3 Fresh Perspectives On Your Sales Cycle

The sales cycle is one of the most important metrics sales managers should track with Salesforce data. The easiest to estimate and most commonly viewed version of the sales cycle is the average number of days to close a deal.

But there are three other sales cycle drill downs that provide you with valuable information about individual reps, clients, and opportunities.

1. Employee Breakdown

You know that the sales cycle for the entire team is an aggregate average of your team. But have you ever broken down the sales cycle by rep? This new perspective helps you identify the strengths and weaknesses for each rep. You can instantly see who moves prospects through the pipeline the fastest, and which stages take the longest.

This perspective on the sales cycle gives you another valuable data point to create a quota that you can hold your reps accountable for at the end of the month.

2. Client Breakdown

This organization of the sales cycle is especially useful when you have repeat orders from the same company because you know exactly how long it takes to close a deal on average. Drilling down into your sales cycle by existing clients allows you budget your time based on deals in the past. Software-as-a-Service companies generally do not use this tab very often because bookings are normally made on a subscription basis.

3. By Won/Loss

Is your sales team holding onto prospects for too long? That is the question every sales team faces when prospects drag their feet. Organizing your sales cycle by wins and losses provides you with quantitative data to help you make that decision.

Win and loss behavior aggregated over time tends to correlate with the amount of time a prospect spends in each stage of the funnel. Analyzing your sales cycle by wins and losses helps you quickly identify which leads are a drag on your sales cycle so you can minimize the time you waste on prospects that won’t ever convert.

Your Fresh New Perspectives

That was a quick look at three new ways to look at your sales cycle. These three measures can make you more efficient day-to-day since you can visually see who performs well on your sales team, estimate the time to close deals with existing clients, and focus on prospects that are more likely to close. Monitoring your sales cycle in these three ways will make your business more efficient and ultimately lead to more revenue.

Want an easier way to pull these metrics? Learn more about how InsightSquared simplifies your life with a free demo.