Next year's revenue number, with the plan that makes it believable.
Gully Sales builds your annual revenue plan from the baseline up: growth assumptions that are tested, targets by channel and quarter, the capacity to deliver them, the budget they need and the scenarios for when the year moves.
- One number for the year that sales, marketing and finance have all signed.
- Targets tied to the pipeline each channel must produce and the people who must work it.
- Three scenarios with the decisions agreed in advance, so a slow quarter changes the plan.
Gully Sales Private Limited plans revenue for Indian SMBs and then runs the marketing, sales and channel work the plan calls for.
In one paragraph
What is Annual Revenue Planning?
Annual revenue planning is the work of deciding what your business will earn next year and how. Gully Sales starts from your real baseline, tests the growth assumptions, sets targets by channel, product and quarter, checks them against team capacity and budget, and writes the scenarios for when the year moves. Indian SMBs get one plan that sales, marketing and finance can run together.
The problem
There is a number for the year, and nothing underneath it.
A number for the year exists. What does not exist is the year itself: which quarter carries how much, which channels and products are expected to supply it, how many salespeople must be in seat and from when, what marketing has to spend to feed them, and what the business does if the first quarter lands light. Without those, the number is an intention. Spending is approved case by case, hiring reacts to pressure, and the capacity to reach the number is bought too late to use.
You will recognise it as
- The year has a number and no plan document behind it: no quarters, no channel split, no capacity.
- Marketing's spend for the year was fixed separately from what sales has to sell each quarter.
- Hiring and spending are approved case by case through the year, because the plan never said when.
- Every monthly review re-explains why the target is behind, and nobody changes the plan.
- The forecast is whatever the sales head feels confident saying that day.
- Growth is expected from a new product, market or channel that has no numbers attached to it yet.
What it costs the business
- Capacity arrives late: the salesperson needed in the first quarter is hired in the third, after the pipeline has thinned.
- Marketing spends evenly through the year while sales needs the leads in particular months.
- The team stops treating the number as real, and the year's result becomes whatever happened.
- Cash is committed to growth that was assumed rather than planned, then pulled back when it does not arrive.
Why it persists. Planning a year properly needs numbers from finance, pipeline from sales, spend from marketing and a decision from the owner, and in most SMBs no one person holds all four. The financial year starts whether the plan is ready or not, so the number goes out first and the plan is meant to follow. It rarely does. And because last year's plan was never checked against what happened, there is no evidence to plan from this year either.
If it stays unresolved. The business grows by roughly what the market gives it, hires react to pressure instead of plan, and the owner stays the only person who can say whether the year is on track, because the target was never turned into anything the team could measure itself against.
What changes
A year your team can run, not a number they are asked to hit.
In the first weeks
- A verified baseline: last year's revenue by product, segment, channel and month, with the conversion rates behind it.
- Growth assumptions written down and tested, so everyone knows what has to be true for the number to hold.
- One annual target broken into channel, product and quarter, signed by sales, marketing and finance together.
In how the work runs
- Hiring, marketing spend and capacity decisions dated in the plan, so they happen before the month that needs them.
- A pipeline coverage requirement for each channel and quarter, so a shortfall shows in the pipeline before it shows in revenue.
In sales and marketing
- Revenue attainment read against a plan built from evidence, with any gap traced to a named assumption rather than a mood.
- Marketing spend timed to when sales needs the leads, so the budget produces pipeline in the right months.
In what management can see
- A monthly read of attainment, pipeline coverage and forecast accuracy against the plan, in one view the owner and the team both use.
Over the longer term
- A planning cycle that repeats each year with last year's evidence in it, and a plan a new sales or marketing head could run from day one.
Gully Sales controls the baseline, the assumptions, the plan, the scenarios and the review rhythm. Whether the revenue arrives depends on the market and on how your team executes through the year. We do not promise attainment; we make the number defensible and the gaps visible early.
Who it is for
Who should plan the year this way, and when to start.
The businesses it suits
- Founders and directors of Indian SMBs with a sales team, a marketing spend and no shared plan connecting the two.
- Businesses where the owner still sets the number alone and wants the team to own it with him or her.
- Companies with more than one route to revenue, such as direct sales, dealers, online, key accounts or exports, that need to know what each must contribute.
- Firms planning a hire, a new territory, a new product or a larger marketing budget next year and wanting the numbers before the commitment.
- Businesses preparing for a lender, investor or board that will ask how the revenue number was built.
- Companies with a fractional or newly hired sales or marketing head who needs a plan to run from.
What usually prompts the call
- The financial year is a few months away and the number has not been built yet.
- Last year's target was missed, and the reasons given differ depending on who you ask.
- You are about to approve a hiring plan or a marketing budget with no revenue plan behind it.
- A new product, market or channel is expected to carry growth and nobody has put numbers to it.
- Monthly reviews have become arguments about the target instead of decisions about the pipeline.
What Gully Sales does
The work, component by component.
Baseline and revenue anatomy
We rebuild last year from the ledger and the CRM: revenue by product, segment, channel and month, new against repeat customers, average order value, win rates and sales cycle by channel. Where the plan claimed something last year, we check what actually happened.
- Why it matters:
- A target set on a baseline nobody has examined inherits every distortion in it, from one large order to a lost account.
- You receive:
- Baseline pack with the year's revenue anatomy and the conversion rates behind each channel.
- Business value:
- Everyone plans from the same numbers, and the one-off events are separated from the run rate.
Growth assumptions
We write down what the number depends on: market growth, retention of existing accounts, price changes, new customers by channel, and any new product, territory or partner expected to contribute. Each assumption is tested against evidence from your own data, your customers and your market, and rated for confidence.
- Why it matters:
- Most missed targets trace back to an assumption that was never stated, so it was never checked.
- You receive:
- Assumptions register: each assumption, its evidence, its owner and its confidence.
- Business value:
- When the year moves, you know which assumption moved it, and what to do about that one.
Targets by channel, product and quarter
We build the number from the bottom up, channel by channel, and set it against the owner's ambition from the top down. The two are reconciled until the gap is explained, then phased across quarters in line with your seasonality and sales cycle rather than divided by four.
- Why it matters:
- A number that only comes from the top is a wish; one that only comes from the bottom is last year again.
- You receive:
- Annual revenue target split by channel, product line, new versus existing customers and quarter.
- Business value:
- The company number and the channel numbers add up, and each has a reason behind it.
Capacity and productivity
We work out what it takes to deliver each channel's number: heads, ramp time for new hires, productivity per person, dealer or partner count, and the activity levels the pipeline needs. Where the capacity is not there, the target is adjusted or the hire is dated, before the year begins.
- Why it matters:
- Targets are missed more often for want of people in place than for want of ambition.
- You receive:
- Capacity plan with hire dates, ramp assumptions and activity levels per channel.
- Business value:
- The people needed in the first quarter are hired before it, not after it is lost.
Budget envelope and timing
We size the sales and marketing spend the plan needs and phase it to the months when pipeline has to be built, given your sales cycle. This sets the envelope and its timing; the detailed allocation across channels and campaigns is separate budgeting work, linked below.
- Why it matters:
- Spend that arrives evenly through the year produces leads in the wrong months for a seasonal business.
- You receive:
- Budget envelope by quarter, with the months that must produce leads marked.
- Business value:
- Marketing money is spent when the plan needs it, and the finance head sees why.
Scenarios and decision triggers
We write three versions of the year: base, stretch and downside. Each has the indicator that tells you which one you are in, the month by which you would know, and the decisions leadership has agreed in advance, such as when a hire is delayed, a spend released or a target reset.
- Why it matters:
- Without a written downside, a slow quarter turns into a debate about the target instead of an agreed response.
- You receive:
- Scenario set with triggers, watch indicators and pre-agreed decisions for each.
- Business value:
- A bad quarter changes the plan on a rule you set in advance, not in a panic meeting.
Implementation roadmap and review rhythm
We turn the plan into the first quarter's actions with owners and dates, set up a tracker that reads attainment, coverage and forecast accuracy monthly, and fix the review calendar: a monthly check against the plan and a quarterly re-plan. The plan is presented to the team as one document, not three.
- Why it matters:
- A plan that is filed in April is not a plan; the review rhythm is what keeps it alive.
- You receive:
- Ninety-day roadmap, plan tracker and the review calendar for the year.
- Business value:
- The team knows what to do this quarter and when the plan will be looked at next.
What you will have at the end.
- Revenue baseline pack: last year by product, segment, channel and month, with win rates, order value and repeat share.
- Growth assumptions register: each assumption, its evidence, its owner and how confident we are in it.
- Annual revenue target with quarterly phasing, split by channel, product line and new versus existing customers.
- Channel contribution plan: what direct, dealer, online, key account or export must each produce, with pipeline coverage required.
- Capacity plan: heads, ramp time, productivity per person and activity levels needed, with hire dates.
- Budget envelope: the sales and marketing spend the plan needs, by quarter, with the months that must produce leads marked.
- Three scenarios, base, stretch and downside, each with its trigger, its watch indicator and the decisions agreed in advance.
- Implementation roadmap: first-quarter actions, owners and dates, and the review calendar for the year.
- Plan tracker: a working sheet or CRM dashboard set up to read attainment, coverage and forecast accuracy each month.
- A one-page plan summary the owner can share with the team, a lender or a board.
How it runs
The engagement, step by step.
- 1
Frame the year
We start with what the business needs from the year: growth, margin, a new line, a new market, or simply predictability. We agree the scope, who signs the plan, the constraints on cash and hiring, and what would make the plan useful rather than decorative.
- You provide:
- Management accounts, last year's target and result, the current team and spend, and the owner's ambition for the year.
- We produce:
- A planning brief that states the objective, the scope, the constraints and who owns the plan.
- Done when:
- Leadership agrees what the plan has to decide and who will sign it.
- 2
Build the baseline
We reconstruct last year from the ledger, the CRM and the sales team's own records, separating one-off orders and lost accounts from the run rate. Where systems disagree, we reconcile them and note what the data cannot yet tell us.
- You provide:
- Sales ledger, CRM or order exports, marketing spend records and dealer or partner sales where relevant.
- We produce:
- The baseline pack with the year's revenue anatomy and conversion rates by channel.
- Done when:
- Sales, marketing and finance agree on the starting numbers.
- 3
Test the assumptions
We interview the sales and marketing heads, key account owners and, where useful, a few customers and partners, then set each growth assumption against your data and the market. Assumptions that cannot be evidenced are kept, but flagged and sized so the plan is not built on them.
- You provide:
- Time with the sales, marketing and finance leads, and introductions to a few customers or partners.
- We produce:
- The growth assumptions register with evidence, owner and confidence for each.
- Done when:
- Every assumption behind the number has an owner and a stated confidence.
- 4
Set and reconcile the targets
We build the number bottom-up by channel and product, set it against the top-down ambition, and work through the gap with leadership until it is explained. The result is phased across quarters to match your seasonality and sales cycle.
- You provide:
- The owner's ambition for the year and a decision on the gap between it and the bottom-up build.
- We produce:
- The annual target by channel, product, customer type and quarter, with the reconciliation shown.
- Done when:
- The company number and the channel numbers reconcile, and leadership has signed them.
- 5
Plan capacity and budget
We work out the people, ramp, activity and spend each channel's number needs, phase them to the months that need them, and adjust targets where the capacity or cash will not be there in time.
- You provide:
- Hiring constraints, cash limits and the earliest dates a hire or a spend could be approved.
- We produce:
- The capacity plan with hire dates and the budget envelope by quarter.
- Done when:
- The target is deliverable by the people and money in the plan, on the dates in the plan.
- 6
Write the scenarios
We draft the base, stretch and downside versions of the year, choose the indicator and month that would tell you which you are in, and agree with leadership what happens at each trigger before the year starts.
- You provide:
- Leadership time to agree the triggers and the decisions attached to them.
- We produce:
- The scenario set with triggers, watch indicators and pre-agreed decisions.
- Done when:
- Leadership has agreed in writing what changes when the year moves.
- 7
Launch and review
We turn the plan into a first-quarter roadmap with owners, set up the tracker, present the plan to the team as one document, and run the first monthly review with you so the rhythm is established before we step back.
- You provide:
- A launch session with the team and the time for the first monthly review.
- We produce:
- The roadmap, the tracker, the review calendar and the one-page plan summary.
- Done when:
- The team has the plan, the tracker is live and the first review has run against it.
Ways to work with us
Engage for the plan, for a reset, or for the year.
Annual revenue plan
The full method from baseline to launch: assumptions, targets, capacity, budget envelope, scenarios and roadmap. Suited to a business building next year's plan properly for the first time, or replacing a target that was set by formula.
Mid-year reset
For a plan that has slipped or a year that has changed. We re-baseline against the months already gone, re-test the assumptions, reset the remaining quarters and write the scenarios for the rest of the year.
Plan with quarterly reviews
The annual plan plus a Gully Sales consultant in the quarterly re-plan through the year, reading attainment, coverage and forecast accuracy against the plan and adjusting targets, capacity and spend with you.
Plan for a new commercial leader
Built with an incoming or fractional sales, marketing or revenue head, so he or she starts with a plan the owner has signed rather than spending the first quarter building one.
Why Gully Sales
What you are actually choosing when you choose us.
We plan from your ledger, not from a template.
The baseline is rebuilt from your own sales, CRM and spend records before any target is discussed. The plan carries your seasonality, your channels and your sales cycle, which is why your team recognises it.
Sales, marketing and finance sign the same number.
The target, the pipeline it needs, the spend that produces the pipeline and the cash that funds it are built as one plan in one set of sessions, so the three functions stop working from three different documents.
The number is checked against capacity before it is announced.
Heads, ramp time, activity and spend are worked out for each channel's target. Where they cannot be in place in time, the target is adjusted or the hire is dated, before the year begins rather than after it is lost.
We write the downside as carefully as the upside.
Every plan has a stretch case. Few have a written downside with a trigger and an agreed response. Ours does, so a slow quarter is met with a decision you already made rather than a debate about the target.
The plan is built to be reviewed, not filed.
A tracker, a review calendar and a first review run with you are part of the deliverable. The plan is designed to be read monthly by the owner and the team, and to hand over cleanly to management reviews or a fractional leader.
Where it applies
The same service, in different businesses.
Manufacturing with dealers
- The situation:
- An industrial products maker sells through a dealer network and a few direct key accounts. The annual target goes to the dealers as a blanket percentage increase, and the direct accounts are planned in the owner's head.
- How it applies:
- Baseline by dealer and account, growth assumptions on dealer additions and account expansion, a channel contribution plan with coverage per region, and hire dates for the area managers the dealer targets need.
- Likely benefit:
- Each dealer's number has a reason, the direct accounts are on paper, and the field team is in place before the season.
B2B and IT services
- The situation:
- A services firm's revenue comes from renewals, expansions and a handful of new logos, but the plan treats them as one number and the delivery team learns about growth when the work arrives.
- How it applies:
- Targets split into retained, expanded and new revenue with separate assumptions and coverage for each, and a capacity plan that dates delivery hires to the quarter the new revenue lands.
- Likely benefit:
- Renewals are defended as a planned number, and delivery capacity arrives with the revenue instead of after it.
Healthcare providers
- The situation:
- A hospital or clinic group plans on last year's patient numbers plus a percentage, while a new department, a new location and a marketing budget are each expected to add growth nobody has sized.
- How it applies:
- Baseline by department and location, assumptions for the new department and location with confidence ratings, marketing spend timed to their launch months, and a downside scenario for a late opening.
- Likely benefit:
- The new department and location carry a number and a date, and the marketing budget is spent when they can receive patients.
Consumer brands and e-commerce
- The situation:
- A D2C brand sells on its own site, on marketplaces and through distributors, and its annual number rests on advertising spend that rises whenever sales dip.
- How it applies:
- Channel contribution by own site, marketplace and distributor, growth assumptions on repeat rate and new product lines, a budget envelope phased to the festive season, and triggers for when spend is released or held.
- Likely benefit:
- Advertising is spent to a plan tied to the season, and the distributor channel has a number of its own.
Distribution and trading
- The situation:
- A distributor with hundreds of retail accounts and thin margins plans on volume alone, and every year the principal's target and the distributor's own capacity disagree.
- How it applies:
- Baseline by product line and territory, a target reconciled between the principal's ask and the bottom-up build, a capacity plan for sales representatives and vehicles, and a downside case for a principal's price change.
- Likely benefit:
- The distributor negotiates the principal's target from evidence and staffs the territories that carry the number.
Questions buyers ask
Before you enquire, the answers you will want.
How will the targets connect to pipeline and team capacity?
Every channel's target is translated into the qualified pipeline it needs, using that channel's own win rate and sales cycle from the baseline, and then into the people and activity required to build that pipeline. If the heads or ramp time are not there in time, the target is adjusted or the hire is dated in the plan. The tracker then reads pipeline coverage monthly, so a shortfall is visible in the pipeline a quarter before it appears in revenue.
How is annual revenue planning different from revenue target planning?
Annual revenue planning decides the company's number for the year and everything that has to sit behind it: baseline, assumptions, channel contribution, capacity, budget envelope and scenarios. Revenue target planning takes that number and cascades it into targets and quotas for teams, territories, representatives and products, with the rules for how they are set and adjusted. Most businesses do this page first and the cascade second; if the company number is already sound, start with target planning.
How is it different from sales and marketing budgeting?
This plan sets the budget envelope: how much sales and marketing spend the number needs and in which months. Sales and marketing budgeting is the detailed work inside that envelope: allocation across channels, campaigns, tools and people, and the rules for moving money between them during the year. The envelope has to exist before the allocation makes sense, which is why the two are separate pages and often follow one another.
Is this the same as a growth roadmap?
No. A growth roadmap looks two or three years out and sequences the strategic moves: which markets, products, channels and capabilities to build and in what order. Annual revenue planning takes the next twelve months and makes them operational: the number, the pipeline, the people, the money and the scenarios. A roadmap tells you where the business is going; the annual plan tells your team what to do this year and how you will know it is working.
How long does the engagement take?
It depends on how many channels and product lines the plan covers, how far last year's data has to be rebuilt, and how quickly leadership can meet to reconcile the number and agree the scenarios. A single-channel business with a clean ledger moves faster than a multi-channel one with dealer data on paper. We agree the schedule in the planning brief, and we tell you honestly if the financial year will start before the plan can be finished, and what to do in the meantime.
What inputs are required from us?
Management accounts and the sales ledger for last year, CRM or order exports, marketing spend records, the target you set last year and how it went, dealer or partner sales where relevant, and the current team and its cost. Then time: working sessions with the owner and the sales, marketing and finance leads, and introductions to a few customers or partners for testing assumptions. Where records are incomplete we rebuild what we can and flag the rest.
Our financial year has already started. Is it too late to plan?
No. A plan built in the second quarter is better than a formula target run for twelve months. We baseline against the months already gone, treat them as evidence about the assumptions, and plan the remaining quarters with the scenarios written for the rest of the year. The mid-year reset option exists for exactly this. What matters is that the remaining months are run against a number that has capacity and budget behind it.
We do not have a CRM or clean data. Can you still build a plan?
Usually, yes. The baseline can be rebuilt from invoices, the sales ledger, order books and the sales team's own records, and we note where the data cannot yet support a conversion rate or a cycle time. Those gaps become assumptions with lower confidence and a plan to close them during the year. If even the revenue by product and month cannot be reconstructed, a revenue growth audit is the better first step.
4 more questions
How is success measured?
Against the baseline recorded before the plan was built, on the metrics in the plan: revenue attainment by channel and quarter, pipeline coverage against what each quarter needs, forecast accuracy month by month, marketing contribution against the phased spend, sales productivity against the capacity plan, and execution velocity on the roadmap. We report these monthly in the tracker. The measure of the plan itself is whether gaps are seen early and met with a decision that was agreed in advance.
What is excluded from scope?
Cascading the number into individual quotas and territory targets, which is revenue target planning; the detailed allocation of the budget across channels and campaigns, which is sales and marketing budgeting; running the sales or marketing team through the year, which is fractional leadership; and CRM implementation. We also do not produce financial forecasts for lenders or investors, though the plan gives your finance lead the revenue line and the assumptions to build one from.
Who needs to be involved from our side?
The owner or managing director, who sets the ambition and signs the plan; the sales head, who owns the bottom-up build and the capacity plan; the marketing head, who owns the assumptions on lead flow and the spend phasing; and the finance lead, who owns the baseline and the budget envelope. In a smaller business two of these may be one person. What does not work is a plan built with only one of them in the room.
What happens after the plan is delivered?
The plan is launched to the team as one document, the tracker goes live, and we run the first monthly review with you so the rhythm is set. From there you can run the reviews yourself, keep a Gully Sales consultant in the quarterly re-plan, or hand the plan to revenue leadership and management reviews or a fractional revenue leader. At the end of the year the plan and the tracker become next year's baseline, which is where most businesses start to compound.
Talk to us
Build the year before you announce the number that depends on it.
The free audit is a working session, not a pitch. We look at how last year's number was set and how it went, what the coming year is expected to carry, and whether you need the full plan, a mid-year reset or only a sharper baseline.
- No obligation and no sales script
- A reply from someone who does the work
- Your details are never sold or shared