📉 Intelligence Half-Life Framework
Your revenue intelligence is decaying right now. Here's how fast, and what you can do about it.
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Use this page as a living explainer plus a self-assessment you can run with your team.
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What is Intelligence Half-Life?
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The Core Problem
Your GTM system has no feedback loops. Every insight is a one-way street. Nothing learns. Nothing evolves. Everything decays.
Most companies:
- 📊 Run expensive workshops → Create brilliant ICPs, personas, strategies
- 📁 Document everything → Slides, wikis, Notion pages
- 🤞 Hope it works → Launch campaigns, run sales plays
- 😶 Six months later → Realize nothing from the workshop is still being used
Result: You're flying blind on 6‑month‑old assumptions while the market moved on 3 months ago.
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📊 Intelligence Decay Rates by Type
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Customer Intelligence
Half‑Life: ~6 months
What decays:
- Competitor landscape
- Customer pain points
- Buying patterns
- Persona attributes
Example:
- Month 0: "Our buyers are VP Sales at 100‑500 person companies"
- Month 6: Shift to Director‑level at 50‑200 person companies
- Month 12: Targeting is off. ICP never updated
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Revenue Intelligence
Half‑Life: ~5 months
What decays:
- Channel effectiveness
- Attribution patterns
- Conversion rates
- Deal velocity
Example:
- Month 0: "LinkedIn drives 40% of pipeline at $200 CAC"
- Month 5: CAC $450 but budget unchanged
- Month 10: Burning budget on a channel that no longer works
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Execution Intelligence
Half‑Life: ~4 months
What decays:
- Playbook effectiveness
- Campaign performance
- Process efficiency
- Resource allocation
Example:
- Month 0: "ROI Calculator" converts at 25%
- Month 4: Market saturation → 8%
- Month 8: Same offer still promoted
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Performance Intelligence
Half‑Life: ~3 months
What decays:
- Leading indicators
- Benchmark targets
- Metric correlations
- Forecast accuracy
Example:
- Month 0: 3x pipeline coverage predicts target
- Month 3: Longer cycles → need 4x
- Month 6: Forecasts miss. Model is stale
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The Feedback Loop Difference
Without Feedback Loops (Traditional):
Workshop → Document → Execute → Decay → Repeat
- Intelligence loses 50% relevance every 3‑6 months
- After 12 months: ~25% relevant
- After 18 months: Basically guessing
With Feedback Loops (Living Intelligence):
Workshop → Capture → Validate → Adjust → Capture → Validate...
- Intelligence compounds 20‑40% every quarter
- After 12 months: 2‑3x more intelligent
- After 18 months: Predicts market changes
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Your Reality Check
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Score your intelligence decay
- 8+ top‑choice answers → Holding up, but still decaying 15‑25%/yr without loops
- 4‑7 top‑choice answers → Decaying 40‑60%/yr. Decisions on stale assumptions
- 0‑3 top‑choice answers → 70%+ decay since last initiative. Flying blind
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Why this matters
2×2: Decay vs. Compounding