GTMcraft Plays · The Build The Number Play

Most quarterly targets are a top-down wish reverse-engineered to fit; build it rep by rep instead.

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The 90-second read

Your quarterly number is fiction until you build it from the drivers underneath. Most teams pick a top-down target, then reverse-engineer a plan to fit it. The capacity model tells you if the number is even possible with the people you have. The comp plan decides whether those people run at the right behavior. Those are the two dials. Almost everything else is noise.

• Build the number bottoms-up, rep by rep, or you are forecasting fiction.
• Gross headcount times quota overstates real capacity by 30 to 55%.
• Roughly 90% of comp plans pay for raw activity, not the outcome you need.
• Ramp, real productivity, and attrition are the three inputs most plans skip.
• If your comp plan needs an FAQ, it is a tax code, not a plan.

Read time: about 5 minutes. First step runnable Monday morning.

The #1 move this week

Divide next quarter's target by real per-rep productivity, and see how many ramped reps it needs.

If the rep count that implies is more than you have, the number is fiction. The gap is your first conversation with your board or your CRO, not a stretch goal you push onto the team. Most founders never run this one division, so they commit to a number the math never supported.

Start here: pull closed-won per fully-ramped rep from your last two quarters. Divide the target by that figure. You need a CRM export of closed-won by rep, plus each rep's start date.

Ignore this week: do not redesign the whole comp plan yet. Prove the number is possible first, then re-point one behavior.