How to Measure Pipeline Quality

Demand Capture 101. This is actual data from a $60MM ARR SaaS company. Let’s break it down 👇   How a lead/account enters your pipeline is the biggest predictor of sales velocity metrics - win rates, sales cycle lengths, even ACVs.    Because how they enter your pipeline is a surrogate for buying intent & indicator of how far they are complete in the buying process.    Here’s how to measure it & use it to drive your revenue strategy:   1. Measure the Opportunity Source in Salesforce on the opportunity record.    Campaign Source = What campaign type did they convert on to move this opportunity into pipeline? (e.g. demo request, e-book download, cold call, trade show, etc.)   Source / Channel = What source or channel did they come from in order to convert? (e.g. LinkedIn ad, organic search, account intent data, ZoomInfo, etc.)    Using both of these data points combined will literally guide your strategy.    This shows you the optimal paths to *capture demand* and is easily measurable using software-based attribution.   2. Separate conversion sources between *Declared Intent* and *Low Intent*.    Declared Intent = The buyer declares intent to buy from you (e.g. Demo Request, Contact Sales) Low Intent = You assume the buyer has intent based on their digital behavior (e.g. ebook download, webinar attendee, trade show badge scan, intent data, etc.)    3. Calculate core sales analytics between the two sources.    Calculate conversion rates, lead-to-win rate, net new ARR, sales velocity, and more.    4. Visualize how much conversion intent matters to sales velocity and sales productivity.    149X higher lead-to-win rates for declared intent conversions   Declared intent = 26 “leads” to win 1 deal for $54k ARR Low Intent = 3,868 “leads” to win 1 deal for $130k ARR   18X greater sales velocity for declared intent conversions   Declared intent = $14.2MM annual sales velocity Low intent = $781k annual sales velocity 5. Recognize not all MQLs are created equal Measuring on MQLs incentivizes teams to get the most volume of MQLs for the lowest cost (low intent conversions), which is entirely misaligned with sales productivity and sales goals. Separate these into two Pipeline Sources (Declared Intent, Low Intent). Plan and build your goals for these two sources separately.   __   Now you know exactly HOW you want buyers to enter pipeline (capture demand) for maximum sales velocity & sales team efficiency. You also know exactly WHY buyers choose to take those paths to enter pipeline & WHAT triggers / channels / tactics move them to conversion. And with all of these insights, you can re-architect your strategy that optimizes for REVENUE. #revenue #sales #marketing #b2b #gtm p.s. Every SaaS company’s data looks like this, because it’s universal to how buyers buy. Most just don’t take the 3 hours of time to analyze their own data and see it for themselves.

Sales leaders love themselves some dashboards (even if too many are tracking theater, not progress): “25 discovery calls this week!” Coolio. Did any of them matter? The reps who look busiest aren’t always the ones closing. Activity does not = advancement. Just like running laps in the parking lot won’t win you a race. The only metric that matters: Pipeline progression tied to buyer intent. That means: 1. Track qualified movement, not raw meetings. Rewrite your stage exit criteria: a deal can't move from “Discovery” to “Demo” without a clearly documented pain, business impact, and a next meeting scheduled with an economic buyer. Your pipeline might drop, but your close rates will jump. 2. Spot conversion bottlenecks. A team we work with at Sales Assembly noticed they were averaging 40 demos a month...and closing 3. They ran a win/loss analysis and found their demo narrative was too product-heavy and not tailored to persona pain. Post-rework, demo-to-proposal jumped from 8% to 21%. 3. Inspect actions, not just stages. At one org, reps kept marking deals as “Proposal Sent” - but CSATs post-close were tanking. Why? No multithreading. No mutual action plans. No exec alignment. They launched a stage inspection checklist that required evidence (emails, call notes, stakeholder map) to advance stages. Forecast accuracy improved 33% in two quarters. 4. Use intent signals as conversion gates. Instead of just counting meetings, one sales team only advanced opps when a stakeholder asked a strategic question (e.g., “How would this fit with our current tech stack?”) or volunteered internal friction. That small tweak led to leaner pipelines...and higher win rates. At the end of the day, most teams don’t have a pipeline problem. They have a diagnostic problem. They’re managing motion instead of momentum. Reporting on meetings instead of meaningful movement. Stop rewarding reps for activity. Start rewarding them for traction. And if your dashboard can’t distinguish between the two? You don’t have a sales process. You have a scoreboard for busywork.

Your sales team is optimizing for the wrong metric, and it's costing you millions Most sales leaders are obsessed with pipeline coverage ratios. "We need 3x coverage to hit our number." "Generate more top-of-funnel activity." "Increase prospecting activity by 40%." But coverage ratios are a vanity metric that's actually destroying your team's performance. Here's why this thinking is backwards Traditional logic is the same old… More opportunities = Higher probability of hitting quota Build massive pipeline = Insurance against deal slippage BUT in reality Bigger pipelines create cognitive overload for reps Too many opportunities = Poor qualification and deal management Reps spread thin across 50+ "opportunities" instead of focusing on 15 real ones The highest-performing sales teams I work with have completely flipped this Instead of maximizing pipeline size, they maximize pipeline quality. The Quality-First Framework looks like this 1) Ruthless Qualification Standards Only deals with documented business impact, defined evaluation processes, and accessible buying teams make it into the pipeline. 2) Rep Capacity Management Each rep can effectively manage 12-15 active opportunities. Anything beyond that diminishes focus and results. 3) Stage Velocity Tracking Measure how fast deals move through stages, not how many deals exist in each stage. 4) Elimination Before Generation Before adding new opportunities, eliminate stalled ones. Clean pipeline = clear thinking. The math is crazy Team A: 200 opportunities, 15% close rate = 30 deals Team B: 100 high-quality opportunities, 35% close rate = 35 deals Team B wins with half the pipeline stress. Your reps aren't struggling because they need more opportunities. They're struggling because they can't focus on the right ones. Share with a leader who needs to hear this ^^