If you’re running a sales team, you already know the pain of deals dragging on and clogging up your pipeline. Wondering why your sales cycle is so long—or, more importantly, what to actually do about it? This guide is for you. We’ll walk through using Atriumhq to monitor your sales cycle length and, more importantly, make real improvements. No fluff, just what works.
Why Sales Cycle Length Actually Matters
Let’s get the basics out of the way: sales cycle length is just the average time it takes to move a deal from first touch to close. If that number creeps up, you’re tying up resources, missing goals, and making life harder for everyone. Track it right, and you can spot bottlenecks, coach reps, and forecast a lot better.
But here’s the catch: staring at a single “average days to close” metric won’t fix anything. You need to know what’s driving those numbers—by team, by rep, by stage. That’s where a tool like Atriumhq can actually help, if you use it right.
Step 1: Get Your Data (Mostly) Clean
Before you dive into fancy dashboards, you need to trust your data. Atriumhq pulls from your CRM, but if your CRM is full of half-baked opportunities and missing close dates, you’ll just be analyzing garbage.
What’s worth your time:
- Make sure your team is actually marking deals as closed, lost, or stuck.
- Ask reps to keep opportunity stages realistic. If a deal’s dead, move it. If it’s waiting on legal for three months, note it.
- At least once, run a spot check: pick 10 closed deals and see if the dates look right.
What to ignore:
Don’t fall for the idea that you need a “perfect” CRM to start. You just need it to be good enough to spot trends. If a few close dates are off, that won’t ruin your analysis.
Step 2: Connect Your CRM to Atriumhq
This part is pretty straightforward. Atriumhq connects to most major CRMs—Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, etc. You’ll need admin access or someone who can help.
To do: - Go to Atriumhq and find the integrations section. - Connect your CRM (they have step-by-step prompts). - Give it a day or two if you have a big database.
Pro tip:
If you’re worried about data privacy, check what fields Atriumhq actually reads. Usually, it just pulls metadata and deal history, not sensitive notes.
Step 3: Find (and Understand) Your Sales Cycle Metrics
Here’s where things get interesting. Atriumhq automatically calculates sales cycle length for you—by team, by individual, by segment. You’ll see metrics like:
- Average Sales Cycle Length: How many days, on average, it takes to close a deal.
- Median Sales Cycle Length: Useful if you have some deals that take forever and skew the average.
- Stage-by-Stage Breakdown: How long deals sit in each pipeline stage.
- Comparisons: See how one rep or team stacks up against the rest.
Don’t just look at the average.
If one or two monster deals are dragging your numbers up, that’s not helpful. Median and stage breakdowns are better for spotting real issues.
Step 4: Spot the Real Bottlenecks
This is where most teams go wrong—they see a long sales cycle, panic, and try to “go faster” everywhere. Instead, use Atriumhq’s stage breakdowns to see where deals actually get stuck.
How to do it:
- Open the sales cycle length dashboard.
- Filter by team, rep, or deal type.
- Look at the time-in-stage charts. Is legal review always a slog? Are demos getting delayed? Is a certain rep always slow to move deals from “Proposal” to “Negotiation”?
What works: - Focus on one glaring bottleneck first. Often, it’s a single stage (like “Contract Sent”) or a single rep who needs coaching. - Check if certain segments (like SMB vs. enterprise) have wildly different cycle lengths. That’s normal, but you should know why.
What to ignore: - Don’t obsess over a one-week fluctuation. Look for patterns over a few months. - Don’t expect every rep to match the top performer. Outliers are normal.
Step 5: Set Up Alerts and Benchmarks
Atriumhq lets you set up alerts for when sales cycle length spikes or when deals are stuck in a stage too long.
How to use this (without getting alert fatigue):
- Set a reasonable threshold—maybe 10% above your average cycle length.
- Set stage alerts only for the biggest bottleneck, not every stage.
- Use weekly summary emails, not instant notifications, if you don’t want to go nuts.
Pro tip:
Benchmarks are useful, but don’t get hung up on “industry averages.” Your cycle length depends on your deals, your process, and your team. Use your own trend line as the benchmark.
Step 6: Coach with Data, Not Gut Feel
The best part about tracking cycle length in Atriumhq is that you can actually have a real coaching conversation with reps. Instead of “You need to close faster,” you can say, “Your deals spend twice as long in ‘Budget Approval’—let’s figure out why.”
What helps:
- Share dashboards with reps (not just managers).
- Look at the stage data together and ask open-ended questions. Sometimes it’s a process issue, not the rep.
- Recognize that some reps work bigger, slower deals. Adjust your expectations accordingly.
What doesn’t help:
Don’t use cycle length as a blunt instrument to pressure reps. Longer isn’t always worse—some deals just take time. Focus on what’s controllable.
Step 7: Experiment and Iterate
Now that you can see the numbers, it’s tempting to roll out big process changes. Resist that urge. Instead, pick one thing to test:
- Shorten the approval process for a month and see what happens.
- Try a new email template for the “stuck” stage.
- Give extra support to a rep with a long cycle and track the impact.
Use Atriumhq to measure the results. If nothing changes, move on. If it works, double down.
A few honest truths:
- You probably won’t “optimize” your sales cycle down to zero. Some deals will always take longer.
- Don’t let analysis paralysis stop you from acting. You just need to be directionally correct.
- Ignore any advice that says there’s a magic number for sales cycle length. It’s about trends, not perfection.
Quick Recap: Keep It Simple
- Clean up your CRM just enough to trust the data.
- Use Atriumhq to track, break down, and compare sales cycle length.
- Focus on why deals get stuck, not just how long they take.
- Set up smart alerts, but don’t drown in notifications.
- Coach reps with facts, not feelings.
- Tweak one thing at a time and look for real results.
You don’t need a fancy playbook—just a little curiosity, some honest numbers, and the willingness to try (and sometimes fail). Keep it simple, stay skeptical, and you’ll actually move the needle.