Deal Velocity
How fast deals move through your pipeline stages. Fast isn't always good — deals that skip stages often churn. The goal is consistent, predictable movement with clear stage criteria that actually gate progression.
Current velocity: 100 opps × 25% win rate × $50K ACV ÷ 90 days = $13,889/day in revenue. Reducing cycle to 75 days: $16,667/day — 20% improvement without changing win rate or deal size. Improving win rate to 30%: $16,667/day — same impact, different lever.
Deal velocity is the speed limit of your revenue engine. Too slow and pipeline ages out. Too fast and you skip steps that predict churn.
Most pipeline velocity problems aren't about speed — they're about inconsistency. One deal takes 30 days, another takes 120, same deal size, same segment. That's a process problem disguised as a speed problem.
The real questions: Are deals progressing stage-to-stage at consistent rates? Which stages have the biggest drop-off? Where do deals stall and age out?
RevOps angle: velocity optimization starts with stage definition. If stages don't have clear entry and exit criteria, you can't measure velocity meaningfully because stages don't mean anything consistent.
Define ItOther Definitions
“Sales velocity measures how quickly deals move through the pipeline and generate revenue. It combines win rate, deal size, and cycle length into a single metric.”
“Deal velocity tracks the rate at which opportunities progress through pipeline stages. Faster velocity with maintained win rates indicates sales process efficiency.”
“Sales velocity is the speed at which you make money. It's influenced by the number of opportunities, deal value, win rate, and length of sales cycle.”
Deal velocity measures how quickly opportunities convert to revenue. Salesforce presents the classic velocity formula combining multiple factors. InsightSquared focuses on stage progression rate. Gong simplifies it as "speed at which you make money."
Velocity components: (1) Pipeline Volume — number of opportunities; (2) Win Rate — percentage that close; (3) Deal Size — average contract value; (4) Cycle Length — time from creation to close.
Stage velocity is equally important — measuring days in each stage to find bottlenecks. Healthy pipeline has consistent stage velocity with clear inflection points at qualification and proposal stages.
MistakesCommon Mistakes
Optimizing for speed at the expense of win rate
Inconsistent stage definitions making velocity meaningless
Not segmenting velocity by deal type, size, or channel
Pushing deals through stages without proper qualification
Focusing on closed-won velocity while ignoring stage-to-stage velocity
Knowing the definition won't fix the leak.
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