Our Sales seat is hitting its weekly meeting and proposal metrics, but we keep signing clients with terrible payment terms that create cash flow bottlenecks. What weekly leading indicator should we put on the Sales seat scorecard to protect our working capital?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If your Sales seat is focused solely on closed revenue, they will sign any client who agrees to a contract, regardless of the payment terms. This creates a massive cash lag that hurts your ability to fund operations.

To fix this, you must change what you measure. Put a metric on your Sales seat scorecard for the percentage of weekly contracts signed that comply with your standard payment terms. Your standard term might be a fifty percent deposit upfront and fifty percent upon completion, or net-fifteen terms.

If a sales representative signs a client with net-sixty terms, that contract is counted as non-compliant on your weekly scorecard. This immediately highlights the cash flow risk before the fulfillment work even begins.

Another effective leading indicator is upfront cash collected. This tracks the total dollar amount of deposits and setup fees collected during the week. This ensures your sales team is not just closing deals, but actually bringing cash into the business on day one.

Your Sales Leader must own these numbers. They must understand that their GWC, which stands for Get it, Want it, and Capacity to do the job, is judged not just by revenue, but by healthy revenue. Tracking compliance with payment terms forces the sales team to negotiate better terms upfront, protecting your bank account.