Win rate

The raw formula is simple: won deals divided by total closed deals. What makes the number useful is how it gets segmented, by rep, by deal size, by lead source, by whether the opportunity was inbound or outbound, rather than reported as one blended average that hides which segment is actually dragging it down.

Why a loss isn't always a loss to a competitor

Single-Threaded Deal: The Forecast Red Flag Most Reps Won't Admit Until It's Too Late cites research from Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna, published in Harvard Business Review in June 2022 and built on an analysis of 2.5 million recorded sales conversations, finding that 40 to 60 percent of deals that looked like they were moving forward were lost to customer indecision rather than to a competitor. A win-rate number that doesn't split "lost to competitor" from "no decision" in its closed-lost reasons is blending two very different failure modes into one metric.

The same piece ties that pattern to deal structure: a single-threaded deal, one where every conversation from discovery through pricing routes through the same one or two people, is exactly the shape a no-decision loss hides in, since there's no second relationship with enough standing to push a stalled decision forward once the primary contact goes quiet.