Get The Forecast Brief
You just checked your pace to goal. The Forecast Brief is a short email from Pete Furseth, ORM's COO, built on what ORM sees in its customers' forecasts.
What this tells you
Percent to goal shows how far you are toward a target. The formula is simple:
Percent to Goal = (Actual Achieved / Goal) x 100
The gap is what remains: Gap = Goal - Actual. This same math doubles as a quota attainment calculator. Swap "goal" for a rep's quota and "actual" for their closed bookings, and the percentage you get is attainment to plan.
Need the number for a whole team? The quota attainment calculator takes each rep's quota and closed amount, then shows team attainment and the share of reps at quota.
Why the percentage alone can mislead you
A number like 72% feels reassuring until you anchor it to time. Hitting 72% of an annual goal in November is a miss in the making. Hitting 72% by the end of Q2 is ahead of pace. The percentage is only meaningful against the calendar, so always read it next to how much of the period has elapsed.
The gap matters more than the percentage for planning. A rep at 72% of a $1M quota and a rep at 72% of a $4M quota are both "at 72 percent," but the second one needs to close more than three times the dollars to land the year. When you manage to the gap in dollars, you allocate coverage where the revenue risk actually sits, not where the percentage looks worst.
ORM's take: attainment is the question, not the answer
This calculator gives you a clean read on where you stand today. What it cannot do is tell you whether you will close the gap, which deals or segments will get you there, or what to change if the pace is off.
That is what ORM's custom prescriptive models do. We forecast each rep, segment, and territory to period-end, flag who lands short and by how much, and prescribe the specific moves to recover the gap. Percent to goal is the diagnostic. The prescription is where the number gets closed.
How do you calculate pacing to goal?
Compare what you have closed with what you should have closed by this point in the period. The formula is Pace to Goal = Actual / (Goal x Expected share closed by today) x 100. A result of 100% means on pace, even when raw attainment looks low.
The expected share is the part most teams get wrong. Revenue does not arrive in a straight line. ORM breaks every customer's quarter into 13 weekly weights, and in one example curve the quarter runs well behind a straight line until the final three weeks:
| End of week | Expected share closed (example curve) | Straight-line expectation |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 21.0% | 30.8% |
| 6 | 34.0% | 46.2% |
| 8 | 49.7% | 61.5% |
| 10 | 61.4% | 76.9% |
| 12 | 82.5% | 92.3% |
| 13 | 100% | 100% |
Worked example: a team with a $2,000,000 quarterly goal has closed $600,000 by the end of week six. Raw attainment is 30%. Against the straight line it is at 65% of pace, which reads as a crisis. Against the example curve it is at 88% of pace ($600,000 divided by $680,000), which is behind but recoverable. Use your own history to build the curve. The full example is in the 13-week quarter.
What should you do when you are behind pace mid-quarter?
At week six the answer is better focus, and more activity rarely helps. "Sell harder" and "grind it out" do not work halfway through a quarter. ORM's COO works through it in three steps:
- Find the gap. Is it deal size, win rate, pipeline, time to close, or a combination? Be specific about what is not working.
- Decide what can still be sold this quarter. Focus on open deals with a credible path to close, and stop spending time on the rest. Deals you can pull forward without significant discounting are on the table too.
- Put executive support where it moves the most. Remove a blocker, get to the right decision-maker, reinforce value, or create urgency on the deals that matter.
Why can a team fall behind when the pipeline is there?
Because pace depends on velocity as much as volume. One ORM customer had a quarter where the forecast fell apart with coverage tight but sufficient. Deals did not move through the quarter the way the forecast assumed. More of them slipped, fewer were won or lost than expected, and too much stayed stuck in the middle. It was Q1, the team was not focused early, and by the time the problem was obvious there was little room to recover.
Three questions catch this before percent to goal does. Are deals moving? Are close dates holding? Are you winning and losing opportunities at the expected rate? When those signals break, the forecast is in trouble well before the top-line number shows it.
Common questions
How do you calculate percent to goal?
Divide actual performance by the target and multiply by 100. The useful version is pace-adjusted: compare attainment against the share of the period elapsed, because 50% attainment at week four means something very different from 50% at week eleven.
What is pace-adjusted attainment?
Attainment measured against how much of the period has passed rather than against the full target. A team at 34% of quota at the end of week six of a thirteen-week quarter looks behind against a straight line, which expects 46%, and is on pace against the back-loaded example curve. Only the second reading is one you can act on.
Should percent to goal account for a back-loaded quarter?
Yes, if the business genuinely closes that way. In one example ORM seasonality curve, 66% of the quarter closes after week six, so a straight-line pace expectation raises a false alarm every time. Use your own historical shape rather than a straight line.
How do you calculate pacing to goal?
Divide what you have closed by the amount you should have closed by today, which is the goal multiplied by the share of the period your history says should be done. 100% means on pace. Use a seasonality curve rather than a straight line.
How often should percent to goal be reviewed?
Weekly during the quarter. The value is in seeing the gap early enough to act, and a monthly cadence in a thirteen-week quarter leaves only two useful checkpoints before it is too late to change anything.
What should you do when a team is behind pace?
Diagnose before you push. Behind pace with healthy coverage is a conversion problem, behind pace with thin coverage is a generation problem, and the two require opposite responses. Pushing activity into a conversion problem makes it worse.
See the forecast behind the number
This tool shows your attainment. ORM shows whether you will close the gap and what to do about it.
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