An account program pays back late, and the board rarely knows that going in. Mid-market takes four to six months from accepted to closed won, and larger accounts run longer. So the work you do this quarter shows up as closed pipeline two or three quarters out. If nobody agrees that horizon first, the first quiet quarter reads as failure, and the program gets cut right before it pays. The enterprise research everyone quotes, 417 touchpoints and 5,500 impressions over 25 months, is a 100k-plus deal figure, not your number. Down-scale it to your own measured cycle, commit the timeline in writing, then report leading coverage every week so the board sees motion before revenue arrives.
Read time: about 5 minutes. First step runnable Monday morning.
Pull the real cycle length and touch count from your top accounts, and stop quoting the enterprise number.
Most operators borrow the 417-touchpoint, 25-month figure from an enterprise report and scare the board with it. Your own deals tell a different story. Read your last 24 months, and you get a horizon you can defend and commit to.
Start here: export your top 5 to 7 deals by size from the last 24 months, and read the real cycle length and the touch count behind each.
Ignore this week: do not present the 417-touchpoint enterprise figure as your situation, and do not ask the board to approve a program with no agreed timeline yet.