Sales Velocity – What It Is & Why You Need To Track It

Last updated on October 18th, 2025 at 06:28 am

Sales velocity is an extremely underrated business metric – it doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

Here’s what we are going to discuss today:

• What is sales velocity?
• What are the four factors that determine your company’s sales velocity?
• How can you increase your company’s sales velocity?

Want to get more leads, make more sales, and generate more revenue?

Continue reading…

What is Sales Velocity?

Sales velocity is a metric that shows how fast your company is making money.

It can help you understand your company’s financial situation better and is handy when it comes to making revenue predictions.

What are the Four Factors That Determine Sales Velocity?

There are four key factors that determine sales velocity.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these metrics…

#1 Lead Quantity

A lead is a potential customer that has:

1. Expressed an interest in your product
2. Given you their contact details (typically an email address)

Lead quantity is the number of leads that you generate in a specific period of time. 

In practice, this usually means the number of new email subscribers within that timeframe, unless you are focused on collecting other contact information such as phone numbers.

#2 Average Deal Size

The average deal size is the dollar value of the average sale during a specific period of time. 

Here’s a formula that you can use to calculate it:

For Example:

If last month you made 100 sales and generated $1,000 in revenue, then your average deal size for that month is $10.

$1000/100 = $10

#3 Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is a metric that shows what percentage of people who were exposed to a call to action ended up taking that action. 

That call to action can be anything:

• Asking them to click on your ad
• Asking them to subscribe to your email list
• Asking them to buy your product

…etc.

However, in the context of sales velocity, the average conversion rate refers to the lead to customer conversion rate:

What percentage of leads convert to paying customers?

Here’s a formula that you can use to calculate it:

For Example:

If you generated 1000 leads and made 100 sales then your average conversion rate is 10%.

100/1000 * 100 = 10

Learn more:

What Is A Normal Sales Funnel Conversion Rate?

#4 Average Sales Cycle Length

The average sales cycle length shows the average amount of time it takes for you to convert a lead into a paying customer. 

Here’s a formula that you can use to calculate it:

For Example:

If in the last 90 days you have made 10 sales, then your average sales cycle during that period of time was 9 days.

90/10 = 9.

Note that this metric can vary wildly depending on the business:

• B2C or B2B? B2C average sales cycles tend to be short because the potential customer can buy a product either immediately or after an “indoctrination” email sequence.
  Meanwhile, in B2B, the average sales cycles tend to be much longer, usually at least 2-3 months.
• Low-touch or high-touch? Low-touch products with completely automated sales processes have shorter sales cycles than high-touch products where deals are closed by salespeople. 
• Affordable or expensive? The more expensive the product, the longer its average sales cycle is likely to be – the potential customer will want to research it, think about it, get approval for the purchase from other people, etc.

On one end of the spectrum, you have B2C products that are priced within the impulse buy range (e.g. a $7 ebook) – these are likely to have super short sales cycles.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have B2B products that cost thousands of dollars (e.g. enterprise software) – these are likely to have super long sales cycles.

How to Calculate Your Company’s Sales Velocity (Formula)

You can calculate your company’s sales velocity with this formula:

How to Increase Your Company’s Sales Velocity

So how can you increase your company’s sales velocity?

You can do that by increasing any of the key four metrics featured in the sales velocity formula. 

However, you need to make sure that an increase in one metric doesn’t negatively impact other metrics. 

Otherwise, the increase in that metric will be canceled out by a decrease in another metric, meaning, your sales velocity will stay the same despite your efforts.

Or worse, the increase in that metric will be outweighed by a decrease in another metric, in which case your sales velocity will decrease. 

It’s important to understand that your business is like an ecosystem:

You can’t just focus on one metric in isolation, you need to understand what effect the changes you are implementing will have on the system as a whole. 

With that out of the way, let’s talk about increasing sales velocity…

Get More Leads

The most straightforward way to generate more leads is to create a super valuable lead magnet.

Create a Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to potential customers in exchange for their email addresses.

It can be anything that they can either download to their devices or access online:

• An eBook
• A webinar
• A video lecture
• A video course
• An email course

…etc.

What matters is that:

1. Your lead magnet offers a solution to a problem that your potential customers are struggling with. 
2. That problem is either the same or related to the problem that your paid product addresses.

For Example:

Our co-founder, Russell Brunson, has written three best-selling books (“The Secrets Trilogy”):

• “DotCom Secrets” is about growing an online business with sales funnels.
• “Traffic Secrets” is about generating more traffic, leads, and sales for your business.
• “Expert Secrets” is about establishing yourself as an expert, perfecting your messaging, and creating a movement.

We use all three books as lead magnets – you can get physical copies for free, all we ask is that you cover the shipping. 

Now, imagine that a small business owner orders a free copy of “DotCom Secrets”, reads the book, and decides to implement what they learned. 

In order to do that, they will need funnel-building software. And guess which app will be the first one to come to their minds? That’s right. ClickFunnels. 

See how there’s a logical progression from our lead magnet to our paid product? 

You read a free book about building sales funnels -> You sign up for ClickFunnels free trial.

You should aim to create a similar logical progression in your own sales funnel. 

Create a Landing Page for Your Lead Magnet

Of all types of web pages, landing pages convert the best, which is why you want to create one for your lead magnet.

It doesn’t have to be complicated, you can start with a simple squeeze page that has these three key elements:

• A headline that explains what your offer is all about.
• An opt-in form where the potential customer can type in their contact details. It can either be displayed immediately or shown after they have clicked the call-to-action button. 
• A call-to-action button that encourages the potential customer to get the lead magnet. 

You can also experiment with adding other elements such as a subheadline, social proof, images, etc.

Here’s an example of a simple, yet high-converting squeeze page:

Start Driving Traffic to Your Lead Generation Landing Page

We recommend you to begin with paid advertising because paid traffic is immediate – it allows you to quickly learn whether your lead magnet resonates with your target audience.

So pick an advertising platform that makes the most sense for your business, then start running ads.

Here are some platforms that you might want to consider:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• TikTok
• YouTube

Begin with a small daily ad budget and only scale your campaign once you know that it is profitable. 

What’s great about this approach is that once you get the hang of paid advertising, it becomes easy to reliably generate leads – the more you spend on ads, the more leads you get.

Do Lead Magnets Work for B2B?

Lead magnets work well in both B2C and B2B.

However, in the case of the latter, you might want to ask for more information in exchange for your lead magnet to make it easier for your sales team to qualify leads. 

Also, since decision-makers who buy B2B products are typically subject matter experts, you will need to go the extra mile with your lead magnet. 

Say, if you are selling a B2C info product for people who want to learn SEO, a basic introductory SEO course might be an effective lead magnet.

However, if you are selling software for SEO agencies, then a basic lead magnet like that won’t fly because these people are SEO experts. 

In that case, you should either offer advanced SEO tactics or business advice on growing SEO agencies. 

In short, if you are in B2B, you need to be prepared to invest a significant amount of time, energy, and money in your lead magnet if you want it to be effective.

Increase the Conversion Rate

There are several ways to convert more leads into paying customers:

Build a Reputation as an Expert

People trust experts.

That means that if you establish yourself as an expert in your field, your potential customers will be more likely to trust you.

And it’s much, much easier to sell to someone who already trusts you than to someone who is wary of you and has their guard up.

For Example:

Our co-founder, Russell Brunson, has been relentlessly promoting ClickFunnels for more than seven years:

• He wrote three best-selling books
• He hosted countless webinars
• He gave speeches at all kinds of events
• He hosts our own event, a three-day conference called Funnel Hacking Live
• He even built a sales funnel for Grant Cardone!

As a result of all this, Russell is now widely recognized as one of the top sales funnel experts in the world, to the point where companies pay him 7-figures to build funnels for them.

And it’s probably safe to say that ClickFunnels is the most recognized brand in the funnel builder niche.

In fact, we would go as far as to say that if someone starts learning about sales funnels, they will probably stumble upon ClickFunnels almost immediately. You can’t escape us!

So when a small business owner needs a funnel builder, does their research, and sees all that, which option do you think they are more likely to go with:

• ClickFunnels
• Some random app

What you need to understand is that you aren’t competing just on the quality of the product, you are also competing in terms of social proof. 

Obviously, your product needs to be great, but if you don’t position yourself as an expert, selling it will always be an uphill struggle. 

Meanwhile, if you build a reputation as a thought leader in your industry, then closing sales will be much easier because that reputation will do the heavy lifting for you. 

Learn more:

“The Top 5 Strategies To Sell Without Selling”

Implement the Value Ladder Sales Funnel

We believe that the Value Ladder sales funnel is the most effective way to sell anything online.

That’s what Russell used to take ClickFunnels from zero to $10M+ in annual revenue in just one year (it’s at $100M+ now). 

This sales funnel has four stages:

1. Bait – You offer the potential customer a lead magnet in exchange for their email address.
2. Frontend – You offer the potential customer your least expensive and least valuable product. 
3. Middle – You offer the customer a more expensive and more valuable product. 
4. Backend – You offer the customer your most expensive and most valuable product.

The reason why this sales funnel works so well is that it allows you to:

1. Start the relationship with the potential customer by offering free value
2. Nurture that relationship by continuing to provide free value via email
3. Build trust by providing progressively paid more value at each stage

Here’s how Russell explains it:

A common mistake that we see is companies offering people a free lead magnet, then hitting them up with a pitch for a super expensive product:

“Hey, here’s my free ebook, wanna buy my $2,000 online course?”

This isn’t the most effective approach because the jump in price from zero to $2,000 is just too jarring. There isn’t enough trust yet for that kind of commitment.

So consider creating a proper Value Ladder with frontend, middle, and backend products instead.

Adding more affordable offers to your sales funnel will not only help you generate more revenue but will also likely increase the conversion rate of your most expensive product.

Invest in Training Your Salespeople

Selling a high-touch product?

Then you can’t just expect your salespeople to be closing deals left and right. You need to invest in training them. There’s just no way around it. 

Here are some ideas:

• Give your salespeople free copies of classic sales books and encourage them to read them.
• Pay your salespeople to go to live sales training events such as sales seminars and industry conferences.
• Invite sales coaches to train your salespeople at your headquarters. 

The truth is that selling doesn’t come naturally to most people, so it’s your responsibility as a leader to help your sales team get better at it.

Increase the Average Deal Value

You can increase the average deal value by adding:

• Upsells – offers that you present to the potential customer after they have accepted your initial offer.
• Downsells – offers that you present to the potential customer after they have rejected your initial offer.
• Cross sells – offers that are complementary to the offer that the potential customer has accepted.

You might also want to experiment with increasing the price of your product- you never know, people might be willing to pay more for it!

Shorten the Average Sales Cycle

You can shorten the average sales cycle by:

1. Automating the sales process as much as possible. In the case of low-touch products, everything should be automated. 
2. Becoming more organized. In the case of high-touch products, you don’t want to deal with delays caused by being disorganized. Use a customer relationship management (CRM) system to keep track of everything that’s going on in your sales pipeline. 
3. Make it easy for the potential customer to say yes. Use a scheduling app like Calendly to avoid email back-and-forth, have all the information you need at hand, be prepared to answer the most common questions, etc.

That being said, shortening the sales cycle isn’t always possible in B2B because corporate bureaucracies are notorious for their glacial decision-making speed.

Want Russell to Show You How to Build Your First Sales Funnel?

Let’s keep it real:

Building a sales funnel from scratch can seem like a daunting task.

That’s why we created our 5 Day Challenge where Russell walks you through it step-by-step.

You will learn how to:

• Generate unlimited leads
• Create your first lead magnet
• Build your first sales funnel
• Create a simple 6-email follow-up sequence
• And launch your funnel

…in just five days!

So don’t hesitate.

Join our 5 Day Challenge today. It’s completely free!