The Five Revenue Levers

Every company goal, no matter how it's stated, connects to revenue through five levers:

1. More Leads — Increase volume entering the funnel
2. Higher Conversion — Win more of what you have
3. Shorter Cycle — Close faster with the same effort
4. Higher Contract Value — Make each deal worth more
5. Retention & Expansion — Keep and grow what you've won

These are the lagging indicators—the business outcomes leadership cares about. When the CEO says "we need to grow revenue," they're really asking you to pull one or more of these levers.

The framework works backwards from there: Which lever? → What KPI measures it? → What activities drive that KPI? → What behaviors execute those activities? → What skills enable those behaviors?

Enablement doesn't "live" in any lever. Enablement improves the behaviors that drive the activities that move the KPIs that pull the levers. The levers are outcomes. Behaviors are what you can actually change.

You Can't Coach to Results

The insight is simple: you can't coach to results. You can only coach to behaviors. Results are outcomes; behaviors are controllable.

The chain works like this:

• Target Results: The KPI you're trying to move (win rate, cycle time, etc.)
• Activities: The rep actions that influence that KPI (discovery calls, stakeholder meetings, etc.)
• Skills & Knowledge: The capabilities required to execute those activities well

When enablement can articulate this chain, the ROI conversation gets easy. "We identified that win rate was driven by discovery quality. Discovery quality requires specific questioning skills. We trained those skills. Discovery scores went up. Win rate followed."

Why Managers Are the Multiplier

Training changes knowledge. Managers change behavior.

A rep can attend a workshop, ace the role-play, and walk out with new skills. But skills decay without reinforcement. Research consistently shows that 87% of new skills are lost within 30 days without follow-up. The follow-up isn't more training—it's coaching in the flow of work.

Frontline managers are the only people who see reps in action daily. They're the only ones who can observe whether the new behavior is happening, reinforce it when it does, and course-correct when it doesn't. Enablement can design the intervention. Managers make it stick.

That's why the Manager Brief exists as a deliverable. It's not a nice-to-have—it's the mechanism that converts training into behavior change. If managers don't know what to look for, what questions to ask in 1:1s, and what success looks like, the intervention dies in the classroom.

Why CFOs Don't Trust Enablement

CFOs consistently rank sales training as one of the least measurable investments. The problem isn't that enablement doesn't work—it's that enablement teams measure the wrong things.

Completion rates prove nothing. Satisfaction scores prove nothing. Adoption metrics prove correlation at best. The only thing that matters is: Did the metric move? And can you prove your intervention caused it?

This prompt builds the framework for that proof. It won't manufacture data you don't have, but it will show you exactly what data you need and how to present it when you have it.

The Timeline Reality

Behavior change research suggests 66 days on average for a new habit to become automatic. Sales cycle adds another layer—if your average deal takes 90 days to close, you won't see win rate impact until 90+ days after behavior change.

This is why the prompt separates leading indicators (behavior change) from lagging indicators (business results). You need to show progress before the final number moves, or you'll lose executive patience. Lead with "discovery scores improved 40% in 30 days" while you wait for "win rate improved 7 points in 90 days."