Prospecting cycle length: Measure the time between (a) when the prospect first responds to a campaign to (b) when a quality opportunity is created or qualified; this means the quota-carrying Account Executive has re-qualified and accepted the opportunity that the prospector passed over. Incidentally, my rule of thumb is that it takes 2-4 weeks, on average, to qualify a new opportunity from an initial response. Sales cycle length: I like to measure the time from (a) when the opportunity was created or qualified to (b) when it closed. If you have trouble measuring this, just sit down with your
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