My sales leader claims that tracking weekly proposals submitted is a strong leading indicator, but our closing rate is highly volatile and we still miss revenue targets. How do we find a better leading activity metric that actually predicts signed deals?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A proposal submitted is often too far down the sales funnel to serve as a true leading indicator. By the time a proposal is written, weeks of sales activity have already occurred. If the quality of the discovery or qualification was poor, the proposal is just a lagging indicator of wasted time.

To fix this, you must push the metric further upstream to track the activities that directly generate high-quality proposals. Focus on the behaviors that your sales team can fully control every week.

Consider tracking metrics such as qualified discovery meetings completed, target account outreach conversations, or completed diagnostic assessments. These are true activity-based leading indicators. If your team is not conducting diagnostic assessments, you can predict a drop in proposals and revenue weeks before it happens.

Review your sales process and identify the exact gate where a prospect transitions from a lead to an active opportunity. Track the quantity of prospects passing through that specific gate.

If your closing rate is highly volatile, your leading metric might actually be a qualification score. Track the percentage of active deals that meet your ideal client profile criteria. By keeping this metric on your leadership team Scorecard, you ensure your sales pipeline contains high-value targets. This activity-based discipline creates predictable revenue and builds enterprise value that buyers will pay a premium for when you exit.