— About the practice
One operator,
twelve years,
6,200 opportunities
audited by hand.
Rob Macklem is an independent sales operations consultant who builds the forecast, pipeline, and process infrastructure that takes B2B revenue teams from founder-led chaos to repeatable, board-ready growth. The practice has been solo by design since 2013.
Chapter I — Founding
Why a solo practice, and why in 2013.
Before the practice existed, Rob ran sales operations inside three venture-backed B2B companies in sequence — first as a contributor, then as the lead, then as the person left to clean up two forecasting processes that had quietly failed. The pattern was identical at each stop: a founder who could close, a board that needed a number, and a CRM full of deals nobody could honestly defend.
In 2013, with a notebook of pipeline-coverage rules, an early draft of what would become the Pipeline Coverage Index, and a small retainer from a former colleague, the practice was incorporated at 1166 Bay Street in Toronto. It has remained a one-person firm ever since. The bet was that mid-market B2B teams between $2M and $30M ARR needed a senior operator, not a junior pyramid — and that the operator's name on the engagement was itself the product.
"I started the firm because I had watched the same forecasting failure repeat at three startups. The fix is not a tool. It is a discipline." — Rob Macklem, founder
Chapter II — The Work
Twelve years of method, written down.
The practice operates on a small, deliberate loop: audit the pipeline against the forecast, identify the gap between what reps say and what the data shows, then rebuild the cadence, definitions, and review rituals until coverage and accuracy converge. Engagements typically run two quarters; the median client lifts forecast accuracy from 47% to 89% within 90 days, measured against quarterly board targets.
A handful of artefacts have come out of the work and are now used well beyond the practice. The Pipeline Coverage Index (PCI) is referenced by more than 200 RevOps teams on the RevOps Co-op Slack. The open-source CRM audit framework is in production at 30+ Series A startups. The 2022 benchmark report, How Mid-Market SaaS Actually Forecasts, has been downloaded 14,000 times.
Since 2019, Rob has guest lectured on revenue operations at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and INSEAD's executive programs. The lectures are not promotional — they are an opportunity to pressure-test the practice's findings against senior operators outside the consulting context, and to keep the published benchmarks honest.
The practice publishes its findings rather than guarding them. Win/loss data from more than 600 closed deals across 11 verticals has been made public; the weekly revenue digest reaches 11,500 founders and revenue leaders; and every contract since 2018 has shipped with a written methodology the client can keep.
- Pipeline Coverage Index — referenced by 200+ RevOps teams
- Open-source CRM audit framework — 30+ Series A startups
- 2022 benchmark report — 14,000 downloads
- Weekly digest — 11,500 readers
The Operating Record
Verified, in figures.
- 12+ years Operating as a solo consultant, with every engagement delivered by Rob personally.
- 6,200 opportunities Personally closed, reviewed, or audited across B2B engagements since 2014.
- 4.97/5 average rating Across 84 published client engagements on Clutch.
- 92% renewal rate Of clients renew or expand scope within 12 months of engagement close.
- 11,500 weekly digest readers
- 47 B2B SaaS playbooks built, 2018–2024
- 9 client companies now at Series C or beyond
Press & Recognition
A masthead, not a wall of logos.
- Pavilion
- Sales Hacker
- Stanford GSB · INSEAD
- RevOps Co-op
The 2022 benchmark report How Mid-Market SaaS Actually Forecasts has been downloaded 14,000 times. Win/loss findings from 600+ closed deals across 11 verticals have been published openly rather than held back as proprietary insight.
Toronto office · 1166 Bay Street, Suite 1204
The Solo Position
No bait-and-switch. No junior pyramid. One name on the contract.
The practice has been deliberately small since incorporation. There is no associate bench, no offshore analyst pod, no "the partner is in the proposal but a manager runs the engagement" structure. Every contract is signed by Rob, every diagnostic is run by Rob, and every recommendation is defended by Rob in front of the client's CEO and board.
The trade-offs are real and worth naming. Capacity is finite — the practice takes on roughly six to eight engagements per year and turns down work that would require subcontracting. Travel windows are tight. If a client needs a twenty-person transformation team on day one, this is the wrong firm for that. If they need a senior operator who will learn the pipeline by name and stay for two quarters, the trade is favourable.
"Clients buy continuity, not headcount. The reason I keep the practice small is that the work depends on context, and context only lives in one place."
— Rob Macklem- Direct +1 (416) 555-0184
- Email [email protected]
- Office 1166 Bay Street, Suite 1204, Toronto, ON M5S 2X8, Canada
- Vetting Open the contact page →