Tracking vs. Knowing
Many commercial services sales teams track everything but struggle to understand what drives revenue. Your CRM spits out 40 data points every Monday. Your VP wants a dashboard. Owners want proof that the pipeline is real. And your reps? They just want to know whether they'll hit quota.
Here's the problem: most sales teams are drowning in data but starving for insights.
The average sales leader tracks 15–25 metrics because that's what the CRM can measure. But tracking isn't the same as improving. If a metric doesn't tell you what's happening now, predict what's coming next, or point to a lever you can pull, it’s probably not worth measuring and might actually be a waste of time.
In this guide, we’ll show you the 15 sales metrics that actually move revenue in commercial services, how to calculate them, and, more importantly, how to choose the 3–5 that matter most so your team can stop tracking everything and start driving sales.
TL;DR: Key Takeaways
Start with three metrics, not fifteen: Most teams fail because they build dashboards no one looks at. Pick the three that unlock your biggest bottleneck, measure weekly, and act on them.
Track leading indicators first: Pipeline coverage, lead velocity, and stage conversion rates tell you what's coming—not just what already happened. By the time revenue drops, it's too late to fix it.
Revenue metrics without context mislead: A $2M pipeline means nothing if your coverage ratio is 1.5× and your close rate is 12%. Context turns numbers into decisions.
The best metric changes by quarter: In Q1, you might obsess over pipeline build. By Q3, its win rate and cycle time. Adapt your focus as the business moves.
What gets measured gets gamed: If you only track activity volume, reps will flood the CRM with junk. Pair every output metric with a quality or outcome metric.
Commercial services sales is different: Field sales with 60–120 day cycles, property-based decisions, and site visits require different metrics than SaaS or inside sales teams.
What Makes a Sales Metric Worth Tracking?
If you're like most sales leaders, sometime over the weekend or bright and early Monday morning, you open your CRM and look at metrics for your entire team.
Your dashboard shows 40+ data points. Sales ops calls it "a 360-degree view of the pipeline."
But here's the reality: 10 of those numbers actually matter. Of those 10, only 5–6 predict what the quarter will look like. And of those? Only 3 tell you what action to take today.
Here's the problem: most of the metrics you're tracking don't tell you anything you can act on.
A good sales metric does three things. It tells you what's happening now, predicts what's coming next, and points to a specific lever you can pull. If a number doesn't do at least two of those three things, stop measuring it.
The Difference Between Vanity Metrics and Revenue Signals
Vanity metrics make you feel productive. Revenue signals make you money.
Total leads in the pipeline? Vanity metric. It tells you nothing about quality, timing, or the likelihood of closing.
Pipeline coverage ratio segmented by deal stage and source? Revenue signal. It tells you whether you're building enough pipeline in the right places to hit your number.
Calls logged per rep per week? Vanity metric. It measures activity, not outcome.
Calls-to-first-meeting conversion rate? Revenue signal. It tells you whether your team is talking to the right people about the right problems.
The shift from vanity to signal is simple: start measuring what drives sales momentum.
But, before we get to which metrics create actual revenue signals, let’s cover leading and lagging indicators.
Leading vs. Lagging Indicators: Why You Need Both
Lagging indicators tell you what already happened - revenue booked, deals closed, quota attainment. They're essential for reporting, but they're only as valuable as the insights you can extract for team coaching.
Leading indicators tell you what's about to happen - pipeline velocity, lead quality, stage conversion rates. They give you time to intervene before you miss the quarter.
Most teams over-index on lagging metrics because they're easy to measure and hard to argue with. But by the time revenue drops, it's too late to fix.
Lagging indicators required you to act six weeks ago when pipeline coverage started slipping or when first-meeting conversion rates fell below 18%.
Which is why the best sales leaders balance both. They report up with lagging indicators and manage down with leading ones.
Pipeline Health Metrics (1–5)
Pipeline is the oxygen of your sales org. But most teams don't know if they're suffocating until it's too late.
Early in my career, I sat down with my new sales manager for a weekly pipeline review. I was new to the industry and didn’t understand the sales cycle length for our products. This led me to confidently explain that I was sitting at 1.8x quota coverage with a month left in the quarter.
The shocked look on his face told me my confidence was misplaced, and he kindly but firmly explained that I needed more like 3x to be safe. The next couple of weeks were an absolute scramble, and I ended the quarter at 80% of quota - not my finest work.
But it taught me that “feel” and “real” are very different when it comes to closing deals. Which is why, as I’ve grown into a sales leader myself, I’ve begun to use these 5 metrics to tell me whether our pipeline is real, healthy, and growing - or bloated with dead deals and wishful thinking.
Starting with “pipeline coverage ratio.”
1. Pipeline Coverage Ratio
This is the single most important number in sales operations.
Pipeline coverage ratio is your total pipeline value divided by your revenue target for the period. If you need to close $1M this quarter and you have $3M in the pipeline, your coverage ratio is 3x.
And, 3x is a good place to be.
Industry benchmarks for the commercial services space show that your pipeline coverage should be around 3-4x for new business, and 2–3x for renewal/expansion business.
The reason for this is: Coverage ratio tells you whether you have enough at-bats to hit your number. If your win rate is 25% and your coverage is 2x, the math doesn't work. You need 4x to have a realistic shot.
But here's where most people get it wrong: they calculate coverage using every deal in the CRM, including those that have been "90% closed" for 6 months.
How to fix it? Clean the pipeline first. Then measure your coverage ratio.
2. Lead Velocity Rate (LVR)
Lead velocity rate measures the month-over-month growth in your qualified lead count. It's a leading indicator of revenue growth - usually by one to two quarters.
The formula to calculate LVR is: [(Qualified leads this month – Qualified leads last month) ÷ Qualified leads last month] × 100.
In other words, if you had 80 qualified leads in November and 100 in December, your LVR is 25%.
LVR predicts pipeline health before it shows up in your close rate or revenue line. If LVR is trending down for two consecutive months, you're going to feel it in revenue 60–90 days later.
A healthy growth target is 20%+ monthly LVR for companies aiming to scale revenue 30%+ year-over-year.
3. Pipeline Value by Stage
Not all pipeline is created equal.
A $10M pipeline sounds great until you realize $8M is stuck in the early stages of the sales cycle and nothing's moved in 45 days.
Instead, track total pipeline value segmented by stage - Prospecting, Qualification, Proposal, Negotiation, Closed. Then track the week-over-week change in each stage.
If you’re building great relationships with prospects, deals should age like wine, not milk. If value is piling up in early stages and nothing's advancing, you've got a conversion problem - not a volume problem.
This is a great coaching point for your team.
If you want to fix this, set stage velocity targets. For example, deals should move from Proposal to Negotiation within 14 days. If they don't, you're either underqualifying or not compelling enough to create the urgency that closes deals.
4. Average Deal Size
Average deal size is exactly what it sounds like: total revenue closed divided by the number of deals closed in a given period.
Your average deal size tells you whether you're moving upmarket, downmarket, or treading water. It also tells you whether your reps are discounting too aggressively or selling value effectively.
In commercial services, the average deal size varies wildly by vertical. A janitorial services contract might average $18K annually. A building automation system installation could be $250K+.
You can fix this by tracking average deal size by rep, by market, and by lead source. If your average deal size from referrals is 2x higher than the average deal size from cold outreach, that's a signal worth investigating and maybe even putting a referral program in place.
It’s also worth setting a floor for deal size. If a deal is below that floor, don't waste a senior rep's time on it. Route it to an inside sales team or a partner who can deliver at a lower cost.
5. Stage-to-Stage Conversion Rates
Many sales leaders track overall win rate. The best ones track conversion between every stage of the funnel.
Tracking things like: What percentage of leads convert to qualified opportunities? What percentage of qualified opportunities advance to proposal? What percentage of proposals convert to closed deals?
Your overall win rate might be 25%, but if only 12% of your proposals are converting, that's where you fix the business - not at the top of the funnel.
If you find that conversion rates drop alarmingly in one specific stage, identify your weakest conversion point and start there. Build a 30-day sprint around fixing it. Run A/B tests. Record calls. And, shadow your best rep.
This will help you see what they do differently so you can coach your team.
Sales Efficiency Metrics (6–10)
Pipeline health tells you if you have enough shots on goal (“at-bats” as we like to say). Efficiency metrics tell you whether you're taking those shots quickly, cleanly, and at the right cost.
6. Sales Cycle Length
Sales cycle length is the average number of days from the first qualified contact to closed deal.
Track it overall, by segment, by rep, and by lead source. You'll be shocked at the variance.
One of the biggest lessons I learned early in my career from shadowing a senior rep was how he shortened the sales cycle. By qualifying well, building trust, getting questions and objections out of the way early, aligning budgets, and setting expectations, he was able to close deals 30- 40% faster than I was.
That’s not to say that longer sales cycles are always bad—complex deals take time, especially at higher dollar amounts—but they tie up capacity and make forecasting harder.
If you think about it in simple numbers, a 90-day sales cycle means a rep has four closing cycles per year. Shorten that to 45 days, and the rep now has 8, effectively doubling their capacity without adding headcount.
In commercial services, typical sales cycles range from 30 days for small janitorial and grounds maintenance contracts to 180+ days for multi-site BAS deployments. Using these numbers, a BAS sales rep might have two cycles per year, but a smaller janitorial company or landscaper might have 10-12.
If you see your sales cycle getting progressively longer, set cycle length targets by deal size. Then track outliers. Any deal that's 2x longer than your average should trigger a pipeline review. Either close it, kill it, or re-qualify it.
This will allow you to project your quarter more accurately.
7. Win Rate (Overall and by Segment)
Win rate is the percentage of qualified opportunities that convert to closed deals.
Most of you will have a solid grasp of this, so I won’t “beat a dead horse,” but for new sales managers, the formula for win rate is: (Number of deals won ÷ Total number of opportunities) × 100.
A good industry benchmark for commercial services is 20–35% depending on lead quality, market maturity, and competitive intensity.
Your win rate is the ultimate quality filter. A high win rate means you're qualifying well, positioning effectively, and closing competitively. A low win rate means you're chasing bad deals or losing on value.
But here's the nuance that many new sales leaders miss: you should also track win rate by segment, market, service line, lead source, and rep.
This will show you which levers to pull to accelerate close rates.
8. Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC)
We’re getting into a bit of “marketing speak,” but the cost of customer acquisition (CAC) is a core driver of overall profitability.
CAC is the total cost of your sales and marketing efforts divided by the number of new customers acquired. This tells you if you’re acquiring new customers at a profit or loss.
The formula for CAC is: (Total sales + marketing spend) ÷ Number of new customers.
While data for specific commercial services verticals (commercial HVAC, janitorial, BAS, FLS, etc.) isn't well tracked, B2B organizations with field sales teams spend anywhere from $500-$1,500 per customer for smaller contracts acquired through digital marketing and lead generation, and $2,000-$5,000+ per customer for larger deals requiring longer sales cycles and dedicated account executives.
CAC tells you whether your growth is profitable or just expensive.
Here’s the test. If your CAC is $3,500 and your average contract value is $4,000, you're not building a business - you're buying revenue.
Most commercial services teams underestimate CAC because they don't include fully-loaded sales costs - salary, benefits, tools, travel, and other overhead items.
If you’re noticing this number ticking upward (in the wrong direction), track CAC payback period - how long it takes for a new customer to generate enough gross profit to cover acquisition cost.
Under 12 months is excellent and suggests you should invest more aggressively in growth. Over 18 months means your CAC is too high, your pricing is too low, or your service delivery costs are eating your margin.
9. Activities Per Closed Deal
How many calls, emails, meetings, and proposals does it take your team to close a deal?
Track the average across your team, then compare the top performers to the middle and bottom performers. The variance will tell you where to focus your coaching.
If your top rep closes deals with an average of 8 touches and your bottom rep needs 24, the problem isn't effort - it's approach.
Maybe your top rep is better at qualifying early. Maybe they're reaching decision-makers on the first call instead of the third. Maybe they're using property intel to create context before they even pick up the phone.
Activities per deal is a diagnostic, not a scorecard. High activity doesn't mean high performance. It often means the opposite - your rep is chasing bad deals or taking three touches to do what should take one.
The best teams don't just track total touches. They track which activities correlate with closed deals. Is it the first meeting? The follow-up email with a proposal? The site visit? Find the pattern in your wins, then replicate it.
Model your best rep's activity pattern—timing, cadence, channel mix, qualification rigor—and turn it into a playbook for the rest of the team.
10. Time to First Meeting
How long does it take your team to convert an inbound lead or a cold contact into a first meeting?
Track median time, not average - medians filter out the outliers.
The reason for this approach is simple. Speed matters in commercial services. Properties change hands, projects get budgeted, and roofs start leaking.
The team that shows up first often wins. If you're taking 9 days to book a meeting and your competitor is doing it in 48 hours, you're losing deals before they even hit your CRM.
Revenue Performance Metrics (11–13)
Pipeline and efficiency metrics tell you how the machine is running. Revenue metrics tell you whether it's working.
11. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) or Contract Value Growth
For commercial services teams with recurring contracts—janitorial, landscaping, maintenance agreements—MRR is your North Star.
MRR is the predictable, recurring revenue you can count on every month. Contract value growth tracks the rate at which you're expanding existing accounts or adding new ones.
Recurring revenue is the most valuable revenue you have. It's predictable, it compounds, and it increases customer lifetime value (CLV).
A janitorial company with $500K in MRR has far more enterprise value than one with $6M in one-time project revenue.
The best way to view this is: break MRR into three components:
New MRR (new customers)
Expansion MRR (upsells/cross-sells)
Churned MRR (lost customers)
If churn is eating more than 5% of your MRR per month, you've got a retention problem that will kill growth.
12. Sales Velocity
Sales velocity is a composite metric that measures how fast you're generating revenue.
The simple formula for sales velocity is: (Number of Opportunities × Average Deal Value × Win Rate) ÷ Sales Cycle Length.
Example: 50 opportunities × $50K average deal × 25% win rate = $625K. Divided by 60-day cycle = $10,416 in revenue per day.
Sales velocity is the single best predictor of revenue trajectory. You can increase velocity in four ways: add more opportunities, increase deal size, improve win rate, or shorten the cycle. Most teams only focus on the first one.
If you want to see how fast you’re truly growing, measure velocity monthly. Then run experiments to move each lever - test new lead sources (volume), refine ICP (win rate), bundle services (deal size), or streamline approvals (cycle time).
13. Quota Attainment Rate
What percentage of your reps are hitting quota? A good metric to start with is: 60–80% of reps should hit or exceed quota in a healthy sales org (According to SalesTalent, Inc.).
If 90% of your team is hitting quota, your quotas are probably too easy. If only 30% are hitting it, your quotas are unrealistic, you’re not enabling your team with the right tools, your territory design is broken, or your pipeline strategy is flawed.
Quota attainment also tells you where to invest. Reps consistently at 80–95% of quota are often one coaching intervention away from breaking through. Reps consistently below 50% need a different conversation - about fit, territory, or role.
A great way to understand whether this is a seniority issue, a hiring issue, or something else is to segment attainment by tenure. If tenured reps are hitting quota and new reps aren't, you've got an onboarding problem. If no one's hitting it, you've got a tools, market, or strategy problem.
Team & Territory Metrics (14–15)
Sales isn't just about deals - it's about people and places (territories). These two metrics tell you whether your team is scaling and whether your territories are balanced.
14. Rep Ramp Time
Ramp time is how long it takes a new rep to reach full productivity - usually defined as hitting 100% of quota.
Most commercial services companies expect reps to be fully ramped in 6–9 months (for field sales roles with moderate technical complexity), but for businesses that service or install complex systems, ramp times can take 12-18 months.
Understanding the time it takes for a rep to become fully productive is critical, as it impacts not only your bottom line but also your ability to scale. A great example is: if it takes 12 months to ramp a rep and they quit after 18, you've barely broken even.
An easy way to figure out how quickly your new reps are fully ramped is to track two timelines. First, track time-to-first-deal, then time-to-quota.
If reps close their first deal quickly but then stall, the issue is probably generating pipeline. If they're slow to close anything, the issue is skills or territory quality.
Teams using Convex see a dramatic decrease in ramp times, generally 90 days or less. The reason for this is platform simplicity and access to data that drives deals.
Instead of spending time researching buildings, hunting for prospects' contact information, and trying to figure out what to say to them, Convex surfaces key details that lead to warm conversations directly with decision makers.
15. Territory Performance Index
Let’s start with what should be an obvious assumption - not all territories are created equal.
“Territory performance index” compares actual revenue per territory to the expected revenue based on territory potential (number of target accounts, market size, historical performance).
Another way to think about it is: If Territory A generates $800K and Territory B generates $400K, that doesn't mean the rep in Territory A is better. Territory A might have 2x the addressable market.
The performance index adjusts for potential, so you can fairly compare rep performance.
This is a more advanced number to track, and it requires quite a bit of historical data to understand. But if you’re seeing field reps absolutely dominate in one area and flop in another, maybe it’s time to rebalance their territories.
This can also have a positive effect on morale, but that’s a topic for another time.
How to Build a Metrics Dashboard That Actually Gets Used
Most sales dashboards fail because they try to do everything. They end up doing nothing.
Here's how to build a dashboard people will actually look at - and act on.
Start With Three, Not Fifteen
Pick the three metrics that matter most for the business right now. Not forever - just right now.
If you're in growth mode and the pipeline is thin, your three might be: pipeline coverage ratio, lead velocity rate, and time to first meeting.
If you're scaling and efficiency matters more than volume, your three metrics might be: sales cycle length, win rate, and CAC.
Don't try to come “out of the gate” tracking fifteen metrics and hope people figure out which ones matter. Tell them.
Make It Visual and Update It Weekly
Numbers in a spreadsheet don't create urgency. Trends on a chart do.
Use simple visualizations - bar charts, line graphs, stoplight colors (red/yellow/green). Update the dashboard every Monday morning. Make it the first thing people see in your weekly sales meeting.
Tie Every Metric to a Specific Action
A dashboard without actions is just a report card - and let’s be honest, most of us hated report card reviews.
For every metric you track, define the threshold and the intervention. If pipeline coverage drops below 3x, what happens? (Answer: The rep spends the next two days prospecting, no meetings, no emails, just pipeline build.)
If “time to first meeting” exceeds 5 days, what happens? (Answer: The manager jumps in and helps with outreach, or the team needs better signaling tools.)
Make the dashboard a decision tool, not a data dump.
What Gets Measured Gets Gamed: Avoiding the Trap
Here's the uncomfortable truth: the moment you start measuring something, your team will optimize for it - even if it hurts the business.
If you measure call volume, reps will make more calls. If you measure pipeline value, reps will inflate deal sizes. If you measure win rate, they'll only pursue sure things.
This is human nature.
The solution isn't to stop measuring. The solution is to pair every output metric with a quality or outcome metric.
Measure calls and call-to-meeting conversion rate. Measure pipeline value and stage velocity. Measure win rate and average deal size.
The best sales leaders don't just track metrics - they “interrogate” them (the metrics, not the reps). They ask: "Is this number real? What does it mean? What behavior is it creating? Is that the behavior we want?"
Common Pitfalls When Tracking Sales Metrics
Even good metrics fail when implemented poorly. Here are the mistakes that kill adoption and team morale at the same time.
Tracking too many metrics at once. If your team is early in their career, they can only focus on 3-5 metrics at a time. Pick the ones tied to your biggest constraint and ignore the rest for now.
Measuring without context. A 20% win rate sounds bad until you learn your competitor's is 18% and your average deal size is 30% higher. Benchmark internally first, externally second.
Ignoring leading indicators. Revenue, quota attainment, and closed deals are lagging indicators. By the time they move, it's too late to course-correct.
Track pipeline health and stage conversion if you want to actually steer the business.
Not cleaning your CRM data. Garbage in, garbage out. If your pipeline is full of zombie deals, every metric you calculate will be wrong. Run a monthly pipeline hygiene review.
Using metrics to punish instead of coaching. The moment your team feels like metrics are a weapon, they'll stop trusting the data and start gaming it. Use metrics to diagnose, not to blame.
Setting it and forgetting it. The metrics that matter in Q1 (pipeline build) aren't the same ones that matter in Q4 (close rate and cycle time). Review your focus metrics every quarter and adjust according to your company’s goals.
What to Do Next: Your 30-Day Metrics Audit
Here's how to get started - or reset if you're drowning in dashboards and still going to miss quota.
Week 1: Audit what you're tracking. List every metric your team currently measures. Then ask: Does this metric tell me what's happening, predict what's coming, or suggest an action I can take? If it doesn't do at least two of those, stop tracking it.
Week 2: Pick your top three. Based on where your business is today, choose three metrics that unlock your biggest constraint. Share them with the team. Explain why they matter and what good looks like.
Week 3: Build a simple dashboard. Use whatever tool you have - Google Sheets, Excel, your CRM's reporting module. Make it visual. Update it weekly. Share it in every sales meeting.
Week 4: Tie metrics to actions. For each of your three metrics, define the threshold and the response. When X drops below Y, we do Z. Make it non-negotiable.
Then run it for 90 days. At the end of the quarter, ask yourself: Did these metrics move the business? Do we need to adjust? What's the next constraint we need to solve for?
Metrics aren't the strategy. They're the feedback loop that tells you whether your strategy is working.
Summary: Track Less, Win More
You don't need 40 metrics. You need the right 3–5 to start, measured consistently, with clear thresholds that trigger action.
Start with your biggest constraint. If it's pipeline, track coverage ratio, lead velocity, and time to first meeting. If it's conversion, track stage-to-stage rates, win rate, and sales cycle length. If it's efficiency, track CAC, activities per deal, and sales velocity.
Measure weekly. Act immediately. Adjust quarterly.
The teams that win aren't the ones with the most data. They're the ones that turn numbers into decisions, decisions into actions, and actions into revenue.
Ready to accelerate deal flow and track the metrics that actually matter?
Schedule a demo of Convex to see how commercial services sales teams identify high-intent buyers, accelerate pipeline velocity, and close more deals with less effort.
FAQ: Sales Metrics for Commercial Services
What sales metrics should I track?
Start with three metrics that unlock your biggest bottleneck. If pipeline is thin, track pipeline coverage ratio, lead velocity rate, and time to first meeting. If deals are stalling, track stage-to-stage conversion rates, sales cycle length, and win rate. If efficiency is the issue, track CAC, sales velocity, and activities per closed deal. The key is choosing metrics tied to a specific problem you're trying to solve, not tracking everything your CRM can measure.
What are good sales KPIs?
Good sales KPIs are leading indicators that predict future performance and point to actionable levers. Pipeline coverage ratio tells you if you have enough deals to hit quota. Lead velocity rate predicts revenue growth 60–90 days out. Stage-to-stage conversion rates pinpoint exactly where deals die. Win rate by segment shows you which markets and sources perform best. Sales velocity combines volume, value, win rate, and cycle time into one predictive metric. Avoid vanity metrics like total calls logged or pipeline value without context.
What are the five key performance indicators in sales?
The five most impactful KPIs for commercial services sales teams are: (1) Pipeline coverage ratio—tells you if you have enough qualified opportunities to hit revenue targets; (2) Win rate by segment—shows where you're most competitive and where you're losing; (3) Sales cycle length—impacts capacity and forecasting accuracy; (4) Sales velocity—measures how fast revenue moves through your pipeline; (5) Lead velocity rate—predicts future pipeline health before it shows up in closed deals. These five cover pipeline health, efficiency, and revenue performance.
How do you measure sales effectiveness?
Sales effectiveness is measured by outcomes, not activities. Track win rate (are you closing the deals you pursue?), sales velocity (how fast are you generating revenue?), and quota attainment (what percentage of reps are hitting targets?). Then layer in efficiency metrics: CAC (what does it cost to acquire a customer?), activities per closed deal (how efficient is your process?), and stage-to-stage conversion rates (where do deals stall?). The best teams pair output metrics with quality metrics—calls logged plus call-to-meeting conversion, pipeline value plus stage velocity.
How many sales metrics should I track?
Track 3–5 core metrics consistently, not 15–40. Most teams fail because they build dashboards no one looks at. Pick the three that unlock your biggest constraint right now, measure them weekly, and tie each one to a specific action. You can track more metrics in your CRM for reporting purposes, but only focus the team on 3–5 at a time. The metrics that matter in Q1 (pipeline build) aren't the same ones that matter in Q4 (close rate, cycle time). Rotate your focus quarterly based on business priorities.
What's the difference between leading and lagging indicators?
Leading indicators predict what's about to happen and give you time to intervene—pipeline coverage, lead velocity, stage conversion rates, time to first meeting. Lagging indicators tell you what already happened—revenue booked, deals closed, quota attainment. Lagging metrics are essential for reporting to executives and boards, but they're useless for steering the business. By the time revenue drops, it's too late to fix it. You needed to act six weeks ago when pipeline coverage started slipping. The best sales leaders report on lagging indicators and manage with leading ones.
What's a good win rate for commercial services?
Industry benchmarks for commercial services range from 20–35% depending on market maturity, competitive intensity, and deal complexity. HVAC and roofing typically see 22–28%. Janitorial and landscaping see 25–35% because deals are smaller and cycles are shorter. BAS and elevator services see 18–25% because deals are complex and involve long evaluation periods. More important than the overall number is tracking win rate by segment - by lead source, market, rep, and service line. A 25% overall win rate might hide a 40% win rate from referrals and a 12% win rate from cold outreach.
How do you calculate sales velocity?
Sales velocity formula: (Number of Opportunities × Average Deal Value × Win Rate) ÷ Sales Cycle Length. Example: 50 opportunities × $50K average deal × 25% win rate = $625K. Divided by 60-day cycle = $10,416 in revenue per day. You can increase sales velocity in four ways: add more qualified opportunities, increase average deal size, improve win rate, or shorten the sales cycle. Most teams only focus on adding opportunities, but shortening your cycle or improving win rate often has a bigger impact with less effort.
What's the ideal pipeline coverage ratio?
For commercial services, aim for 3–4x coverage for new business and 2–3x for renewal or expansion business. If your win rate is 25%, you need 4x coverage to statistically hit quota. If your win rate is 33%, you need 3x coverage. The key is calculating coverage using a clean pipeline - deals with recent activity, qualified buyers, and realistic close dates. Many teams report 5x coverage, but half the pipeline is stale deals older than 120 days. Real coverage is often 40–50% lower than reported coverage.
How long should a sales cycle be in commercial services?
Sales cycle length varies by service complexity and deal size. Small janitorial or landscaping contracts: 30–45 days. Mid-size HVAC or roofing projects: 60–90 days. Large multi-site BAS or elevator modernization: 120–180+ days. What matters more than the absolute number is tracking cycle length by segment and identifying outliers. Any deal 2x longer than your average should trigger a review - either close it, kill it, or re-qualify it. The faster you can move qualified deals through your pipeline, the more capacity your team has to generate revenue.
Share
