Coming soon · Book Profile
Predictable Revenue Turn Your Business Into
A field-tested blueprint for building a specialized outbound sales development machine that generates predictable, scalable revenue without cold calling, based on the process that added $100 million to Salesforce.com.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
Predictable Revenue distills the exact lead-generation system Aaron Ross created at Salesforce.com—one that helped add over $100 million in recurring revenue—into a practical, bite-sized manual for CEOs, sales VPs, and founders. Its central insight overturns conventional wisdom: hiring more salespeople doesn't drive growth; predictable lead generation does. The book shows how to build a dedicated 'Cold Calling 2.0' Sales Development team that prospects into cold accounts using short referral emails instead of cold calls, how to specialize the four core sales functions, how to measure the right metrics, and how to build self-managing teams. Whether you're a struggling startup or an established company stuck on the 'hot coals' of unpredictable growth, this book gives you a repeatable, ROI-provable process to turn your business into a sales machine.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A CEO, founder, or VP of Sales who wants consistent, scalable revenue growth and the peace of mind of a sales organization that runs itself.
- The problem
- Revenue is unpredictable, salespeople miss targets, and pipeline dries up despite hiring more people. They feel stressed, uncertain, and like a failure standing on 'hot coals' every quarter- and year-end.
- The plan
- Get the executive team and board aligned on what actually creates predictable revenue.
- Get clear on your Ideal Customer Profile and build a targeted list.
- Dedicate a specialized Sales Development team to outbound prospecting using Cold Calling 2.0 email campaigns.
- Sell the dream, qualify opportunities, and smoothly pass the baton to Account Executives.
- Track the five key metrics and build self-managing systems and a culture that retains talent.
- The payoff
- A predictable monthly flow of highly qualified sales opportunities. · New business growth of 40% to 300% without cold calls. · A self-managing sales machine that runs without the CEO's constant attention.
See our guide
Additional reading
- Social Network Theory and the Sales Manager Role: Engineering the Right Relationship Flows · Flaherty, Karen, et al.
Relevant to understanding the modern, connected role of the sales manager beyond simple supervision, as discussed in the context of team selling and organizational structure.
- Internationalizing Sales Research: Current Status, Opportunities, and Challenges · Panagopoulos, Nikolaos G., et al.
Expands on the book's theme that sales management is a global endeavor, highlighting the need for cross-cultural insights in recruiting, training, and managing a global sales force.
- Breaking the Sales Force Incentive Addiction: A Balanced Approach to Sales Force Effectiveness · Zoltners, Andris A., et al.
Directly addresses the complexities of salesperson compensation and incentives, supporting the book's discussion on designing balanced and effective motivation programs.
- Examining the Impact of Servant Leadership on Sales Force Performance · Chonko, Lawrence B., et al.
Provides empirical support for the book's emphasis on shifting from a 'commanding' to a 'coaching' or 'servant leadership' style of sales management.
- Attitudinal Variables and Behavior: Three Empirical Studies and a Theoretical Reanalysis · M. Fishbein & I. Ajzen
The book cites this work to support its research philosophy, which emphasizes observing actual behaviors over measuring attitudes, as attitudes are often poor predictors of performance.
- Crossing the Chasm · Geoff Moore
The book's concept of the 'chasm' between Early Adopters and the Mainstream Market is cited to explain why companies struggle to grow past their initial network and why 'Nailing a Niche' is critical.
- The Sales Acceleration Formula · Mark Roberge
The author, who scaled HubSpot's sales to $100M, is featured in the book. His work is relevant for its systematic, data-driven approach to hiring, training, and managing sales teams for scalable growth.
- The Sales Development Playbook · Trish Bertuzzi
The author is quoted, and her book is relevant for its deep dive into building the sales development (prospecting) teams that are a core part of the 'Predictable Revenue' model central to this book.
- SPIN Selling · Neil Rackham
The book positions the Challenger model as the next major breakthrough after the 'consultative selling' era, which was largely defined by Rackham's research and the SPIN methodology. Rackham wrote the foreword, framing this book as a potential 'fourth breakthrough' in sales history.
- The Psychology of Selling · E. K. Strong
Referenced in the foreword as a foundational breakthrough in sales that introduced the idea of learnable sales techniques like questioning and objection handling. This provides historical context for the evolution of sales methodologies.