10 Deals a Year Decide the Whole Firm
A Collective 54 member who runs a research and strategy firm told the room that about 10 deals a year decide the outcome. Win those and the year is made. That’s also why the sales tooling is basic, and the founder is the first to say so.
October 22, 2026
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1 min read
The work comes in as a small number of large engagements, not a steady flow of small ones. The sales cycle is long. Things go quiet for months, then a big project lands long after everyone had written it off.
Asked about the sales stack, the answer was refreshingly plain. There’s a CRM, and it isn’t doing much.
What does drive the pipeline is relationships: a full-time business development lead and a few private equity contacts who refer the firm into the next situation.
Why it matters to you.
Most founders track pipeline value. This number tells you more. If the deals that decided your year fit on one hand, three things follow. Your forecast is really an opinion about a few conversations. Your cash plan has to survive one of them slipping a quarter, because one will. And you can’t hand off the top of the funnel, because at that volume every deal is a relationship. Buyers notice too. They discount concentration hard, and deal concentration counts the same as client concentration. None of that makes it a bad business. Plenty of strong firms run this way. But you should know the number, because it decides how much cash you need to carry.
“There’s 10 deals that matter a year for us, and we don’t have anything sophisticated today, probably because it’s 10 deals that matter. You win those 10 deals, you’re good. - A Collective 54 member, research and strategy firm”
Your one thing.
Count the deals that decided your last 12 months. If you can list them on one hand, plan your cash for the quarter one of them slips.
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