Our sales cycle takes six to twelve months, which means our weekly sales closed metric is zero for months at a time. How do we build a weekly Scorecard that gives us a meaningful pulse on our long-cycle B2B business development pipeline?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When your business operates on a six to twelve month sales cycle, tracking closed sales on a weekly Scorecard is often ineffective, as that row will show zero for most of the year. To maintain accountability and predict future revenue, you must break your long sales cycle down into weekly micro-conversions.

Instead of tracking the final signature, identify the critical steps a prospect must take to move through your pipeline. For a long-cycle B2B business, your weekly leading indicators should track activities such as:

• Discovery calls completed
• Diagnostic assessments scheduled
• High-level technical proposals delivered

These micro-conversions are highly predictable. If your historical data shows that it takes ten discovery calls to yield three diagnostic assessments, and three diagnostic assessments to yield one formal proposal, then your weekly goal should be hitting the target number of discovery calls. This approach helps in [shifting focus from lagging results to weekly leading indicators](/qa/leading-vs-lagging-scorecard-metrics).

By shifting your focus to these weekly activity metrics, you can maintain visibility into your pipeline health even during long periods without a closed sale. If your discovery call metric goes red for three weeks in a row, you can instantly predict a revenue drop six months from now, giving you ample time to solve the issue before it impacts your cash flow. For more on setting these metrics, see [how to choose five to fifteen Scorecard metrics](/qa/how-to-choose-five-fifteen-scorecard-metrics) and [setting Scorecard targets without historical data](/qa/setting-scorecard-targets-without-historical-data). This proactive approach can help your team avoid [defensiveness around red Scorecard metrics](/qa/handling-defensiveness-around-red-scorecard-metrics) by addressing issues early.

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