Sales: KPIs
Pipeline quality, conversion and scoring calibration measures, and why activity metrics are the wrong instrument once outreach is cheap.
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Once research and drafting cost almost nothing, activity metrics stop measuring effort and start measuring output volume, which is not the same thing and is far easier to inflate.
These measure quality of pipeline and accuracy of judgement.
The six that matter#
| Measure | Definition | Target | How it gets gamed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Score calibration | Won rate of high scores against low scores | High scores win 3x more | Never checking, so the score becomes decoration |
| Qualified conversion | Qualified opportunities becoming customers | Above 20% | Qualifying generously, which inflates the denominator's quality on paper |
| Pipeline coverage | Pipeline value against target | 3x or better | Counting opportunities with no identified decision maker |
| Cycle length | First contact to signature | Falling | Only counting deals that closed, which excludes the slow ones |
| Proposal win rate | Proposals sent that win | Above 30% | Sending more proposals, which is now cheap and makes this fall while revenue rises |
| Reference accuracy | Claims made that survive checking | 100% | Nobody checks until a prospect does |
Score calibration is the one that decides whether any of this works. If deals scored 85 close at the same rate as deals scored 40, the model is noise and the team is right to ignore it. Check monthly against actual outcomes and adjust the model, not the memory.
Reference accuracy has no acceptable failure rate. One overstated claim about what we delivered, discovered by a prospect who calls the reference, costs more than the deal it was meant to win.
Two counter-metrics#
| Counter-metric | Catches |
|---|---|
| Unsubscribes and complaints per hundred contacted | Cheap outreach becoming spam. This number rising is a brand problem wearing a pipeline costume |
| Deals lost after proposal, by reason | Generated proposals promising what delivery cannot do. If "scope mismatch" leads the list, the problem is upstream of sales |
Pipeline quality, reviewed weekly#
| Question | Bad answer |
|---|---|
| How many opportunities have no identified decision maker? | Any, past first meeting |
| How many have had no contact in 21 days? | These are not pipeline; they are hope with a value attached |
| What is the average score of what we are working? | Falling means the team is working what is available rather than what is good |
| Which are stalled on us rather than on them? | The recoverable ones, and the ones nobody looks for |
What is deliberately not measured#
- Emails sent, calls made, contacts touched. Now nearly free and therefore meaningless.
- Leads generated. An agent can produce ten thousand. Quality is the only variable that matters.
- Meetings booked. Precedes value without predicting it.
- CRM completeness. Hygiene, not performance, and chasing it produces tidy fiction.
Cadence#
| Weekly | Pipeline quality, stalled deals, anything with no decision maker |
| Monthly | Score calibration, conversion, loss reasons, unsubscribe rate |
| Quarterly | Ideal customer profile review. It drifts, and the scoring model inherits the drift silently |
The quarterly profile review is the one to protect. Every other number here depends on the profile being right, and a profile written a year ago is scoring today's market against last year's assumptions.