You probably know your sales pipeline isn’t perfect—maybe deals stall, maybe leads fall through the cracks. If you’re using Powerin, you’ve got a pile of data at your fingertips, but chances are, you’re not squeezing all the value out of it. This guide is for sales managers, ops folks, and founders who want to cut through the noise and actually use Powerin reports to improve their pipeline. No fluff, no blue-sky strategy—just real steps you can take to figure out what’s working, what’s not, and what to do about it.
1. Get Your Pipeline Data in Order
Before you start poking at reports, double-check that your data is actually trustworthy. Garbage in, garbage out—no tool can fix that for you.
What to check: - Stage definitions: Are your pipeline stages clear and used consistently? If “Qualified” means different things to different reps, your reports are junk. - Required fields: Make sure key fields (deal size, owner, close date, etc.) aren’t blank or full of “TBD.” - Closed deals: Are wins and losses being marked properly, or do old deals just linger forever? - Duplicates: Merge or clean up duplicate deals and contacts.
Pro tip:
Run a simple “missing data” report in Powerin before you do anything else. Fix what you can, flag what you can’t. You’ll thank yourself later.
2. Start with the Powerin Pipeline Overview Report
Powerin has a bunch of reports, but the Pipeline Overview is your best starting point. It gives you a snapshot: value in each stage, number of deals, average age, and so on.
What to look for: - Where deals get stuck: Are most of your deals piling up in one stage? That’s a bottleneck. - Stage-to-stage conversion rates: How many deals move forward vs. drop off at each step? A sharp drop usually means confusion or friction. - Deal age: Are deals languishing for weeks? If so, figure out if it’s the sales process, slow buyers, or just wishful thinking.
What to ignore:
Don’t obsess over “average deal value” unless you’re selling one product at one price. For mixed pipelines, averages can be misleading. Look at medians or break it down by segment if you can.
3. Drill Down with Custom Reports
The out-of-the-box reports are fine for a quick glance, but the real value comes from custom reports. Here’s where you actually start learning something useful.
Try building reports for: - Deal velocity: How long does it actually take deals to close, by rep or by stage? - Lost deal reasons: Are there patterns in why deals are lost? Are reps logging real reasons, or just “No budget” for everything? - Source performance: Which lead sources generate deals that actually close, not just fill the top of the funnel? - Rep performance: Who’s moving deals through fastest? Who’s got the most stuck? (But don’t use this to bludgeon your team.)
How to do it:
Powerin’s report builder isn’t perfect, but it’s not rocket science. Filter by time period, pipeline, owner, or any field you care about. Just don’t try to build a dashboard for everything—pick 2-3 metrics that actually matter.
4. Spot the Real Bottlenecks
Data’s great, but don’t fall in love with pretty charts. The goal is to find what’s slowing you down—not just to admire your graphs.
Signs of a bottleneck: - Deals get stuck in a certain stage way longer than others - High drop-off between two specific stages - Reps spend too much time updating CRM, not talking to customers - Lots of deals with no recent activity
What to do: - Ask why: Talk to your team. The numbers won’t tell you if it’s a process issue, a product gap, or just wishful forecasting. - Check your pipeline stages: Too many? Too vague? Too many “maybe” stages just encourage sandbagging. - Fix what you can: If deals get stuck waiting for a demo, maybe your scheduling process is broken. If “Proposal Sent” is a black hole, maybe your proposals are confusing.
Ignore:
Vanity metrics. “Number of touches per deal” is only useful if you know what’s actually moving deals forward.
5. Set Up Simple, Actionable Dashboards
It’s tempting to make dashboards for everything. Don’t. Build one or two that answer these questions: - How’s the pipeline health—are enough deals moving? - Where are deals getting stuck? - Are we on track to hit quota?
Dashboards that actually help:
- Pipeline by stage, with conversion rates
- Deal aging: Quickly spot deals that are going stale
- Forecast vs. actuals: But only if your close dates are realistic
Pro tip:
Share the dashboard with your team, but keep it simple. If reps can’t glance at it and know what matters, it’s too complicated.
6. Take Action—Then Watch the Numbers
None of this matters if you don’t actually change anything. Once you spot a problem, try something small. Shorten a stage, clarify a handoff, set a rule about updating deal status.
How to do it: - Pick one bottleneck to fix at a time. - Make the change clear and simple—don’t roll out a whole new process unless you need to. - Use Powerin reports to watch what happens. Did deal velocity improve? Did conversion rates go up? - If nothing changes, revisit your data or try a different tweak.
What to ignore:
Don’t expect instant results. Sometimes, you need a full sales cycle to see if a change worked. Don’t chase every dip or spike—look for patterns over time.
7. Keep It Real—The Limits of Reporting
Powerin is a tool, not magic. Reports are only as good as your data and your willingness to act on them.
Here’s what works: - Focusing on a few key metrics that actually drive sales - Using reports as conversation starters, not scorecards - Regular pipeline reviews—weekly or biweekly, not once a quarter
Here’s what doesn’t: - Drowning in dashboards nobody reads - Chasing every metric or “optimizing” what doesn’t matter - Expecting software to fix a broken sales process
TL;DR: Don’t Overthink It
Start with clean data, use Powerin’s built-in reports to find obvious problems, and go deeper only where it matters. Tweak one thing at a time, watch your numbers, and keep your process simple. Most of all, remember that no report will close a deal for you—use your tools to work smarter, not just fancier. Iterate, stay skeptical, and don’t let dashboards become a substitute for real sales work.