Take one day out of every stage

When a software business is behind plan, the conversation usually turns to two numbers: more pipeline, or a better win rate. Both are hard to move quickly. One costs money in marketing, the other takes months of coaching.

There's a third number that's cheaper to move and that most businesses barely measure: how long deals spend in each stage.

What a day is worth

Take an illustration. A business has a six-stage sales process and an average cycle of 120 days. Take one day out of each stage and the cycle drops to 114 days. That's 5% faster.

It sounds small. Here's what it does.

Deals that would have slipped into next quarter close in this one. Over a year, the same pipeline produces more closed revenue because each deal spends less time in it. And deals that move faster tend to win more often, because the longer a deal sits, the more chances there are for a budget to move, a sponsor to leave or a competitor to arrive. Every sales leader knows this from experience, even if they've never measured it.

In a large business, that compounds into serious money. When I worked through the numbers for a group with a plan in the hundreds of millions, a day per stage was worth a sum the board took very seriously. For a £20m business it's still worth having.

Why nobody measures it

Most CRMs record the stage a deal is in. Few report how long it's been there, and fewer compare that with how long deals normally spend there.

So a deal that's been in "proposal" for 40 days, when the average for that rep is 12, looks exactly the same in the pipeline report as one that arrived yesterday. Nobody gets an alert. Nobody asks why.

Where the days go

When you do measure it, the delays tend to cluster in a few predictable places.

Waiting on us. Proposals that take a week to write. Pricing approvals that sit in someone's inbox. Legal reviews that start only when the customer asks. These are entirely within your control, and often the easiest days to win back.

No dated next step. The meeting ended with "we'll be in touch". Nobody agreed what happens next or when. Days turn into weeks without anyone noticing.

The wrong person. The rep is talking to someone keen who can't sign. Everything slows down at the point the real decision-maker needs to get involved.

Late commercial surprises. Procurement arrives in the last stage with requirements nobody asked about earlier. Security questionnaires, contract terms, payment schedules.

How to win the days back

Measure stage age against normal. For each rep and each stage, work out how long deals usually take. Flag anything sitting more than half as long again. When we built velocity tracking into an AI deal-management system, alerts on deals moving unusually slowly (or unusually fast, which can mean a stage was skipped) were among the features sales leaders valued most.

Make "next step with a date" non-negotiable. No deal leaves a meeting without one. Check it in every pipeline review.

Fix your own delays first. Set a turnaround time for proposals, pricing approval and legal review, and track it. It's the one place you don't need the customer's cooperation.

Bring procurement forward. Ask about their process, their paperwork and their timetable in the second meeting, not the fifth.

Review the slow deals, not the big ones. Pipeline reviews usually focus on the largest deals. Spend some of that time on the ones that have stopped moving.

Why it matters in a turnaround

A turnaround is a race against the board's patience. More pipeline takes two quarters to show up in revenue. Better win rates take longer. Speed shows up in the next quarter's numbers, because it works on deals you already have.

It's not the whole answer. But it's the part that pays first.

Velocity, deal desk and pipeline discipline are part of Veridian's Revenue Turnaround and Recovery programme. Start a conversation.