Bowtie model

What is the bowtie model?

The bowtie model is a revenue model that treats the customer journey after the sale as equal in weight to the journey before it. Winning by Design developed it for recurring revenue businesses. The left side covers acquisition, from first awareness to commitment. The right side covers onboarding, delivering impact, retention and expansion. The knot in the middle is the moment a prospect becomes a customer.

Why it matters to a revenue leader

A traditional funnel stops at the signed contract, which hides where most lifetime value is created in a recurring business. For a revenue leader in commercial services, the right side is where service agreements renew, repair work is pulled through and recurring monthly revenue grows. The bowtie makes sales, operations and account management answerable to one shared journey and one set of measures, so a renewal problem is visible long before the renewal date.

An HVAC services company signs 120 new maintenance agreements a year but renews only 78 percent of its existing ones. Mapped on a bowtie, the leak sits between commitment and first impact: customers whose first visit comes more than 60 days after signing renew far less often. The company moves every first visit inside 30 days and tracks it as a stage measure.