Sales Velocity

Sales velocity is related to but distinct from pipeline velocity. While pipeline velocity is a composite formula measuring aggregate revenue throughput, sales velocity zooms in on how quickly individual deals progress through stages. It's the metric that tells you where deals get stuck and why.

What Sales Velocity Reveals

• Stage duration analysis: How long do deals spend in each stage? If "Proposal" averages 18 days but "Negotiation" averages 35, you know where the bottleneck lives.
• Velocity by segment: Enterprise deals naturally move slower than mid-market. But how much slower? If enterprise deals take 4x longer but are only 2x larger, the unit economics don't work.
• Rep-level variance: If one rep's deals move through discovery in 5 days and another's take 20, that's a coaching opportunity or a territory problem.
• Product-line differences: New products vs established products, platform vs point solution. Each has its own natural velocity.

Using Velocity Data

The most actionable use of sales velocity data is identifying stalled deals before they die. A deal that's been in the same stage for 2x the average duration is either stuck or dead. RevOps should build automated alerts that flag deals exceeding stage duration thresholds and trigger manager intervention.

Velocity also informs forecasting. A deal that moved through three stages in two weeks has different close probability than one that's been in Stage 3 for six weeks, even if both reps say "it's looking good." See RevOps KPIs for the full metrics framework.