Why is it that sales teams so often fall short of their targets a few months after a really solid quarter?
It generally has little to do with what you're doing right now. Your team likely didn’t mess up following up deals, and your close rate is probably fine.
Most likely, they just got busy closing deals while forgetting to replace what they removed. Building pipeline is hard, so keeping busy with closing deals gives us a seemingly rational and justifiable reason to "do it later".
After all, what's more important than closing deals?
The fix? While there isn't a silver bullet, you can encourage the right behavior with a few simple reports. If you watch the three key reports we'll discuss below you'll be better equipped to catch the issue before it's too late.
Three key reports to help you maintain your sales momentum
Pipeline coverage
- Question: do we have enough potential revenue in the pipeline to hit the number this period?
- How: total amount of all deals with close date in the period ÷ quota for that period
Pipeline replacement
- Question: are we backfilling what we’re winning, losing, or pushing out?
- Pipeline Replacement Rate (PRR): in‑period pipeline created ÷...
