Sales Cycle
The elapsed time and sequence of stages from first contact with a prospect to a closed deal.
Also known as: Sales cycle length, Deal cycle, Time to close
Category: Business & Economics
Tags: businesses, sales, metrics, processes, strategies
Explanation
The sales cycle describes both a sequence and a duration. As a sequence it lists the stages a deal passes through: prospecting, qualification, discovery, evaluation, proposal, negotiation, and close. As a duration it is the average number of days a won deal takes to traverse them, which is one of the most consequential numbers in a business. Cycle length determines how much cash you must hold, how long a new sales hire takes to prove themselves, and how slowly you learn whether a change to your pitch worked. It scales with price, risk, and the number of approvals required: a self-serve subscription may close in minutes, a mid-market deal in weeks, an enterprise agreement in a year. Measure the cycle from a consistent starting event and measure won deals separately from lost ones, since lost deals often linger and inflate the average. Shortening the cycle usually means removing a specific source of friction such as a security review, an unclear business case, or a missing decision maker, rather than pressing harder at the end.
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