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One of the biggest roadblocks preventing GTM (Go-To-Market) teams from making effective decisions isn’t a lack of strategy or effort—it’s the overwhelming time spent preparing reports. Hours upon hours are dedicated to gathering, cleaning, and formatting data, leaving little room for what actually matters: analyzing the insights and taking action.
This issue isn’t an occasional hiccup; it’s a systemic problem in most GTM organizations. Teams get bogged down by outdated processes, distrust in data, a lack of standardized reporting frameworks, and the endless pursuit of ‘perfect’ data.
Crissy Saunders, CEO at CS2, has expertly highlighted the most common pitfalls GTM teams face in their reporting processes.
This blog expands on her insights by adding detailed use cases, real-world examples, and solutions that Revlitix offers to streamline GTM reporting.
1. A Poor Data Foundation Leads to Endless Firefighting
The Problem:
If your data foundation isn’t set up correctly from the start, you’ll always be putting out fires. Without a solid structure, you’ll constantly be:
- Struggling with inconsistent data across platforms.
- Debating with colleagues over data quality.
- Stuck in Excel hell, trying to make sense of scattered information.
- Missing out on critical insights due to unreliable reporting.
- Facing bottlenecks in pipeline forecasting and revenue projections.
- Dealing with a lack of standardization in metrics and KPIs across departments.
A poor data foundation doesn't just create inefficiencies—it creates a cycle of reactionary decision-making where teams are always fixing problems instead of leveraging insights for proactive growth.
Use Case: A SaaS Startup Struggles with Inconsistent Data
A mid-sized SaaS company, relied on Google Sheets and manual data entry to track their marketing and sales performance. Their teams often found discrepancies between data from HubSpot, Salesforce, and Google Analytics. Without a proper data foundation:
- Marketing and sales were never on the same page regarding lead attribution and funnel performance.
- Leadership struggled with inaccurate forecasting because revenue data varied between reports.
- Decisions were often based on assumptions rather than data-backed insights.
The result? Missed opportunities, inefficient decision-making, and wasted resources spent manually reconciling numbers instead of optimizing strategies.
How Revlitix Fixes It:
- All-in-One Dashboard
Revlitix eliminates data silos by aggregating cross-platform insights into a unified dashboard.
Instead of manually stitching together data from multiple sources, teams get a real-time, standardized view of marketing, sales, and revenue metrics in one place.
- Full Funnel Forecast
By tracking every touchpoint in the funnel, Revlitix provides predictive insights into revenue growth. Teams can align their forecasts with historical performance and market trends, reducing uncertainty and improving planning accuracy.
2. The Reporting Trust Issue: Data is a Black Box
The Problem:
Your GTM team might have access to reports, but if they don’t trust the data, they’ll constantly question it or recreate their own versions. This results in:
- Repeatedly pulling the same reports in different ways.
- Wasting time validating numbers instead of acting on insights.
- Friction between teams due to differing data interpretations.
- Executives making strategic decisions based on incomplete or inaccurate reports.
- Lack of confidence in predictive analytics due to historical inaccuracies.
Data trust issues create a vicious cycle where teams feel the need to double-check every number instead of leveraging insights for faster, smarter decision-making.
Use Case: A B2B Enterprise Faces Data Distrust
A large B2B enterprise implemented a new BI tool but failed to make the underlying data accessible to their teams. As a result:
- Sales and marketing teams had different definitions of SQLs, MQLs, and conversion rates.
- Each department ran their own reports, leading to conflicting numbers in leadership meetings.
- Leadership lacked confidence in revenue forecasts, making planning difficult.
Instead of using data for alignment, the company's teams spent time arguing over whose numbers were correct. This slowed down decision-making and prevented strategic alignment.
How Revlitix Fixes It:
- Root Cause Analysis
When data discrepancies arise, Revlitix automatically identifies the root cause—whether it’s a misconfigured campaign, an unexpected drop in engagement, or an issue in CRM data.
This ensures that teams don’t waste time debating numbers but instead fix the underlying issues.
- Sales Analytics
Sales teams no longer need to second-guess their reports. Revlitix tracks and validates sales performance metrics across the funnel, giving leadership full visibility into conversion rates, deal health, and pipeline progress.
3. The ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Reporting Trap
The Problem:
Without a structured reporting framework, teams end up with:
- A clutter of dashboards that no one knows how to use.
- Constantly changing reports, leading to confusion.
- Leaders struggling to align data with key business objectives.
- Reports that lack business context and are difficult to interpret.
- GTM teams resorting to ad-hoc reporting instead of using structured insights.
Use Case: A HealthTech Company Overwhelmed by Custom Reports
A HealthTech company, allowed each department to create its own reporting dashboard. Over time:
- They ended up with over 100 dashboards—many of them redundant.
- Decision-makers spent more time trying to determine which reports to trust than actually using the data.
- Employees struggled to navigate and extract meaningful insights from the overwhelming volume of reports.
How Revlitix Fixes It:
- Marketing Influence
Revlitix helps GTM teams move beyond generic reports by offering dynamic insights into how marketing efforts influence pipeline growth.
This prevents marketing teams from relying on multiple redundant dashboards and ensures alignment between sales and marketing.
- Buyer Patterns
Instead of relying on one-size-fits-all reports, Revlitix detects buyer behaviors and preferences unique to different customer segments.
Teams can refine their messaging, optimize engagement strategies, and tailor their reporting to focus on what truly matters for revenue growth.
4. The ‘Prove Yourself’ Reporting Culture
The Problem:
Too often, GTM teams use reporting not as a tool for optimization but as a way to justify their performance. This leads to:
- Data manipulation to ‘look good’ instead of uncovering real opportunities.
- Reports designed to impress rather than drive strategic action.
- A culture where bad news is hidden instead of addressed head-on.
- Marketing and sales teams reporting numbers differently to serve their own narratives.
Use Case: A FinTech Startup Reports Only Positive Metrics
A FinTech startup, built reports solely to highlight positive trends in marketing performance. Negative insights were ignored, leading to:
- An inability to diagnose underperforming campaigns.
- Leadership having no real understanding of why growth was slowing.
- Resources being allocated to strategies that weren’t actually working.
How Revlitix Fixes It:
- Sales Hot Leads
Instead of using reports just to validate past successes, Revlitix enables teams to identify the hottest leads in real-time.
This ensures sales teams focus on opportunities with the highest conversion potential rather than just proving historical performance.
- Full Funnel Forecast
Revlitix goes beyond surface-level metrics and provides actionable insights into the entire sales funnel, from lead engagement to closed-won deals.
This shifts the focus from ‘looking good on reports’ to making real-time, data-driven decisions that improve actual performance.
5. The ‘Perfect Data’ Illusion
The Problem:
Many GTM teams waste precious time chasing flawless data accuracy. The reality is:
- No dataset is ever 100% perfect.
- Waiting for perfect data delays critical decisions.
- Valuable insights are ignored in pursuit of absolute precision.
- Teams struggle to balance statistical accuracy with real-world application.
Use Case: A Cybersecurity Company Delays Decision-Making
A cybersecurity company, refused to act on data insights unless the numbers were 100% accurate. As a result:
- Their GTM team spent months validating reports rather than iterating on marketing strategies.
- Their pipeline stagnated while competitors optimized their campaigns in real time.
- Opportunities were lost due to slow decision-making.
How Revlitix Fixes It:
- Root Cause Analysis
Revlitix removes the need for teams to chase perfection by proactively identifying anomalies and trends.
Instead of waiting for flawless data, teams can take action based on AI-driven insights that highlight real performance drivers.
- Sales Analytics
Revlitix tracks sales trends over time, ensuring teams don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis. It enables decision-making with “good enough” data that still provides high-confidence insights into revenue growth and sales efficiency.
Less Time Preparing, More Time Acting
By addressing these five key challenges, Revlitix helps GTM teams shift from a reactive approach to a proactive, insight-driven strategy.
A Special Thanks to Crissy Saunders
This blog was inspired by an insightful post from Crissy Saunders, CEO at CS2. Crissy has been at the forefront of GTM operations and has continually provided invaluable thought leadership in the RevOps and SaaS community.
