The Method
Every number the Institute reports, and the formula behind it. Nothing here is proprietary arithmetic — the value is in the questions and the interpretation, not in hiding the maths.
Every question produces a result. There are no orphan questions and no questions that exist only to fill a page — each one maps to a metric, a finding, or a named confidence gap.
Required baseline. Produces a complete initial Revenue Dam Summary™ and Blueprint.
The 50 questions every organization answers: ten Company Profile and five per station.
Adds customer, product, RCP, capacity, economics, and system intelligence.
Source economics, pipeline detail, RFM and product penetration, capacity coverage, revenue concentration, data-quality condition.
Adds verified station KPIs, profit intelligence, targets, alerts, and continuous control.
The customer-product profit grid, Vacancy and Turnover Drag, forecast accuracy, pipeline velocity, AI value scorecard, and the ten handoff controls.
One Blueprint, not three reports. Expanding and Advancing do not replace the Core Blueprint — they raise its precision. An organization that answers only the Core questions still receives a complete, usable Blueprint. It simply carries a confidence of Good rather than Highest.
Weights total 100. Leadership and Sales carry the most because a failure in either restricts every station downstream of it.
"Not Sure" is also a permitted answer — and it is never scored as a zero. It creates a data-verification priority and lowers Blueprint Confidence until evidence exists. Scoring honesty as failure produces flattering assessments and useless Blueprints.
Performance and confidence are two different measurements. A well-run organization with poor record-keeping scores high on one and low on the other, and it matters that the report says so.
A Revenue Dam is never a weak department. It is the space between two departments where something required fails to arrive — which is why every Dam names two stations and one thing that must move.
√((100 − Station A Score) × (100 − Station B Score)) × handoff factor
Capped at 100. The handoff factor reflects verified friction, not opinion.
Each formula carries one approved definition, one source, one owner and one cadence before it is used in production. The guardrail is the part most measurement systems leave out.
SUM(question score × weight) ÷ SUM(max score × weight) × 100
GuardrailNot Sure is never treated as zero. Confidence is reported separately.
35% completeness + 30% verification + 20% recency + 15% cross-source consistency
GuardrailConfidence is not company performance. A well-run company with poor records scores high on one and low on the other.
30% unknown + 25% manual + 25% disconnected + 20% unowned
GuardrailHigher is worse. This is the only score on which that is true.
√((100 − Station A Score) × (100 − Station B Score)) × handoff factor
GuardrailCapped at 100. The handoff factor reflects verified friction, not opinion.
Conversion factor × velocity factor × data confidence × handoff quality × 100
GuardrailAll four factors normalized 0–1.
(Ending customers − new customers) ÷ beginning customers × 100
GuardrailUse consistent cohort dates.
Average order value × purchases per year × customer life × gross margin %
GuardrailPrefer cohort values over blended averages.
(Marketing cost + acquisition sales cost) ÷ new customers
GuardrailDefine which costs are included once, then never change it mid-measurement.
Qualified opportunities × win rate × average deal value ÷ sales-cycle days
GuardrailQualified opportunities only. Unqualified pipeline flatters this badly.
Filled revenue-critical roles ÷ required roles × 100
GuardrailMay later use productive FTE rather than filled role.
Vacant days × verified daily revenue contribution
GuardrailDirectional until validated against actual results.
Sales-cycle days + delivery days + invoice delay days + collection days
GuardrailReport median and average. They differ more than people expect.
Revenue gained or protected + expense reduced − implementation cost
GuardrailNo double counting across strategies or Dams. This is the number that has to survive scrutiny.
Most organizations describe their noise in adjectives. The Institute scores it, because a number can be reduced and an adjective cannot. This is the one Institute measure where a higher score is worse.
Status is calculated from thresholds, never assigned by opinion. Every KPI must define its target direction, its green, yellow and red thresholds, a time allowance, a data-freshness rule, and the corrective action that follows.
At or above target, or improving at the pace required to reach target. Data is current and the owner is active.
Required responseSustain, standardize or expand.
Insufficient movement for a defined number of periods, improving too slowly, data arriving late, or ownership and action incomplete.
Required responseInvestigate the cause. Assign a corrective action and a due date.
Below the red threshold, worsening over consecutive periods, a missed critical handoff or milestone, or material revenue impact.
Required responseEscalate to leadership. Intervene immediately.
Required data unavailable, or confidence below the minimum. This is a data condition, not a performance verdict.
Required responseCreate a data acquisition or verification action.
Completion is not success. This is why every station carries two KPIs. The Operational KPI asks whether the work was done. The Revenue KPI asks whether the work mattered. An organization measuring only the first can be busy, on schedule, fully compliant — and going nowhere.
Two to four pages. The Revenue Movement Score, eight station scores and grades, the top three Revenue Dams™ with directional financial impact, the Organizational Noise™ condition, and the most important missing evidence.
Identifies direction.
Prioritized findings converted into sequenced strategies and tactics, with named owners, Dual KPIs, a 30/90/180-day plan, and the financial case for each strategy.
Determines what to do about it.
The ongoing operating record — baseline, target, current, trend, owner, status and financial result — with immutable measurement history so movement can be proved rather than asserted.
Keeps it moving.
Free for the Founding 100™ — normally $495. Complete the assessment and receive a free digital copy of Revenue in Motion™.