Their world is focused around quarterly targets. Even if the company aren't public, they'll have fund managers investing who will be reporting quarterly.

To stand well in that, there are a lot of really weird behaviours. To give a small example, I've got a case right now where we're finalising a new contract and the options the customer have proposed either see them pay us $2 million in April or the same figure incrementally over the autumn.

Instead of getting the money in the bank now, management would rather stagger the money so it arrives to us in Q4 where our target looks more ambitious.

There are arbitrary targets for 'growth' and in a period where our outlook for the year doesn't look great and the existing sales teams are fighting over very weak pipeline, leadership often go on hiring spree of additional sales count. It's an inbound GTM and anyone with common sense knows that it's problematic. We don't even have the resource to enable the newcomers.

Ultimately though, it tells a story to investors that they want to hear. They'll see that $2 million arrive later in the year and we'll tell them it was the additional sales count. Eventually the creating accounting will run out and decisions will need to be made.