The six plays

Not all opportunities
are created equal.

Every opportunity we surface is filed under one of six plays, ordered by how close the money already is. Keeping revenue you have, growing it and reviving it all beat finding it new — a list that opens with cold prospecting is ignoring the cheapest revenue in the business.

  1. 01

    Retention

    Revenue you already have, at risk — a renewal coming up, a customer going quiet.

    What it finds

    Renewals inside the next quarter, customers whose usage or replies fell off a cliff, and the ones who quietly stopped turning up to calls.

    The cheapest revenue in the business, and the only kind you lose by doing nothing. A renewal at risk never sits behind cold prospecting.

  2. 02

    Expansion

    More revenue from a customer you already serve — more seats, a bigger plan, another team.

    What it finds

    Accounts near a plan limit, teams where one person clearly does the work of three, and customers using one thing well who never heard about the second.

    The play almost nobody runs. These accounts could be twice the size and are never asked — not from restraint, but because nothing surfaces them.

  3. 03

    Reactivation

    A former customer worth bringing back — they bought once and the relationship is still real.

    What it finds

    Former customers whose relationship is still real: they bought, it worked, and then something changed that probably isn't true any more.

    Productive decay. A relationship nine months cold is often worth more than one nine days cold — the nine-day one has nothing new to say.

  4. 04

    Nurture

    A lead who isn't ready yet, kept warm deliberately rather than chased or forgotten.

    What it finds

    Leads who weren't ready, deals that stalled for a reason that has since expired, and the people who said “not this quarter” three quarters ago.

    Kept warm deliberately rather than chased or forgotten. Most pipelines only have those two settings.

  5. 05

    New business

    A first deal — a referral, a warm intro, an inbound, someone you met.

    What it finds

    Referrals you were promised, warm intros nobody followed up, inbound that went to an inbox instead of a pipeline, and people you actually met.

    Net-new feels like progress, which is exactly why it's fifth. It is the most expensive revenue in the building and it should be worked last, not first.

  6. 06

    Advocacy

    The customer as a channel — a case study, a testimonial, an introduction they can make.

    What it finds

    Happy customers nobody asked for anything: a case study, a testimonial, a referral, an introduction they'd make in a heartbeat.

    The customer as a channel. Free to ask, awkward to remember, and it compounds — which is why it needs a system rather than good intentions.

How one gets ranked against another

The scoring, shown rather than hidden

Four things decide the order, and they are not equally weighted. The reasoning appears on every card, because a score you can't argue with is a score you can't learn from — and the point is that you leave a sharper operator, not a more dependent one.

Revenue at stakeHeaviestA renewal worth five figures outranks a cold prospect worth a guess. Always, and it isn't close.
Relationship depthHeavySomeone who bought twice and liked it is a different proposition from someone who replied to one email in 2024.
Productive decayMediumHow long it's been cold, read the right way round: time since contact is an asset when it means something has changed, not just a penalty.
A reason this weekTiebreakA funding round, a job change, a renewal date, a feature they never activated. Not a factor on its own — a reason to move today rather than Friday.
Your business, not ours

Six ship. You can add your own.

These six cover how a company with customers grows revenue, and they work from the first minute with nothing to configure. But they are ours, not everyone's: an agency runs onboarding, a training business runs cohort fill, and neither should have to file that under a word we picked. Say so to your agent and it becomes a play, sitting alongside the built-ins.

Capped at eight of your own — deliberately. A sidebar is something you learn by shape, and that only holds while the list is short enough to have one.

See it against your own book

7 days free, no card, and the clock starts when you open it. Or read the argument first — The Sales Harness is one better move every Tuesday.