How to Analyze Your Sales Cycle Data

I met a sales team that tracks 27 different metrics. But none of them matter. They measure: - Calls made - Emails sent - Meetings booked - Demos delivered - Talk-to-listen ratio - Response time - Pipeline coverage But they all miss the most important number: How often prospects share your content with others. This hit me yesterday. We analyzed our last 200 deals: Won deals: Champion shared content with 5+ stakeholders Lost deals: Champion shared with fewer than 2 people It wasn't about our: - Product demos - Discovery questions - Pricing strategy - Negotiation skills It was about whether our champion could effectively sell for us. Think about your current pipeline: Do you know how many people have seen your proposal? Do you know which slides your champion shared internally? Do you know who viewed your pricing? Most sales leaders have no idea. They're optimizing metrics that don't drive decisions. Look at your CRM right now. I bet it tracks: ✅ When YOU last emailed a prospect ❌ When THEY last shared your content ✅ How many calls YOU made ❌ How many stakeholders viewed your materials ✅ When YOU sent a proposal ❌ How much time they spent reviewing it We've built dashboards to measure everything except what actually matters. The real sales metric that predicts closed deals: Internal Sharing Velocity (ISV) How quickly and widely your champion distributes your content to other stakeholders. High ISV = Deals close Low ISV = Deals stall We completely rebuilt our sales process around this insight: - Redesigned all content to be shareable, not just readable - Created spaces where champions could easily distribute information - Built analytics to measure exactly who engaged with what - Trained reps to optimize for sharing, not for responses Result? Win rates up 35%. Sales cycles shortened by 42%. Forecasting accuracy improved by 60%. Stop obsessing over your activity metrics. Start measuring how effectively your champions sell for you. If your CRM can't tell you how often your content is shared internally, you're operating in the dark. And that's why your forecasts are always wrong. Your move.

In June, I talked to a Head of Sales whose team had plateaued. In 3 questions, we unpacked why his team was stalled and fixed it (and check out real numbers improvements at the bottom!): What are the 3 questions: 1. How many OOs do AEs have? 2. How many OAOs do AEs have? 3. What % of meetings get the next call booked during the call? Breaking it down... 1. How many OOs do AEs have? OO - Open Opps - all opps that aren't won or lost in a rep's pipeline. CRM data showed us 63 OOs per rep, on average (felt high to me). 2. How many OAOs do AEs have? OAO - Open Active Opportunities - The number of opps a rep has that are actively being worked (any activity in the last 30 days - this is a generous definition, I prefer a more aggressive 14 days or less measurement). CRM data showed us 28% of OOs had no email or call activity in 30 days, 44% had not meetings in the last 30 days (uh oh, this is really bad). 3. What % of meetings get the next call booked during the call? Booking the next meeting while on the current one is a sign your team is locked in, knows where to take buyers, and is intentionally moving deals forward. CI data showed us 60% of sales calls resulted in booking another call (there's some room for improvement but not a ton). How do we add up the clues to figure out the mystery of this team's growth stall? I've found that in mid-market more than 25-30 OOs results in pronounced decreases in win rate, deal size, and cycle time (the Holy Trinity of Divine Sales Performance). Reps just have too many deals to work them correctly, especially if they have non-closing expectations (e.g. prospecting, service, onboarding, lots of admin, etc). So, they don't email, call, meet with their opps enough. They don't have enough time to be thoughtful and properly prep for meetings. There's no deal momentum. We see all of that in the data. One last insight helped us nail the issue: 63% of OOs were self-sourced. AHA! Moment: Reps are prospecting at the expense of closing. I love a rep with tons of pipeline they self-sourced by knowing the buyer data they need, getting it, contextualizing it in the buyers' POV and their own value prop, and creating compelling and relevant messaging that attracts buyers into conversations. But, there's a point when fear, pressure, sales activity expectations, and managing the org not the individual crosses a line from efficiency productivity to self-defeating busy-work. This team ended up prospecting less which decreased OOs by 15% and a: - 8% increase in conversion - 5% increase in deal size - 10% decrease in cycle time - and...wait for it...45% increase in tier 1 lead volume coming in the pipeline They slowed down to speed up. Less (and higher quality) prospecting led to working the right accounts increasing win rate, deal size and cycle time. From an attainment perspective, the team went from 98% to 102% to 129% over 2 quarters while revenue increased 48%. Less can be more.

Results = activity x effectiveness. How do you measure activity or effectiveness in a large sales organization? Starting this month, Outreach sellers, managers, and admins will have full analytics of their entire sales funnel - from initial outbound to revenue booked. This means understanding how sales activity converts to conversations with prospects, how conversations convert to meetings booked, how meetings convert to pipeline created, and how pipeline converts to revenue. TL;DR: this report gives you a 360° view of sales Activity and Effectiveness. You can use this report to: 1. Use data to identify specific points of bottleneck in the sales process for more targeted improvements - whether it's building lead nurturing automation, improving follow-up processes, or refining sales messaging. 2. Set more realistic goals by leveraging your own historical data, conversion rates, and rates of improvement. 3. Understand where to allocate more resources (ex: orgs that struggle to convert meetings to pipeline may benefit from additional enablement on how to hold effective demos and discovery calls). 4. Coach more effectively by comparing metrics between various teams and individual reps to scale the winning strategies of your top reps. This report is a major gap in the Sales Engagement ecosystem and I can't wait for our customers to see it live in their platforms! If you want to learn more, I'll link our May Product webinar in the comments below 👇

According to HubSpot, businesses with well-defined KPIs are 5x more likely to achieve their goals. Uncover the top three KPIs every sales manager should track to shorten sales cycles and boost conversions. Let's break down three KPIs that can radically improve your sales process and drive results. 1. Sales Cycle Length Description: Measures the average time it takes for a lead to move through your entire sales cycle, from initial contact to closing the deal. How to Calculate: Sum the total number of days each deal takes to close, then divide by the number of closed deals. Why It’s Important: Knowing your average sales cycle length helps in forecasting sales and managing team expectations. It can also pinpoint stages where deals tend to stall. Example: If you're selling enterprise software and notice the demo phase consistently adds an extra week to your sales cycle, you might streamline the demo process or provide additional training to your sales team to handle objections effectively. 2. Lead Conversion Rate (LCR) Description: The percentage of leads that convert into actual sales. How to Calculate: Divide the number of sales by the number of leads, then multiply by 100 to get a percentage. Why It’s Important: LCR helps you assess the effectiveness of your lead generation and qualification efforts. Improving this rate can significantly increase revenue without increasing lead generation costs. Example: After tweaking your qualification criteria, you track LCR to see if the new criteria are better at identifying leads that are more likely to close, thus optimizing resource allocation. 3. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Description: The total cost spent on acquiring a new customer, including all marketing and sales expenses. How to Calculate: Sum all marketing and sales costs over a given period and divide by the number of new customers acquired during that period. Why It’s Important: CAC is crucial for understanding how much you're spending to gain each customer, helping to optimize marketing strategies and budget allocation for maximum ROI. Example: If your CAC is high, you might explore more efficient channels or improve sales team efficiency to reduce costs, particularly in how you handle those multiple touchpoints in your long sales cycle. 🌟 Wrap-Up: Tracking these KPIs provides not just a snapshot of your sales health but a roadmap for strategic adjustments. Whether it's shortening the sales cycle, improving lead conversion, or reducing customer acquisition costs, these metrics are vital for any sales manager dealing with complex, high-ticket sales. #SalesManagement #BusinessIntelligence #KPIs #DataAnalytics