Is Your Revenue System Working Against You?

Many revenue leaders assume their biggest challenges come from poor execution, misaligned goals, or teams that cannot seem to get on the same page. Those issues are real, but they are not the root cause.

The deeper truth is this: the revenue engine inside many mid market companies was never intentionally designed. It was inherited.

You are leading inside a system someone else built, shaped by decisions made years ago under very different conditions. Those decisions still govern how your teams communicate, how data flows, how handoffs work, and how fast your company can respond to customers. The friction you feel is not random. It is the outcome of lineage.

Once you view your revenue engine as an inherited system instead of a designed one, everything changes. You stop asking why people do not collaborate better and start asking why the operating model rewards them for working alone. You stop trying to fix misalignment with another meeting or dashboard and start questioning why the workflow requires so much manual coordination in the first place.

This shift from blaming execution to examining design is where real alignment begins.

Here is how to recognize an inherited system and what to do about it:

• How inherited systems form

• The hidden cost of operating inside a system you did not design

• Three early signals your system is creating drag

• What intentional redesign looks like in practice

How Inherited Revenue Systems Form

If you trace the origin of your current revenue system, you will not find a moment where someone stepped back and architected how sales, marketing, and operations should work together.

You find a sequence of local decisions:

• A new dashboard added after a forecast dispute.

• A KPI copied from an industry benchmark.

• A process tweak introduced after a bad quarter.

• A tech platform layered in because a vendor promised efficiency.

• A handoff rule created to calm tension between teams.

Each choice felt logical at the time. Together, they created a system that no single person owns, few people fully understand, and everyone quietly works around.

That is the trap most revenue leaders inherit. You are responsible for performance inside a system that was never built for how your company sells today. That gap between yesterday’s design and today’s reality is where misalignment lives.

The Hidden Cost of Operating Inside an Inherited System

Leaders usually see misalignment through lagging results:

Slower sales cycles. Rising acquisition costs. Volatile pipeline. Flattening win rates.

But the real cost begins long before the financials crack.

Inherited systems create invisible drag. They slow decisions, multiply rework, blur ownership, and weaken the link between strategy and execution. None of that appears in your dashboards, but shapes how fast your teams can move.

Here are three early signs that the system you inherited is holding you back.

Three Signals the System Is Holding You Back

1. Decisions slow down as complexity grows

When teams need multiple steps just to agree on the facts, the issue is not the meeting. It is the system.

Slow decisions usually point to:

• Data definitions that do not match across functions

• Metrics that reward teams for different outcomes

• Reporting logic that evolved without a consistent standard

You see it when marketing comes into the QBR celebrating record engagement, sales misses plan, and the room spends the next hour debating which story to believe instead of deciding what to change. When leaders spend more time reconciling views than choosing a direction, the system has already taken control.

2. Data becomes reactive instead of predictive

Reporting in inherited systems is built layer by layer. Every team adds what they need, but no one governs the end to end design.

The result:

• Conflicting dashboards

• Trend lines that are hard to trust

• KPIs that shift meaning depending on who is presenting

Reactive data is not a technology flaw. It is a design flaw.

3. Teams build workarounds to survive the process

This is the most telling signal.

When people build side spreadsheets, redefine qualification for internal meetings, use back channels to confirm handoffs, or insert extra steps into an old process, the system has stopped supporting execution.

Workarounds are not signs of poor discipline. They are signs of poor design.

Your people are not failing. They are compensating for a system that cannot hold the work as it is.

What Intentional Redesign Looks Like

Redesigning a revenue system does not start with a reorg or a new strategy. Those are outputs, not levers.

Redesign starts with clarity.

Clarity about how work actually moves.
Clarity about which outcomes matter most.
Clarity about what the buyer needs at each moment.
Clarity about how decisions should flow from data to action.

When a revenue engine is intentionally designed, you see a different pattern:

• Sales and marketing share ownership of the moments that drive revenue

• Handoffs match real buyer behavior, not internal assumptions

• Teams operate from one definition of qualified

• Dashboards reinforce the same truths for every function

• KPIs reward collective outcomes, not isolated wins

• Workflows reflect the reality of how business is won today

Intentional design strongly increases the odds of alignment, while inherited design in siloed, fragmented environments more often than not perpetuates misalignment

Where Leaders Should Start

You do not need to rebuild everything at once. You need to break the cycle that keeps the inherited system alive.

This work needs an owner, typically a RevOps leader or cross functional revenue leadership group, with sales, marketing, and finance at the same table.

Three places to begin:

1. Redefine shared ownership at one critical moment

Choose a single point where both sales and marketing influence the result. Define who owns what, how success is measured, and how decisions will be made.

One aligned revenue moment is more valuable than ten abstract alignment meetings.

2. Map the real workflow, not the ideal one

Document how a lead, opportunity, or customer actually moves through your system. Not the version in the slide deck. The version your teams live with every day.

This exposes rework, invisible steps, handoff gaps, and misaligned incentives. Truth is the starting point for redesign.

3. Retire legacy KPIs that reward teams for winning alone

Many misaligned systems survive because the metrics keep them alive. If a KPI reinforces siloed wins, it works against the system you want to build.

Shared outcomes create shared behavior. Shared behavior creates aligned performance. Aligned performance creates predictable growth.

The Takeaway

Your revenue system was not built for the business you are running today. It was built for a version of the business that no longer exists.

If this feels uncomfortably familiar, your intuition is right. You are not fighting your people. You are fighting the design.

Real acceleration does not come from more effort or more meetings. It comes from a system that is intentionally designed to carry the plan.

If this resonated, you are not alone. Join a growing community of revenue leaders rethinking how sales and marketing work together to drive sustainable growth.

Until next week,
Jeff
RevEngine™ | Built for Revenue Leaders Driving Alignment and Growth Together