The short version
- A sales KPI is a number with a target and a day you check it. Most small teams need five to seven, not twenty.
- Take them from three layers: results (revenue against target, win rate, deal size), pipeline (coverage and new opportunities) and activity (meetings held and the calls that book them).
- Results tell you how last month went. Pipeline and activity tell you how next month will go, so check those mid-week.
- Set every target from your own team's last 8 to 12 weeks. Someone else's benchmark was measured on someone else's market.
- Put the seven on one sheet, look at it in the weekly meeting, and act on the one furthest off pace.
What is a sales KPI, and how is it different from a metric?
A metric is anything you can count: emails sent, calls made, deals open, days since the last order. A sales KPI is one of those numbers that you've given a target and a check day, and that you'd act on if it slipped. The glossary entry on sales KPIs has the one-line definition.
The difference matters because a dashboard of thirty metrics tells you everything and asks you to do nothing. Seven KPIs, each with a target and an owner, tell you on a Wednesday which one to fix.
Which sales KPIs should you track every week?
These seven cover the three layers. Swap the names for your own steps if your sale works differently.
| KPI | How to work it out | When to check it | What a miss usually means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue against target | Closed revenue this period / target for the period | Weekly, against the pace line | The pipeline and activity layers missed a few weeks ago |
| Win rate | Deals won / deals decided (won plus lost) | Monthly, over the last 8 to 12 weeks | Wrong buyers in the pipeline, or a weak proposal |
| Average deal size | Revenue won / deals won | Monthly | Discounting, or smaller buyers than last quarter |
| Pipeline coverage | Open pipeline due this period / target still to close | Weekly, for this month and next | Not enough new opportunities, or stale deals propping it up |
| New opportunities | Opportunities added this week | Weekly | Meetings aren't turning into real buying conversations |
| Meetings held | First meetings that actually happened | Weekly, by Wednesday | Too few booked, or too many no-shows |
| Calls or conversations | Outbound calls, or calls where you reached the right person | Daily | Time is going somewhere else, or the list is bad |
The first three are results. They're what you're paid on, and they only move after the month is over. The middle two are pipeline, and they tell you about the next four to eight weeks. The last two are activity, and they're the only ones a rep can change today.
If you track sales cycle length, check it monthly next to win rate. A cycle that stretches from five weeks to eight means next month's revenue arrives in the month after.
Which sales KPIs warn you while the month can still change?
A lagging KPI tells you what happened. Revenue, win rate and deal size are lagging: by the time they move, the weeks that caused it are gone.
A leading KPI moves first. Say your deals take about six weeks from first meeting to signature. Then the meetings your team holds this week are the revenue you close six weeks from now. If meetings drop in week one of the month, revenue drops in the month after next, and nothing on the revenue line will tell you until then.
So check the two kinds on different days. Look at activity and pipeline on Wednesday, while the week can still change. Look at results at month end, and use them to reset the rates behind next month's targets.
How to set KPI targets from one monthly number
Start from the revenue target and work back through your own rates, one step at a time. The numbers below are made up to show the sums. Round up at every step, because you can't hold part of a meeting.
Say a team of 5 reps has a target of $60,000 a month.
- $60,000 / $5,000 average deal = 12 deals.
- 12 deals / 25% win rate = 48 opportunities decided in the month.
- 48 opportunities / 50% of first meetings becoming an opportunity = 96 first meetings.
- 96 meetings / 4.33 weeks in a month = 22.2, so 23 meetings held a week, about 5 per rep.
- At a 25% win rate the team needs 1 / 25% = 4 times coverage: $240,000 of open pipeline due to close this month.
That gives the week's KPIs: 23 meetings held, 12 new opportunities (48 / 4.33 = 11.1, rounded up), and a pace line for revenue that says about $27,700 should be closed by the end of week two (2 / 4.33 x $60,000). Add the call number from your own call-to-meeting rate, and each rep has a target they can check on their phone.
Where do the 25% and the 50% come from? From your last 8 to 12 weeks. Count the deals won and lost, and the meetings that turned into opportunities, and divide. The win rate calculator does the first one, the quota calculator splits a team target by rep, and the activity calculator runs the whole chain from a target to this week's calls.
Which KPIs to track for each sales role
A rep should only carry KPIs they can move. Split them by who owns the step.
| Role | KPIs they own | The one to watch |
|---|---|---|
| SDR or BDR, booking for someone else | Calls, conversations, meetings booked | Show rate on the meetings they booked |
| Account executive or closer | Meetings held, new opportunities, deals won | Win rate |
| Full-cycle rep | All seven | Whichever is furthest off pace this month |
| Account manager | Renewals due, renewals won, expansion revenue | Renewals decided before the due date |
| Field rep or property agent | Listings taken, visits or viewings, offers, deals | Viewing to offer |
| Financial advisory team | Appointments set, first meetings, clients signed, new business written | First meeting to signed client |
| Sales manager | One-on-ones held, forecast against actual, team pipeline coverage | Coverage for next month |
The manager's row is the one teams skip. If you coach every rep every week and your forecast lands within a few percent, the team's KPIs usually follow.
Put them on one page: a weekly KPI sheet
A KPI no one sees is a KPI no one acts on. Put the seven on one sheet the whole team can open, with one row per rep and these columns:
- the KPI and this week's target
- the actual so far
- pace, as the actual divided by where the target says you should be today
- the owner
- one action, written by the owner, for anything under 80% of pace
Keep the sheet to one screen. If it needs scrolling, it has too many KPIs on it. The weekly sales report template gives each rep a one-page version to fill in on Friday.
How to review sales KPIs each week without a two-hour meeting
- Monday: each rep confirms this week's numbers from the sums above.
- Wednesday: look at activity and pipeline against pace. By the end of Wednesday a rep should be about 60% of the way through the week's activity. Short on meetings? Look at the calls. Short on calls? Look at the diary.
- Friday: close the week. Each rep sends their sheet with one line on what they'll change.
- Month end: redo win rate, deal size and the meeting-to-opportunity rate from the last 8 to 12 weeks, then reset next month's targets.
The team meeting only needs the KPIs that are off pace. The sales meeting agenda guide gives the 30-minute version, and anything about one rep goes to a one-on-one.
Sales KPI mistakes that make the numbers lie
- Tracking twenty. Nobody acts on twenty numbers. Pick seven and drop the rest from the weekly sheet.
- Copying a benchmark. A win rate from a blog was measured on another team's market, price and buyers. Yours is in your own last 8 to 12 weeks.
- Giving a rep a KPI they can't move. An SDR judged on revenue has no lever to pull.
- Rewarding the activity count alone. Pay or praise for dials and you get dials. Put meetings held beside calls.
- Counting stale deals in coverage. A deal with no contact for a month makes coverage look healthy and closes like nothing. Take it out before you trust the ratio.
- Moving the target mid-month. The KPI stops meaning anything, and the team learns the target is a suggestion.
- Reading only the team total. A team at 95% of pace can hide one rep at 40%.
The other sales KPIs: when each one matters and how to work it out
The seven above are the weekly sheet. The rest of the sales KPIs people search for are below, each with its formula and the moment it's worth checking. Five of them have a page of their own with a worked example and a calculator, and the sales KPI examples page lists them.
| KPI | How to work it out | When it matters | Where it's explained |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer acquisition cost | Sales and marketing costs / new customers won | Setting next quarter's budget | Customer acquisition cost |
| Client retention rate | (Clients at the end - new clients) / clients at the start | Most revenue comes from clients you already have | Client retention rate |
| Upsell rate | Clients who bought more / clients at the start | Next to retention, every quarter | Client retention rate |
| Sales cycle length | Days from first meeting to signature, averaged over deals won | Deals keep landing a month late | Sales cycle length |
| Average deal size | Revenue won / deals won | Turning a revenue target into a deal count | Average deal size |
| Pipeline value | Open deal value, or weighted: each stage's value x your win rate from it | Before you trust coverage | Pipeline value |
| Sales velocity, or pipeline velocity | Opportunities x average deal x win rate / cycle days | Picking which of the four to work on | Sales velocity |
| Quota attainment | Closed revenue / quota x 100 | Checking pace mid-quarter | Quota attainment |
| Opportunity to win ratio | Deals won / deals won plus lost | The same number as win rate, under another name | Win rate |
| Meetings booked | Meetings agreed this week, whether or not they happen | For whoever books meetings for someone else | Appointment setting |
| Show rate | Meetings held / meetings booked | The diary is full and the week still isn't | Appointment setting |
| Lead to meeting rate | Meetings booked / new leads | Leads come in and the diary stays empty | Conversion ratio |
| Meeting to close rate | Deals won / first meetings held | Meetings happen and few turn into deals | Conversion ratio |
| Proposal to close rate | Deals won / proposals sent | Proposals go out and go quiet | Conversion ratio |
| Lead response time | Median time from an enquiry to the first real reply | Leads arrive by form or message | Lead response time |
| Calls per day | Calls logged / working days | Reps who book their own meetings | Activity calculator |
| Connect rate | Calls that reached the right person / calls made | Dials are up and conversations aren't | Sales activity metrics |
| Talk time | Minutes on connected calls a day | Calls are short and meetings don't follow | Sales activity metrics |
| Emails sent | Sales emails sent a day or a week | Only next to the reply rate, never alone | Sales activity metrics |
| Follow-up rate | Open deals with a dated next step / open deals | The pipeline fills with deals nobody has touched | Sales cadence |
| Activity per rep | Activity points a week, per rep | Comparing reps who do different work | Activity points |
| Streak length | Days in a row a rep logged activity | Keeping a new rep going before the first deal | Activity points |
| New customers a month | First-time customers won in the month | Every new customer is a big share of revenue | Customer acquisition cost |
| Revenue per rep | Closed revenue / reps | Deciding whether to hire | Quota calculator |
| Referral rate | Customers who sent an introduction / active customers | Introductions are your cheapest source | Customer acquisition cost |
See which KPI is off pace by Wednesday
This guide is free. ActivityTracker, the app we make, is paid. Reps log their activity on their phone as they go, and the activity and pipeline layers fill themselves in.
- Calls, appointments and meetings are one tap each, logged with the time
- The funnel shows the rate at each step from appointment to deal over the last 7, 30 or 90 days, and names the step with the lowest rate
- A goal with a deadline shows what each month still needs, with a mark for where you should be by today
- A weekly goal counts every call and meeting logged toward it
- The leaderboard ranks the team by points from what they logged this week, with each rep's own target beside their score