Running a sales organization without clear, measurable data is like steering a ship without a map - you may be moving, but you're not quite sure if you're headed in the right direction. If your business is struggling to hit revenue targets or even performing well but looking to scale, the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will provide the insights you need to course-correct, optimize sales efforts, and drive consistent growth. When used strategically, KPIs don't just track performance - they create predictable, repeatable success.
Let's break down the difference between lagging and leading indicators and how you can use them to unlock more closed-won deals and sustainable revenue growth.
Choosing the Right KPIs for Growth
Selecting the right key performance indicators (KPIs) is critical to driving sales success. When they are data-driven, aligned with your sales goals and clearly defined, they provide a roadmap for sales teams to work with focus and purpose. Without this clarity, your team risks prioritizing the wrong activities - leading to missed revenue opportunities.
Imagine this: Your sales team is responsible for both retaining existing customers and acquiring one new account per month. While nurturing relationships is essential, it's easy for sales reps to focus only on current clients - often at the expense of new business development. This is where KPIs create accountability, ensuring reps balance retention efforts with proactive prospecting.
Why KPIs Matter for Sales Success
KPIs don't just track performance - they shape behaviour, refine sales strategies, and align your team's efforts with business growth. Whether measuring new customer acquisition, pipeline health or conversion rates, KPIs act as your sales team's compass, ensuring every action contributes to long-term success.
🧩 Focus Sales Insight: KPIs can be applied to any sales team or role, whether in inside sales, outside sales or hybrid models. The key is selecting metrics that drive the right behaviours, leading to consistent revenue growth.
By choosing impactful, business-specific KPIs, your sales team will have the clarity needed to hit targets, optimize strategies, and drive predictable success.
Understanding Lagging vs. Leading Sales KPIs
Tracking sales performance without understanding which metrics truly drive success can lead to inconsistent results, missed opportunities, and stalled growth. That's where lagging and leading indicators come in. They provide a complete picture of your sales performance, helping you refine strategies and build a predictable revenue engine.
Lagging Indicators: Measuring Past Performance
Think of lagging indicators as the rearview mirror of your sales organization - they tell you what has already happened. These metrics answer questions like:
- How much revenue did we generate last quarter?
- How many deals did we close?
- What was our overall profit margin?
While these indicators are essential for measuring overall sales success, they don't provide any real-time insights into how to improve future performance. Therefore, relying only on lagging indicators is like driving forward while only looking in the rearview mirror - you might know where you've been, but you won't see what's ahead.
🧩 Focus Sales Insight: Key Lagging Indicators we recommend tracking to determine performance within your sales organization include:
- Revenue generated from new & existing clients.
- Gross profit per client segment
- The number of closed won opportunities.
Leading Indicators: Predicting Future Sales Success
If lagging indicators tell you where you've been, then leading indicators give you a forward-looking view - like peering through the windshield to anticipate future results.
These metrics provide early warning signs, allowing sales teams to adjust strategies before results suffer. By tracking the right leading indicators, businesses can identify trends, optimize outreach, and increase close rates before it's too late.
🧩 Focus Sales Insight: Key Leading Indicators we recommend tracking within your sales organization include:
- Number of outbound dials
- Number of meaningful sales conversations completed
- Number of newly created opportunities
- Number of new quotes issued
- Average opportunity size
- Stage duration & conversion yield
Which Sales indicators Should You Track?
The truth is - you need both lagging and leading indicators to get a full picture of your sales performance. Lagging indicators help you measure results and understand past successes or failures, while leading indicators provide early signals that allow you to adjust your sales strategy before revenue is impacted.
By tracking both, you can:
- Identify performance trends and optimize your sales processes
- Pinpoint areas for improvement before they impact revenue
- Create a predictable, scalable sales pipeline that drives consistent growth
Sales leaders who only focus on lagging indicators risk missing opportunities for proactive course correction. On the other hand, only tracking leading indicators without evaluating results can lead to misguided sales efforts. A balanced approach ensures your team is working efficiently, closing more deals and driving sustainable revenue growth.
How Focus Helps Your Sales team Succeed with Strategic KPIs
At Focus, we don't just track sales metrics - we use them to drive predictable revenue growth for your business. From day one, we work closely with you to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that align with your sales goals and business strategy. Whether your team includes business development reps, account managers, sales leaders, or even customer service professionals, we ensure every role has clear, measurable targets that contribute to the overall success of your business.
Our data-driven approach starts by working backwards from your sales forecast, ensuring that the milestones we set directly support your revenue targets. Each month, sales managers use these KPIs not just to measure performance but as a coaching tool to help sales reps optimize their efforts, close more deals and exceed quotas.
🧩 Examples of High-Impact Sales Metrics We Track:
- Outbound Sales Activities - Number of first meetings, demos, and presentations.
- Lead Nurturing & Follow-ups - Engagement with warm prospects and reactivation of past leads.
- Pipeline Health - Deals in progress, conversion rates, and sales velocity.
- New Business Development - Acquisition of new accounts and entry into new markets.
At Focus, our goal is to transform your sales team into a high-performing revenue engine by providing clear KPIs, structured accountability, and expert coaching through our Fractional Sales Leadership services.
Want to see how this approach can work for your business?
