Sales Cycle Lengths

3 fundamental sales KPIs that can be automated - Part 3

Sales Cycle Lengths

With the input and output of the sales engine measured, you now need to count the RPMs. In a combustion engine, RPM is short for Revolutions Per Minute measured at the crank. For our purposes, this number will be how fast we’re processing opportunities and getting the real answer (yes, or not today).

This one is the easiest to measure when your system is configured correctly. Opportunity age can be quickly calculated as days between CreatedDate and CloseDate.

Age by won vs lost: Are you dragging your feet thinking you can save a deal for too long? Age by closed month: Are you getting faster or slower at identifying customer needs and closing? Age by team/rep: Who in the team needs coaching and who can we all learn from? Age by lead source: Are certain lead sources problematic time-wasters? Age by product of interest: Do certain products require longer cycle times?

Automation Tips

Ensure that duplicates are managed with Salesforce built-in duplicate management and our lightning component for “Potential Duplicates Component”

Use report-sender to make sure partners always know what you have in your pipeline for them.

Ensure your validation rules are configured right so people will remember to enter the lost reason, competitors, etc. This can also be done with Report Sender to send lost deals list with full details to the sales team ahead of your weekly sales status call. This will allow for a fast offline snapshot review of what is killing deals.

Read also:

Part 2 - find holes in your funnel

Part 1 - new opportunities