Expansion Forecast CQ Roll-up End of Month SOE

2

5 CQ New Logo / Churn / Expansion Forecast CQ Roll-up | Churn Risk Meeting

6 NQ New Logo / Churn / Expansion Forecast CQ Roll-up Global Monthly Enablement

7 CQ New Logo / Churn / Expansion Forecast CQ Roll-up | Churn Risk Meeting Pipeline Council

8 NQ New Logo / Churn / Expansion Forecast CQ Roll-up End of Month SOE

3

9 CQ + NQ New Logo / Churn / Expansion Forecast CQ + NQ Roll-up

10 CQ + NQ New Logo / Churn / Expansion Forecast CQ + NQ Roll-up Pipeline Council

11 CQ + NQ New Logo / Churn / Expansion Forecast CQ + NQ Roll-up SOE (MWF)

12 CQ + NQ New Logo / Churn / Expansion Forecast CQ + NQ Roll-up SOE (Daily)

CQ: Current Quarter NQ: Next Quarter

DOWNLOAD: Cadence Builder Checklist

https://view.highspot.com/viewer/647eca51dfeea0076efb9ab5

A cadence has to be grounded in real life. That means dates and times with real people.

Use this checklist and template to define your cadence and then schedule out the required meetings.

DOWNLOAD: Cadence Builder Checklist

The forecast is a foundational revenue moment for every member of the revenue team.

Use this checklist to galvanize your forecast, helping reps, managers and senior leadership drive more revenue precision.

DOWNLOAD: Forecast Checklist

A Rep and their Manager are an unstoppable force to solve problems and win deals.

Use this checklist to capture the data needed for the forecast while also reserving time for developing your relationship

DOWNLOAD: Pipeline Inspection Checklist

DOWNLOADS19

GO DEEPER WITH CLARI’S CADENCE CHECKLISTS

https://view.highspot.com/viewer/647eca51dfeea0076efb9ab5 https://view.highspot.com/viewer/647ecb2bd49f4f12ddcf1e24 https://view.highspot.com/viewer/647ecab7f57ba40a58dcf3f8

LEADERS RUN REVENUE WITH CLARI

You’ve taken the first step towards revenue precision, but to really run revenue – especially in fast changing conditions – you need a Revenue Platform.

Take a meeting with us.

We’ll help triage your current process and show how your team can recapture the 15% of revenue that you’re currently losing to revenue leak.