# Pipeline volume matters more than small conversion gains

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/pipeline-volume-matters-more-than-small-conversion-gains/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Sam Blond](https://realalpha.app/builders/sam-blond/) · Sam Blond is cofounder and CEO of Monaco. · Former Brex and Zenefits CRO who co-founded Monaco, the AI-native revenue engine for startups.
- Host: [Jack Altman](https://realalpha.app/people/jack-altman/) · General partner, Benchmark · Co-founded Lattice and ran it until 2023, then started his fund, Alt Capital.
- Show: Uncapped
- Episode: [Sam Blond on the Future of Sales in an AI-Native World | Ep. 54](https://realalpha.app/v/QnkQhyOGo3k/), Jul 14, 2026
- Moment: 9:38 to 14:08 of the episode (5 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/pipeline-volume-matters-more-than-small-conversion-gains/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/QnkQhyOGo3k/?t=578

## Takeaways

1. Diagnose a missed target by asking whether there were enough deals.
2. Doubling lead volume can be easier than doubling conversion rates.
3. Optimize for revenue throughput, not close-rate optics.

## About this segment

Sam Blond argues that missed revenue targets are often pipeline problems, not conversion problems. For large markets, adding opportunities can beat trying to double close rates.

From “Sam Blond on the Future of Sales in an AI-Native World | Ep. 54”, Jul 14, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/QnkQhyOGo3k/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[9:51](https://realalpha.app/v/QnkQhyOGo3k/?t=591) both Brex and now Monaco is being like very intentional about creating what I would describe as a demand rich environment. And I think that many founders, sales leaders, startups broadly sort of misdiagnosed the opportunity to acquire customers and grow revenue more quickly as something related to conversion rates. So like we have these opportunities that we're tracking. We're in July of 2026. If we look back to June of 2026 and we maybe missed our revenue target.

[10:27](https://realalpha.app/v/QnkQhyOGo3k/?t=627) The reason that we missed that is because like, you know, gosh, this one deal that we really thought was going to come in and the sales rep said it was going to come in, it pushed. And so had it come in, we would have hit our revenue target or something like that. And my diagnosis in many of those instances is actually something like you should have had like five deals. Yeah. And if three of them close, you finish way over target.

[10:49](https://realalpha.app/v/QnkQhyOGo3k/?t=649) Yes. And if that one deal closes, you actually hit your target. But in a lot of ways, like you could have done better. I can't remember who it was. It was either you, Parker, or Matt Epstein. But one of the three of you told me at some point when I was like trying to get, you know, go to market advice for Lattice. it was like look you can improve your conversion rate by this much you can improve like your you know first deal to up but like the thing that you can change by 10x is your top of funnel that's right and i think that was always deep in you know this group's psychology is like you can improve all these things a little bit but you can improve the top of funnel like if you have a company worth building there's like a hundred times more customers that you could be talking to than you're talking to i think this is like a very underrated thing and it's like kind of like a

[11:32](https://realalpha.app/v/QnkQhyOGo3k/?t=692) red pill once you see it. Uh, it's something that we, we have lived by and I think benefited from, uh, and, um, just to sort of like reinforce the thing that you just said, um, I would, well, um, if you have 10% conversion rates, uh, improving those conversion rates to 20%, which sounds like you're improving your conversion rates by 10%, but you're actually doubling conversion rates. It's really hard. Uh, and especially like, you know, if you have a sales organization, you have to like train the salespeople. If you're a founder, you have to get like far better like pitching and closing and all of these things. If you have a large enough addressable market.

[12:09](https://realalpha.app/v/QnkQhyOGo3k/?t=729) And so this doesn't totally work if you have like 50 potential customers that you can sell into. But for companies like Monaco and many other startups out there, it is far easier to double your leads or opportunities. And so that is where I would put a disproportionate amount of intention. And if you do so, actually at the expense of either conversion rates or maybe like efficiency, that is a worthwhile tradeoff.

[12:35](https://realalpha.app/v/QnkQhyOGo3k/?t=755) And so if you feel like... As long as like on a per rep basis, they're still closing enough per person per year kind of thing. As long as your growth trajectory is dramatically increasing month over month, if you have something... If you have the efficiency per rep, do you care about that? Or is that something that doesn't matter till later on? Yes, but you can apply the same logic that we just did at the company level to the rep level also.

[13:00](https://realalpha.app/v/QnkQhyOGo3k/?t=780) So I would rather deliver two times the number of leads or opportunities to a rep. and actually have their conversion rates like come down slightly, then give them less leads and increase their conversion rates. Just single our through, like focus on the throughput. The outcome. Yes. How much revenue did we close as a business this month? How much revenue did each sales rep close this month? Yes. There aren't, what's my dad say in golf?

[13:24](https://realalpha.app/v/QnkQhyOGo3k/?t=804) There aren't like pictures on the scorecard or something like that. And so like if a rep closes, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand dollars a month, it's not like, and I say this thing to reps all the time. It's not like there's like an asterisk There aren't points for what your close rate was. Yeah, it's like, but you forgot to email this customer that otherwise could have closed like $200,000 of ARR close this month.

[13:44](https://realalpha.app/v/QnkQhyOGo3k/?t=824) Like that is the thing that you see. And so like, of course, you want to focus. The details matter. And of course, you want to be constantly improving and giving feedback on all of those things. But solve for the outcome. Yeah, that's good. So what did you take then when you went to Brex? So like you had the Zenefits experience.