We’ve all seen the news: layoffs, budget cuts, increased interest rates, and the news of an impending recession. The result? Pipeline anxiety.

Pipeline anxiety has long been a reality for most sales and marketing teams (who have had to often deal with stretch goals and the stress that goes along with them.) The difference now is that stretch goals have become genuinely unreachable for many teams.

This means pipeline anxiety is hitting teams in a big way. And it’s here to stay for the foreseeable future.

How pipeline anxiety affects revenue teams

There are a lot of symptoms of pipeline anxiety, for individuals and for teams, that many people can relate to. Low morale, increased levels of tension, feelings of being overwhelmed, among others.

1. Every department is affected

We might not all call our anxiety “pipeline anxiety” across different departments, but the effects of pipeline anxiety seep through all parts of a company. Our jobs are more challenging now than they were six months ago.

Why? There’s closing anxiety for sales and renewal anxiety for customer success. And on a larger scale, there’s revenue anxiety for the whole organization.

2. Everything requires stricter evaluation processes

Faced with high goals and limited resources, companies become stricter at evaluating everything, from tools to people. In practice, that can look like this:

• Making distinctions between “nice-to-have” and “need-to-have” tools.
• Setting higher expectations for sales and marketing to hit their goals.
• Prioritizing short-term cost-cutting measures over long-term sustainability.

Founders and executives have to make difficult decisions.

• Will cutting a product or service out of the budget create significantly more work and more stress for their employees?
• Is adding a new tool to the organization’s tech stack a smart move (because it solves a problem) or a risky move (because the tool is unproven)?

Buying and selling are harder in this environment.

3. Earlier goals have become unrealistic

You can have pipeline anxiety in a good environment and a bad environment. Setting ambitious goals and stretching to reach them drives growth and builds resilience., but leaders need to keep revenue goals in perspective.

When there is a disconnect between what’s possible in this environment and what a leader thinks is possible, this can add more pressure on employees to hit impossible targets.

How can companies still thrive?

Right now, the biggest source of pipeline anxiety comes from the disconnect between expectations from leadership and what can actually be achieved by their teams. Leaders are responsible for filling in the gaps between expectations—which were established based on an entirely different set of information—and our current reality. Here are three ways to address these issues.

1. Prioritize efficient growth over growth at all costs

Leaders need to make efficient growth the primary metric—not just the fastest growth.

For example, our definition of efficient growth is straightforward: We strive for a burn multiple of 1, which means that it costs a net burn of $1 to generate $1. It’s possible to maintain efficient growth by adopting efficient, sustainable targets that focus on long-term growth.

2. Talk to revenue leaders

Unfortunately, the hardest things to come by right now are comparables that will guide leaders on what everyone else is experiencing. We can all see that companies are being impacted in big and small ways by the market, but the full extent remains uncertain.

Right now, talking to other revenue leaders—CEOs, founders, VPs of Sales—is one of the fastest ways to calibrate what's actually achievable in this market.

3. Tap into existing relationships

Especially right now. Everyone is extremely cautious about buying new products. Companies now evaluate spending much more closely.

Bad purchases are much riskier now for the individual. This has buyers and vendors on edge. How can teams tip the scale in their favor?

Relationships are the key. When a product or solution is already proven, this removes a lot of risk for the buyer.

Proven solutions earn buyer trust and reduce personal risk for the decision-maker.

Tapping into existing relationships gives your team a real edge. When a champion from a past deal moves to a new company, that's a warm signal—and often a faster path to pipeline than cold outreach. Tracking those job changes and acting on them quickly is where this motion pays off.

What Strong Teams Do in a Difficult Market

Markets shift. The teams that build efficient, relationship-led motions now will be better positioned when conditions improve.

Founders need to act on the three areas above—set realistic targets, gather peer data, and protect your highest-value relationships. The leaders navigating this well are the ones resetting expectations early, talking to peers, and doubling down on relationships where trust already exists.