On June 16, the Pavilion Boston Chapter gathered for dinner at Maggiano’s.
I was glad to co-host the evening with fellow Boston chapter member, Jeff Kirchick. As with many Pavilion dinners, the format was simple. People came in, made introductions, answered an ice breaker question, settled into the room, and then got into a topic worth spending time on.
The question we put on the table was direct:
“If we eliminated MQLs, cold call volume, and NPS from our reporting tomorrow, what Signal to Revenue metrics should we comfortably stake our performance bonuses on?”
It was an ambitious place to start!
Most GTM leaders know the problem. The pressure on revenue teams has gone up. Budgets are tighter. Buying committees are harder to read. Sales cycles are less forgiving. Teams are being asked to do more, more quickly and with tighter resources.
At the same time, many of the familiar measures still tell an incomplete story.
MQLs can tell us that someone crossed a threshold. Cold call volume can tell us effort was applied. NPS can tell us something about sentiment. Each has a place, but none gives a GTM leader full confidence that future revenue is becoming more likely.
So, the conversation quickly widened into a more practical question:
“What signals do GTM leaders really use to judge pipeline quality, buyer intent, deal health, and future revenue?”
Fit came first
The group started with what’s heard in the field.
Recorded calls, seller observations, and buyer language all carry signals. They help leaders understand whether pipeline is forming around a serious business problem or around softer interest.
Several people talked about scoring opportunities for fit, use case alignment, and pain point correlation. The point was straightforward. A deal should be judged against the buyer’s situation, the problem being solved, and the impact of that problem.
AI came up here as a possible way to make judgment more consistent. Every deal could be evaluated for whether the buyer has a clear use case, a credible reason to act, and a situation that maps to a real buying motion.
That kind of review can help a leadership team see whether pipeline is growing in a healthy way.
Creation and health need to be read together
The discussion then moved to opportunity creation and revenue mechanics.
A few measurable signals came up:
- Rate of opportunity creation
- Win rate as a function of time
- Average deal size
- Distribution of closed deals
One framing seemed to land well: Deal Creation times Deal Health.
More opportunities do not help much when the opportunities are weak. Strong deal quality does not help enough when too few real opportunities are being created. The value is when both come together.
That’s a better way to talk about pipeline than simply asking whether the top of the funnel is full. GTM leaders need to know if enough good opportunities are being created, it they’re progressing, and whether the business has reason to trust the forecast.
Deal health needs warning lights
One sales leader shared three questions he uses when reviewing opportunities:
- What is the buyer’s situation?
- What problem are they trying to solve?
- What is the impact of that problem?
Those questions might sound basic, but they sure do cut through a lot of noise.
The group also discussed warning signals. Age in stage was one. If your CRM deal history shows what normal movement looks like, then alerts can be created when individual Opportunities show signs of stalling.
A Next Best Action tool was mentioned as another way to help sellers improve deal quality. The aim is not to replace judgment. Rather, the aim is to support better judgment before a deal drifts.
There was also discussion around tenure in role as a possible signal. The group treated it as a signal that needs context rather than a universal rule.
- In some situations, a long-tenured leader may be less likely to sponsor a major transformation.
- In other situations, that assumption may be wrong.
Human proximity still carries weight
A strong theme from the evening was the value of human signals. Events, communities, and referrals all came up.
Hey! This is a Pavilion dinner, after all: an example of community in action!
One member discussed an event lead capture tool where badge scans can be enriched with notes in real-time and pushed into CRM systems (POPL). The technology was mentioned as useful because it preserves human context captured in the moment that’s often lost after an event .
Smaller peer communities were also discussed. Groups of fewer than 100 people can create more credibility, especially when people have met in person and know each other’s context.
Referrals were seen as a high value signal. One member described asking people in their network to forward an email to the right person. That approach was working for him.
This part of the conversation felt very Pavilion. A dinner like this creates room for small details that would rarely surface in a large webinar or public thread. People feel safe sharing what they’ve tried, where it worked, where it failed, and what they would watch next time.
Intent shows up in the tone of the message
The dinner also moved into trust, content, and buyer intent.
A member referenced book, The Trusted Advisor and the trust equation from the book:
Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-Orientation.
- Credibility (Words): Proven expertise and accurate insights. ("I know my subject.")
- Reliability (Actions): Consistent, dependable execution. ("I keep my promises.")
- Intimacy (Emotions): Psychological safety for candid sharing. ("You are safe with me.")
- Self-Orientation (Motives): Prioritizing their success over your ego. ("I am focused on you.")
That opened a practical discussion about content and outbound.
“Shares” and “likes” were mentioned as imperfect, though useful, signs that content and ideas are resonating. The group also talked about removing registration gates from content, with broad agreement that easier access to information is often the better move.
The email conversation was especially direct.
Is the message written to help the buyer, or is it written to serve the seller’s desired next step? Buyers can tell the difference.
Emails that educate, inform, inspire, or entertain tend to perform better than messages built around the seller’s preferred call to action. A CTA link or hard “ask” may not always be needed. When buyers are ready, they know how to find you.
Beyond just emails, that’s a useful reminder for every GTM leader.
- Intent is not only something we observe in the buyer. Intent is also something the buyer senses in us.
Some signals depend on timing
The group also discussed signals that can be useful in one context and misleading in another.
Fundraising announcements may suggest new budget. But one member mentioned that by the time funding is announced, much of the money may already be allocated.
Hiring for specific roles may suggest a function is becoming more important. Some leaders find this helpful. Others have seen it produce weak signal.
Acquisition announcements were discussed as well. One member shared that the biggest sale of their career came from a company that was about to be acquired. In that case, the buyer was motivated to kick off a major initiative before the acquisition closed, so to safeguard his team.
So, the lesson is not that every acquisition creates urgency. Rather, the lesson is that timing, motivation, and internal pressure need to be read together.
The value of the room
What made the dinner valuable was the quality of the conversation and the openness. Leaders from different GTM seats were comparing how they read the market, the buyer, the pipeline, and the forecast. Some signals were measurable, some qualitative. Some came from “systems”, while others came from conversations. But the strongest ideas came from combining them.
That’ s a good example of what Pavilion can be at its best.
A room of operators discussing a serious question. Enough trust for people to share what they are seeing and enough structure to turn dinner conversation into something others can use.
Closing thought
The best GTM signals show if revenue is becoming more likely.
Activity metrics still have a role as they tell us something “happened” and help us keep tabs on teams’ activities.
But better revenue signals tell us if buyer movement is happening. They help us see:
- Fit
- Urgency
- Progression
- Risk
- Timing
- Confidence
These are better quality measures for GTM reporting.
For those who are already Pavilion members, the Boston Chapter dinner notes are available in the chapter Slack.
For those who aren’t members, Pavilion may be worth a closer look. If you lead in sales, marketing, customer success, RevOps, or another GTM role, and you value practical conversations with peers who are carrying similar responsibility, take a look at joinpavilion.com and see if Pavilion feels like a fit for you.
Meet David...
David Kirkdorffer is an experienced B2B marketer who helps CEOs, CMOs, and CROs at tech companies grow revenue by aligning marketing, positioning, and sales. Across roles spanning seed-stage startups to public companies, he has helped fuel four acquisitions and one public offering, and 7 of his last 8 positions came from senior executives who hired him again after working with him before. Today he also offers Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) for B2B tech companies, helping teams get AIs like ChatGPT and Gemini to surface their solutions through training, audits, and content built for AI-generated search.
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