How to plan for REVENUE
Remember, 100% of your revenue will come from CUSTOMERS. Instead of trying to pull a ‘revenue’ number out of thin air, model from it’s components.
Revenue = Customers * LTV * Time To LTV
What is LTV? It is the AVERAGE LIFETIME VALUE of your customers. And I mean LIFETIME.
Ask yourself: Given that somebody BECOMES A CUSTOMER, how much revenue will I make on average from them? (regardless of how much time it takes).
How to estimate LTV
Think about it in the context of your New Customer Volume
Notice the X-axis of Customer Volume is the same as LTV. You can think of this as - for customers created on a given day, what is the expected LTV going to be?
In the above example - The reasoning could be something like the following:
“for the first 6 months, be providing a heavily discounted white-glove experience. Some time over the next 6 months we will roll out a pricing change that will raise the average LTV from 10000 to 60000. Over the next year we will add feature enhancements as expansion revenue which will increase the overall expected LTV to a steady 75000.”
Depending on where you are in your company’s lifecycle, this could be a daunting prospect. But it is
absolutely essential that you draw this line in the sand, otherwise it will be almost impossible to determine the health of your customer success cycle later on.
Keep in mind - You are estimating the total LTV. Not just the first 12 months
If you are struggling with this estimation, it may be a good idea to try to estimate Time to LTV first.
How to estimate Time to LTV (or LTV Payoff)
TAKE TIME TO UNDERSTAND THIS. IF YOU COMPLETE THIS STEP, YOU ARE IN RARE COMPANY IN THE B2B WORLD.
Sure, maybe you’re going to get $75000 on avg from of all of your customers, but how long will it take to do that?
Step 1: Think to yourself - ‘What’s the longest possible amount of time I could possibly keep a customer?’
THIS number (of days) will be the length of your X-Axis, and it will correspond to the maximum value (100%) of your Y-axis. In the example above, that number was 1800 days. Here are a few ways of thinking about that number.
- 1800 days after becoming a customer, the customer lifecycle is 100% complete.
- 100% of expected revenue will be collected within 1800 days from each customer.
- Any revenue collected 1800+ days after becoming a customer will be considered ‘bonus’.
Step 2: Break down the funnel in inflection points
Here is an example of the rest of the thought process that went into the above example
“For each lead that does eventually become a customer…”
- “What % of total revenue will be earned on day 0?”
- “about 5%” - mark 5% on the Y-axis at 0
- “How long will it take to get 70% of the total revenue?”
- “about a year” - mark 70% on the Y-axis at 360
- ”How long will it take to get 90%?”
- “about 2 years” - mark 90% on the Y-axis at 720
- ”99%?”
- “about 3 years” - mark 99% on the Y-axis at 1080
From these points, the days between can be interpolated accordingly, and additional inflection points can be added to your hearts desire.
Choose your own numbers - but don’t forget to start at 0 days and to end at the max length of your customer lifetime.
note: multiple lines may be necessary, each line representing a different period of time
This is enough for an outstanding plan. But to level-up even further you can: