How well do typical KPIs around deal progression capture potential bottlenecks in the sales pipeline, and what are some effective strategies to accelerate the sales cycle across different customer segments?

KPIs around deal progression can help to identify trends in sales duration, close rate and similar. So changes in the typical pipeline coverage needed can be observed early on. This will be a leading indicator for pipeline gaps and can trigger required actions.

Effective sales strategies can include multi-threading and broader stakeholder management. If there is a shift in buying personas this should also be identified and addressed.

KPIs that are looking at the length of a sales cycle can identify bottlenecks in the pipeline and highlight opportunities that have been in the pipeline for too long. For example, an opportunity that has been in the pipeline for over 90 days could suggest a lower win rate if your average sales cycle is usually 30 days. From there, you can then dig further in to specific opportunities to understand whether the opportunity has been properly qualified or genuinely will take longer to close, as the AOV is well above the norm of your usual average AOV.

KPIs that look at Lookalike sales cycles within your business could be an effective way to accelerate and better understand customer segment buying patterns.