Set up this small indicator to predict deal outcomes and improve conversions

While running a small business, a founder has to perform multiple roles - the most important of which is Sales as only you can sell your product to the first set of users with the right amount of passion.

And if you're a maker running a niche business with high-value leads, chances are you've been in a position where a lead goes completely cold after days of engagement.

Sudden drop-offs can really hit your finances hard as losing thousands of $$ in opportunity cost is something that we as individual makers just can't afford to do. Especially if you've invested a lot of time and effort into the lead while trying to make the sale.

Hence, predicting where the deal is heading before it closes is an important skill that would help you boost your conversions.

At Flexiple, I use the one suggested by Gong - one of the biggest players in Sales Enablement space - and derive inferences from it on a weekly basis.

The indicator is called Email Velocity and it is essentially the number of emails that the prospect sends per week. In essence, for deals that are won, the email velocity is high, while for the deals that end up being lost, the number is low.

Setting up a system that will feed you instantaneous Email Velocity for a deal, will help you judge how the deal is going to end - and can take corrective measures by increasing engagement from the prospect.

Also, since higher email velocity = higher chances of conversion, you've got to adopt ways to increase email velocity. One way to do it is to reach out to more than one stakeholder in the company you're targeting.

How can you go about doing that? If you're interested, I've underlined (in detail) the tactic we follow at Flexiple and how we use this key metric to drive more conversions - check it out here.