Forget Vanity Metrics — Track Cause and Effect.

🧩 What We See Too Often

We regularly see dashboards filled with:

• Activity stats with no conversion insights

• Win rates shown without context (how many leads did it take?)

• Reports stacked vertically with no timeline comparison

• Metrics that repeat across dashboards — but say nothing new

The consequence?

• Sales teams optimize for the wrong inputs

• Managers waste time trying to reverse-engineer performance

• Leaders can’t explain why results are improving — or dropping

🛠 The Fix: Focus on Relationships, Not Snapshots

Great reporting connects cause and effect — and tells a story across time.

We recommend structuring your reporting across four timeframes (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly), and visualizing sequences of related metrics. 

🔄 Example: The Demand-to-Revenue Funnel

• New contacts created →

• Contacts worked (calls/emails) →

• Deals created →

• Deals closed

If you see contacts created going up, but deals created staying flat?
Something’s broken in your outreach. That’s the insight.

Other powerful relationships:

• Time to first contact vs win rate

• Emails sent vs replies vs meetings booked

• Pipeline by source vs close rate by source

You don’t need 20 reports.
You need 5 that explain performance — not just show it.

💬 Real-World Snapshot

A COO at a services company told us:
“I see the win rate — but I have no idea what’s influencing it.”

We rebuilt their reporting by connecting each stage of the funnel — and layering activity data across time.

We added a simple “cause/effect” dashboard comparing:

• Leads worked vs meetings booked

• Meetings vs proposals sent

• Proposals vs deals won

In 2 weeks, the sales manager spotted a 3-week delay between contact and follow-up — and fixed it, increasing proposal volume by 19%.