Revenue Spillage: Money Lost Before It Even Starts
Spillage is the revenue that evaporates at the very beginning of the revenue lifecycle, during scoping, pricing, proposals, and onboarding. It never reaches billing, which makes it easy to miss and costly to ignore. What revenue spillage is, plainly In wealth and asset management, small choices at the start of a relationship compound. A cautious discount to “win the deal,” a proposal that drifts from policy, a household not linked on day one – each decision seems harmless. Together they create spillage: value lost before the first invoice is generated. It’s not a back-office error or a collections issue. It’s a front-of-house problem that hides in everyday decisions. Why spillage is everywhere Most firms don’t deliberately under-price. Spillage happens because frontline teams are trying to do the right thing for clients with imperfect information and uneven guardrails. Common realities we see across the industry: None of these issues look dramatic in isolation. But they skew forecasts, thin margins, and create operational noise that distracts leadership from growth. Where you’ll notice it first Spillage shows up in patterns, not single events. Leaders often spot it when: If these symptoms feel familiar, you’re not alone. This is industry-wide, and fixable. Why this is mission-critical Because spillage is invisible to most reporting. If a discount happens before an account is live, it rarely triggers a reconciliation break. Forecasts look fine until actuals arrive light. Over time, those small variances become a structural drag on profitability and a source of frustration for frontline teams who feel forced to discount “just in case.” The antidote isn’t aggressive pricing; it’s confidence. When teams have credible context, recent comparables, segment guidance, clarity on what’s included, discounts become intentional choices instead of reflexes. How to reduce spillage without boiling the ocean For a structured overview of levers, pricing architecture, revenue packaging, segmented monetisation, and governance, read more about Core Levers here. Where to go next If you need language or checklists to align cross-functional teams, start with the signals and triage checklist, then use the whitepaper for deeper background on incentive design and governance patterns. Together, these two resources frame the problem clearly and help teams make better, more consistent pricing decisions.