Colleen’s Blog

It's the thing you always do because it worked before. Much like the delivery person whose route over the years has consisted of taking as many right turns as possible to save time, sales leaders have a tendency of relying on time-honoured habits in the execution of their work.

I've stopped more than one CEO in their tracks when I've heard them utter this phrase: "I need you to fix a sales problem I have." Doing the fixing is not what I do.

Sales velocity is a powerful metric that every sales leader must know inside out. While it measures how fast you're making sales and earning revenue, it gives you something even more valuable. You gain an understanding of the relationship between the four key activities that comprise your sales velocity: opportunities, deal size, closing rate and sales-cycle speed.

So far in this series—which looks at four adjustments you can make to improve your sales velocity — each activity has involved both a planning and execution stage.

So far in this series on sales velocity—which is all about understanding how fast you and your team are making sales and earning revenue—we've talked about what you need to do more of. More opportunities earned, for instance, means a bigger, healthier sales pipeline for your business.

In this series, we're looking at sales velocity: measuring how fast your team is making sales and earning revenue. The reason it's one of your most important metrics—and predictors—of success is that it gives you the flexibility to make adjustments in four key areas: opportunities, deal size, win/lose rate and sales cycle time.