Salesforce
Track sales cycle duration for each stage of your sales process. Swantide allows you to do this by generating a "time stamp" when an opportunity moves into each stage. You can request this
We've also created logic that require Opportunities to be created in Stage 1, as well as requiring Opportunities to only advance one stage at a time. It is our strong recommendation that you use these in conjunction with the Opportunity time stamps. This ensures that each Opportunity Stage will have a time stamp as it progresses through the funnel, enabling you to get a clearer picture of your sales cycle.
If an Opportunity skips stages by design (e.g. from Stage 1 to Stage 3), we would still suggest moving the Opportunity to Stage 2 before immediately moving it to Stage 3. This will show a duration of 0 moving from Stage 2 to Stage 3 - if this happens in a majority of cases, the very short duration from Stage 2 to Stage 3 could be an indicator that the stage should be deprecated entirely, creating a more accurate reflection of your actual sales process. The tradeoff of having this increased reporting capabilities is an extra step for the sales reps. Ultimately, this decision is up to you. You can request the 'Start Opportunities in Stage 1' and 'Move opportunities one stage at a time' in the workflows section of the Swantide app.
With the Opportunity Time Stamps workflow, you will be able to request the Average Duration Dashboard. This shows the Average Duration it takes to move from one stage to the next. If you would like to see the conversion % from one stage to the next, request the Funnel Leakage Dashboard in the Swantide app.
Please note that this dashboard shows the average duration, sequentially, between each stage of your sales process, as well as from Stage 1 to Closed Won and Closed Lost. If you would like to see average duration between different stages (e.g. Stage 2 and Stage 4), follow the steps below:
Average Duration
To make this step easier to follow, we will use an example of tracking the average duration from Discovery (stage 2) to Evaluating (stage 3). This video outlines how to perform the steps described below:
Create an Opportunity report. Navigate to filters, and make sure that the ‘Stage Changed Discovery’ field is marked not equal to “”. This will only show opportunities that have been time stamped in the Discovery phase. This is essential to getting an accurate duration metric. Salesforce will assign a value of 0 to any opportunity that doesn’t have a time stamp for Discovery, which will warp the duration metric. If tracking for a different duration metric, make sure the earlier stage in the process is selected in the filter.
Create a row-level summary formula. In the formula field, select Stage Changed Evaluating - Stage Changed Discovery. This will show the duration to advance from Discovery to Evaluating for each Opportunity. Note that Salesforce only allows you to write one row-level summary formula for each report. To track another duration metric, you’ll need to create a new report with updated filters and formulas.
After writing and saving the formula, double click on the formula field on the left-hand side and check ‘Average’.
Conversion Rate
To make this step easier to follow, we will use an example of tracking the average duration from Discovery (stage 2) to Evaluating (stage 3). This video outlines how to perform the steps described below:
Create an Opportunity Report. We can use Summary level formulas instead of row-level formulas, as Salesforce allows for 5 summary level formulas per report.
Create a summary level formula: Opportunity.Evaluating_Count__C:Sum/Opportunity.Discovery_Count__C:Sum. Create summary level formulas for each conversion rate you want to know.
Hubspot
This workflow stores the date that a Deal first enters each stage in your Sales Pipeline. By default, HubSpot only aggregates this data in reports but does not show it at the individual record level. Storing timestamps on sales stage changes are foundational inputs for several Swantide beta workflows, including:
Sales Pipeline Dashboard: The timestamps enable us to see which deals have moved in the last X days
Funnel Leakage Dashboard: The ‘Advanced to Stage X’ field allows us to see the conversion rate from one stage of the sales process to the next
A few notes on the workflow’s structure:
If a deal goes backwards into a stage it has already entered, the timestamp will not be overwritten.
If a deal skips stages, the ‘Advanced to Stage X’ field will be backfilled, but the timestamp itself will not be.