The idea is the “push is on!” The downfall is throughput is very poor as we lack the smoothing consistanty of the close which of course smooths the backlog for ops and billing for revenue flow.

Closed orders look to me as though they are driven more by client annual budget (spend it or you lose it) pressures, rather than by the sales process/proposition creating urgency.

- This is why orders are low at the start of the year and build as the year goes on. (Then fall off a cliff again for January).

This, with the exception of period 9 – where I would guess that a ‘time limited’ promotion was the cause, both of the increase in leads and in sales.
- But at what cost to margin?

Fun to guess, but would need more data to look at the true picture – ie sales lead conversion days would be a good start.

I look forward to your answer next week.

I agree that it looks as though closing is depressing lead rates, which can cause a feast and famine cycle.

It also looks as though very little work is getting done in month 2/3, both months are below the norms and close to lower limits.

Last, the controls limits include 4-6x variation between the lower control and the upper control. This indicates a process that is not really under control at all–and will swing wildly from period to period.

I infer from these sales process charts that, although the team made their numbers during the year in question, they wouldn’t make them the following year. Also, I suspect their process is biased towards later stage selling activities versus early stage ones.

It is also, from my experience, is a symptom of a much bigger problem: the sales team lacks a definitive sales process. If they have one it no longer matches the buying process.

Mark Allen Roberts