Sales Leadership: Reading the Numbers Across Teams
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Online version: https://funneleconomics.ai/solutions/vp-sales
Funnel Economics gives sales leadership numbers that can be read across several teams, straight from Salesforce. They show how far the teams are apart, whether the pipeline covers the gap to target and whether the quarter hangs on a few deals. The spread comes before the total.
Which questions does sales leadership ask?
Leading teams raises different questions than leading individual sales reps. One number across all teams hides exactly the difference that is the finding. Four questions can be answered with metrics from your own opportunities.
How far apart are my teams?
An area on plan can consist of one team far ahead and two teams far behind. The numbers are therefore read per sales rep, grouped by team, with the area value beside them.
CIF, the share of the team's result, measures a sales rep's share of the deals won and the revenue won by the team in one period. PAS as a combined measure multiplies a sales rep's win rate across all their decided deals by their CIF. The win rate across all decided deals is the share of them won.
Both metrics look back: they are calculated on decided deals. Whoever looks strong on the look back and has little pipeline ahead risks missing the target. The total across all teams hides that.
bEFV, the structural expected value, multiplies each opportunity's amount by its stage win rate. The article on sales benchmarking against your own best values the same pipeline at the pooled stage win rate of the organisation's own top quartile. The gap to actual bEFV is the distance between two expected values, expressed in euros, not a lost amount.
Does the pipeline cover the gap to target?
Coverage belongs on the table as a pair. Nominal coverage divides the open pipeline by the gap to target. The Health-Adjusted Coverage Ratio (HACR) puts rEFV, the risk-adjusted revenue expectation, in the place of the open pipeline. The finding is the distance between the two values, never HACR alone.
rEFV weights bEFV by SLA Health, with measured factors per band. An SLA value is the time target of a stage. Your organisation sets two such values per stage and opportunity type. SLA Health compares each opportunity's total age in the funnel with them.
There is no fixed target value for HACR. HACR is not additive either: the value of a higher level is neither the sum nor the mean of the levels below it. To compare levels, compare rEFV and the gap, not the ratio.
If the amount of the open pipeline rises over several periods while rEFV falls, the pattern is Strategic Decoupling, when the pipeline grows and its expected value falls.
cEFV, the calibrated revenue forecast, refers to the end of the period. It is the best case of the forecast range, not the realistic case. cEFV is calculated by the optional add-on Funnel Economics Strategist. Strategist is designed to give a forecast for the executive level as a range of three named cases; in the running quarter, as three standings.
Does the quarter hang on a few deals?
A Single Point of Failure, when one deal carries the forecast, exists when the feasible pipeline of a rep or segment rests almost entirely on a single opportunity. A deal review follows.
When a very small number of deals carries a dominant share of a period's expected funnel value, that is Bulk Risk Concentration, concentration risk in the forecast. Both are judged against their own history and the number of deals, not against a fixed mark.
Which deals can still land, and which can't?
The answer is two separate lists across all teams. The largest deals are neither the most promising nor the most endangered. A list sorted by amount mixes the two.
The first list shows the deals that can still close, sorted by risk-adjusted contribution, not by amount. The second list shows the deals that will probably miss the window. A deal counts as at risk only with measured evidence, such as its health band.
The health band is a statement about a deal's total age, not about standstill in one stage. Time spent per stage is measured by BPV, the deviation from the SLA per stage. When the share of the DELAYED and STALLED bands rises against the funnel's own history, the pattern is funnel calcification, when the conspicuous health bands grow.
A deal on both lists is no contradiction: the deal is large, still winnable and may miss the window.
Which metrics matter for sales leadership?
| Metric | Answers the question | More |
|---|---|---|
| rEFV | What can be expected once SLA Health is factored in? | rEFV in the glossary |
| bEFV | What is the open pipeline worth at your own stage win rates? | bEFV in the glossary |
| cEFV | What end-of-period revenue does the calibrated calculation give as the best case? | cEFV in the glossary |
| BPV | In which stage does it take longer than intended? | BPV in the glossary |
| PAS | How do a sales rep's win rate across all decided deals and contribution stand together? | PAS in the glossary |
| CIF | What share of the team's result does a sales rep carry? | CIF in the glossary |
Leading several teams means reading the spread before the total: one number across all teams hides exactly the difference that is the finding.
How to get started
Funnel Economics is entering its beta phase. During the beta, you start by running it against a Salesforce sandbox.
Funnel Economics Core is a managed package that runs in your Salesforce org. The prerequisite is Salesforce Enterprise Edition; Data Cloud is not required. There, Core calculates bEFV and a simplified rEFV by health status.
Core ships with dashboards. Among other things, they show how the open deals spread across HEALTHY, DELAYED and STALLED, as a share and as an amount. For dashboard commentary, Core can call a language model. This AI data transfer is off by default and is enabled per org and per user; the package masks personal values before the call.
Funnel Economics Strategist is an optional add-on and not active by default. Strategist requires a per-user authorisation that your Salesforce administrator controls and can revoke. The prepared context then passes through a service we operate to the language model you have chosen, with the names of sales reps and opportunities and record links.
The language model processes the data under your own agreement with the provider. We strongly recommend securing the use of Strategist with an enterprise agreement with that provider, including a data-processing agreement that excludes the use of the data for training. That is a recommendation, not a precondition.
For sales leadership, Strategist is designed to put the spread between the teams before the total. Each recommendation is meant to name an addressee: who does what by when.
Discover is meant for trying Funnel Economics before any installation. It is built on a demo org.
What it looks like in the dashboard
The screenshot shows an anonymised example of the Funnel Economics dashboards. This page only describes how to read the metrics in your role.
Related terms
FAQ
Which metrics does sales leadership need?
That depends on the question. PAS and CIF, read per sales rep and grouped by team, show how far the teams are apart. Nominal coverage and the Health-Adjusted Coverage Ratio (HACR), as a pair, show whether the pipeline covers the gap to target. bEFV, rEFV and cEFV show what the pipeline lets you expect. BPV shows in which stage deals take longer than intended. All of them, including sales rep performance metrics such as PAS and CIF, are calculated from your own opportunities.
Why is the total across all teams not enough?
The total hides exactly the difference that is the finding. An area can be on plan although one team is far ahead and two teams are far behind. Sales leadership therefore asks which teams are apart, and whether the distance is a management question or a market one. Ratios and rates also cannot be added or averaged across levels: the value of a higher level is neither the sum nor the mean of the levels below it.
Do I get a single forecast number?
The forecast range consists of three named cases: worst case, realistic case and best case. Each case stands for an assumption about the business, not for a confidence bound. cEFV, the calibrated revenue forecast for the end of a period, is the best case. It is calculated by the optional add-on Funnel Economics Strategist, which is designed to give this range for future windows. The running quarter gets three standings: won so far, expected (an upper bound) and the bound of today's stock – everything open today won, no absolute ceiling.
Where does Funnel Economics Core calculate, and what leaves Salesforce in the process?
Funnel Economics Core calculates in your Salesforce org. For dashboard commentary, Core can call a language model. This AI data transfer is off by default and is enabled per org and per user; the package masks personal values before the call.
What leaves Salesforce when Strategist is active?
Funnel Economics Strategist is an optional add-on. The prepared context passes through a service we operate to your chosen language model. Rep names, opportunity names and record links go along by design: an answer with placeholders would be useless. Our leg requires a data-processing agreement, which we are preparing. The language model processes the data under your agreement with its provider. There we strongly recommend an enterprise agreement with a data-processing agreement that excludes training use; a recommendation, not a precondition. Your Salesforce administrator controls and can revoke per-user authorisation.
What does Core calculate, and what does Strategist calculate?
Funnel Economics Core calculates bEFV and a simplified rEFV by health status in your Salesforce org and shows both in the dashboards. Funnel Economics Strategist calculates rEFV with measured factors per health band; further figures such as cEFV build on that. Strategist also calculates BPV.