Growth targets create focus.
They also expose weaknesses in your operating system.
Most teams feel this tension when they set a bigger number and then realise they do not know which levers will actually get them there.
How growth targets are usually set
There are two common ways teams set growth targets.
Top down
The leadership team defines a revenue number based on ambition, market size, or investor expectations.
Bottom up
The team looks at historical performance and projects forward based on past results.
Both approaches can work.
Both approaches fail when they are not grounded in how revenue is actually created.
Why growth targets often become unrealistic
As teams grow, they often discover a hard truth.
They do not have the right historical data to support the targets they set.
What is usually missing is not effort; It is structure.
Most teams cannot clearly answer:
- How much qualified demand enters the system each week
- How that demand converts from stage to stage
- How long it takes to turn demand into revenue
- Where deals stall or fall out
Without this, targets are just numbers. They are not plans.
This is why growth targets often feel:
- Hard to measure
- Hard to scale
- Hard to sustain
The difference between a goal and a growth plan
A goal is a number.
A growth plan explains how that number will be produced.
A real growth plan connects:
- Inputs you can influence
- Conversions you can improve
- Outputs you can forecast
When this connection exists, targets stop feeling arbitrary.
They become something you can work toward week by week.
Why most teams struggle at this stage
Early in a company’s life, revenue grows through momentum and individual effort.
Historical data is thin or inconsistent.
Processes change often.
This makes it difficult to:
- Set reliable baselines
- Understand true conversion rates
- Model what needs to change to grow
As a result, teams either set conservative targets that limit growth or aggressive targets that burn people out.
Neither is sustainable.
What comes next
To build a growth plan you can execute, you need a system.
A system that shows:
- Where revenue comes from
- How it flows through the business
- Which parts of the system matter most
In the next section, we will introduce the Deela Delivery Method and explain how to think about sales as an operating system using a Revenue Factory..