Some call it pipeline velocity. Others call it pipeline movement.

I like to keep it simple:

When you look at your pipeline, are things actually progressing... or are they just sitting there?

Throughout my career, I have reviewed A LOT of pipelines. A lesson I've learned is that you cannot treat every opportunity sitting in your pipeline as though it has the same ability to close.

It doesn't.  

A $100,000 opportunity that is actively progressing with an engaged buyer is very different from a $100,000 opportunity that hasn't moved or had meaningful customer engagement in 30 days.

Yet on a pipeline report, they can look exactly the same. That's why movement matters.

First, Know Where Your Opportunities Really Are

In an earlier blog, I talked about the importance of having clearly defined stages in your pipeline.

As a sales rep, you need to know which deals are at the beginning of the conversation, which have a defined business need, which are evaluating your solution, which are negotiating, and which are truly approaching a decision.

I've used stages similar to these:

Qualified Lead → Business Need Identified → Solution Evaluation/Demo → Negotiation → Proposal Review → Contract Sent

Your stages may look completely different, and that's okay. What matters is that your stages actually tell you where the opportunity is and what still needs to happen to move it forward.

This helps eliminate something I've seen throughout my sales career:  Hopium!

Hopium is when we really, really hope a deal is going to move quickly and close, but the facts don't necessarily support it. Every sales rep and sales leader has experienced a little hopium. The problem comes when we start forecasting based on it.

Clearly defined stages help remove some of that emotion and keep the opportunity in perspective.

Movement Is a Leading Indicator

Pipeline movement is a leading indicator of what may be coming. If opportunities aren't progressing through your stages at the expected pace, you can often see the revenue problem before you miss the revenue number.

And it's not just about whether an opportunity moved, it's also about how long it has been sitting there matters too. Sometimes opportunities like to "camp out" in a stage.  Maybe the rep hasn't progressed the deal, maybe the customer has gone quiet, maybe nobody knows the next step.

Or maybe, if we're being truthful, the rep forgot about it and it has been sitting in the CRM ever since (it happens more than we care to acknowledge).

This is why pipeline visibility and measurement are so important. The appropriate timeline is going to vary depending on your product, industry, average sales cycle, and deal complexity. But throughout my career, I always started getting concerned when I saw an opportunity with no meaningful communication or activity for 30–45 days.

To me, that signals, the deal is getting cold. And cold deals don’t usually get warmer by leaving them in the pipeline longer. (hopium)

Activity Does NOT Always Equal Movement

This is an important distinction.

A salesperson can send another email, leave another voicemail, schedule another follow-up task… THAT is activity! 

But did the deal actually move? Movement means something changed. The customer agreed to a next step. A new stakeholder became involved. The business need was validated. A demo was scheduled. A proposal was requested. Negotiations began. A decision date was established.

That's very different from:

"I emailed them again Tuesday."

This takes some monitoring, whether you're managing your own pipeline or leading a sales team.

Look at Stage Progression

Another metric I recommend watching is how successfully opportunities progress from one stage to the next.

For example: Discovery → Demo → Proposal → Close

What percentage of opportunities actually make each transition?

Now you're beginning to connect your sales activity to outcomes. And you're also starting to understand whether a rep is consistently progressing opportunities or whether results are occasionally being helped by what I call bluebirds.

And just to be clear...Bluebirds aren't bad! I'll take a bluebird sale any day. But it's really hard to build a predictable, growing business on bluebirds.

So How Do You Know if the Deals in Your Pipeline Are Legit?

One of the simplest things you can look for is a clear next step. Every legitimate opportunity should have one.

If there are no next steps, no customer commitment, well……. It's probably a questionable opportunity.

Your Pipeline May Not Be as Full as You Think

This is where pipeline movement connects directly back to Pipeline Coverage, KPI #2 in this series.

Maybe your dashboard says you have 3X pipeline coverage (Sounds great, right?)

But what if 30% of those opportunities haven't moved in 60 days? Do you really have 3X coverage? (Probably not).

Stalled deals can create a false sense of security because the dollars are technically sitting in the CRM. But pipeline dollars and probable revenue are not the same thing.

Leaders: Look for Patterns

Pipeline movement isn't just about identifying individual stalled deals. It can tell you where your team needs help. If one rep has opportunities consistently stalling at the same stage, that's a coaching opportunity.

But if your entire team is getting stuck in the same place? Pay attention! You may have a bigger issue with discovery, qualification, value articulation, pricing, competition, your demo process, or something else in your sales system.

That's where a KPI becomes valuable!!!  You're not measuring movement just so you can put another number on a dashboard.  You're measuring it so you can recognize a problem early enough to do something about it.  The Secret Sauce!!

One More Thing...

Everything I've discussed here assumes the opportunities entering your pipeline are actually qualified opportunities.

If you're not using some type of methodology to determine whether an opportunity belongs in your pipeline in the first place, that's where I would start!   I’ve used MEDDIC, MEDDPICC, SPICED and I introduced a simplified one S.C.I.E.N.C.E.    Want more information?  Contact me! 

What If You Sell Consumable Products?

One final note because I spent a significant part of my career in industries where the "opportunity" wasn't always a software deal, service agreement, or large proposal. If you're selling consumable products, the same concept still applies. Instead of measuring the movement of an individual deal through stages, you may be measuring your progress toward winning the customer's business away from a competitor.

The labels may change, The principle doesn't.

Okay... I Admit It. I Geek Out on KPIs.

I can get a little geeked out on KPIs because, honestly, this is where you start removing the emotion from sales.

You stop guessing.

You stop relying on hopium.

Instead, you figure out the data behind what is actually happening, identify what drives the results, and build a sales system around it.

That's when sales starts to become more predictable.

And that's the whole point of leading KPIs. They aren't just numbers you put on a dashboard. They should tell you what's happening before it becomes a revenue problem and give you time to do something about it.

If all of this feels a little overwhelming, that's okay. You don't have to figure it all out at once.

Reach out. I'd love to talk through what you should be measuring and help you build a framework that works for you or your team.

Because the goal isn't to measure more things. It's to measure the right things... and know what to do with what they're telling you.

About Pivot 2 Performance 

Pivot 2 Performance was created to help sales professionals and sales leaders build the foundation behind the numbers  from daily activity and weekly rhythm to pipeline discipline, accountability, value, and more.

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