Revenue doesn't vanish all at once. There's no single catastrophic failure or mass deal exodus. Instead, revenue slips away through many small misalignments that seem harmless but together ruin quarters.
In my article, “The Six-Week Invisibility Window,” I discussed the delay between when drift begins and when you realize it. The most common question I hear is, "How much is this costing me?"
The Revenue Leakage Index
The Revenue Leakage Index quantifies the percentage of potential revenue lost due to drift during the period from when misalignment starts to when you detect and fix it.
I analyzed over 50 B2B revenue organizations of various sizes and growth stages in the past year, revealing that a potential 1/3 of quarterly revenue is lost due to undetected drift.
The variation depends on three factors: your sales cycle length, your forecast review cadence, and how decision-making is distributed across the GTM organization.
Let me make this concrete with real numbers.
A SaaS company with a $50M quarterly pipeline and a 30% RLI is leaving $15M on the table. That's not $15M in lost deals; that's $15M in unrealized potential from deals that could have closed if you had detected the drift in week one instead of week six.
For high-velocity businesses, the damage accumulates over multiple cycles. If your average sales cycle is 30 days and your detection lag is six weeks, you are running two full sales cycles with corrupted data before you even detect a problem. These cycles influence your renewal forecasts, expansion pipeline, and churn predictions. A 30% RLI in new revenue can lead to a 40-50% RLI across your entire revenue operation within two quarters.
Why This Metric Matters More Than Forecast Variance
Most CROs monitor forecast variance, which is the difference between predicted and actual revenue closed. But variance is a post-mortem measure. Variance shows what you missed last quarter.
The Revenue Leakage Index measures something different: the percentage of potential revenue that's draining out right now while you're still operating blindly. Not what you've already lost. What you're losing today.
Forecast variance appears in your board deck. Revenue leakage shows up in deals that didn't reach their potential. You can't fix variance after the quarter ends. You will reduce leakage by closing your Invisibility Window.
Where Drift Hides: The Three Layers
Drift doesn't appear as a single catastrophic failure. Instead, drift manifests across three distinct layers of your revenue system, each causing its own type of leakage.
Layer 1: Plan Drift
Plan drift occurs when your strategic intent diverges from execution.
Here's what this looks like: Your ICP shifts toward mid-market buyers with six-month procurement cycles and CFO approval requirements. However, marketing continues to optimize campaigns for the fast-moving SMB segment from last quarter, using performance data from 60 days ago.
Lead quality appears high on paper: the right titles, appropriate company sizes, and strong engagement scores. Marketing is hitting their MQL targets and presenting favorable metrics in the monthly review.
But these leads won't turn into customers. Your sales team follows their standard discovery process, which is designed for 30-day sales cycles with single decision-makers. The new buyers politely agree, request detailed ROI analysis, set up follow-ups with procurement, and then vanish into six-month evaluation cycles your team isn't prepared to nurture.
Conversion rates decline from 32% to 19%. Your pipeline is inflated with deals that will never close. You miss your quarterly target by 25%. The board loses confidence in your forecast.
The cost: inflated pipeline, missed targets, eroded credibility, and 12-18 months of contaminated data feeding into your ICP models.
Layer 2: Execution Drift
Execution drift occurs when your process and messaging no longer align with reality.
Here's the mechanism: Your demo scripts still start with product features and technical specifications because that's what the enablement team taught last quarter. Those scripts were created based on win/loss analysis from deals that closed 90 days ago.
But your buyer's needs have changed. New prospects aren't interested in "advanced workflow automation with customizable rules engines." They want to hear "cut your month-end close from 9 days to 3 days and eliminate 47 hours of manual data entry."
Your team sticks to the old script. The prospects are polite but don't lean in. Objections shift from "we need to validate the ROI" to "we're not sure this solves our core problem." Deals stall at the technical validation stage because they focus on outdated pain points.
Meanwhile, your top competitor repositioned six weeks ago. They're now focusing on business outcomes. Their sales cycles are 30% shorter because they speak directly to the buyer's real needs. Your win rate against them has dropped from 60% to 35%.
Sales cycles extend from 42 to 61 days. Deal velocity drops by 45%. You add more pipeline to compensate, flooding your system with more deals following the wrong playbook.
The cost: longer sales cycles, stalled deals, decreased competitive advantage, and demoralized reps following a playbook that stopped working six weeks ago.
Layer 3: Outcome Drift
Outcome drift occurs in late stages when pressure mounts and the system begin to break.
This is reflected in Week 10 of the quarter: you're at $8M compared to a $12M goal. The contaminated deals resulting from Plan Drift and Execution Drift are now in the final stages, but have a low chance of closing successfully. However, they still appear in your forecast because your team remains optimistic, and leadership requires adequate pipeline coverage.
Panic begins to set in. Your VP of Sales starts approving discounts to close deals. Discount rates increase from 8% to 15%. You're attracting customers at 40% lower margins than you planned. Some of these deals close, but most don't.
The ones that do close are poor fits. They needed the 15% discount because your value prop didn't resonate strongly enough. They'll churn within six months. The expansion revenue you forecasted will never materialize. Your LTV: CAC ratio worsens.
Win rates remain steady at 19%. Profit margins are eroded on each deal. The customers you gain require more support, generate more tickets, and grow at a slower rate than your ideal customer profile.
The cost: lost profitability, future churn embedded in today's revenue, and a customer base that will weigh down your metrics for the next 12-18 months.
How Drift Compounds
Each drift type adds its own drag to revenue performance. But the real danger lies in how they compound.
Plan drift corrupts your targeting, causing execution drift in your sales process. This happens because your reps are using the wrong playbook for the wrong buyers, leading to outcome drift through emergency discounting and poor-fit customers.
Together, they form what I call the Six-Week Revenue Leak, a systemic failure that drains quota attainment before anyone notices the signs.
Here's the tough part: your team isn't underperforming. They're not lazy or lacking skill. They're just working with information that's six weeks old. Every day you stay within the Invisibility Window, drift weakens your performance. The loss isn't obvious. It's unseen. And that's what makes the cost so high.
The One Variable That Determines Your RLI
The most reliable way to improve your RLI isn't by hiring more reps, adding more pipeline, or increasing activity targets. Instead, reduce the sensing delay. Lower your Invisibility Window from six weeks to one week, and you'll recover 15-25% of your lost revenue without changing your sales strategy.
The Series B CRO from our “The Six-Week Invisibility Window” article? We shortened her Invisibility Window from six weeks to five days. Her RLI dropped from 38% to 14% over 90 days. She recouped $4.5M in Q3 alone.
Not by hiring more reps. Not by expanding her pipeline. Not by increasing activity.
Instead, detect drift in week one instead of week six.
When you detect Plan Drift during week one, when the ICP shift first appears in lead data, you retarget campaigns in week two and see improved conversion rates by week four. You don't lose the quarter.
When you detect Execution Drift in week one, when objection themes begin shifting, you update messaging in week two, retrain the team in week three, and see improved win rates by week five. You don't lose deals.
When you spot Outcome Drift signals early, such as when discount rates first rise from 8% to 9%, you identify the root cause, usually Plan or Execution Drift, and address it before you're panic-discounting at 15% to save the quarter.
Detection speed always beats execution speed.
The top revenue systems don't act faster; they identify earlier.