The Inputs That Matter

A deal score is only as good as its inputs. Forty-seven fields in your CRM and most reps fill in twelve, of which six are accurate. That is the reality. The scoring model that requires perfect data never produces useful scores because perfect data does not exist. The scoring model that uses the five inputs that are consistently available and reliably accurate — that model predicts. The five: deal stage (accurately defined with exit criteria), days in current stage, number of stakeholders engaged, meeting frequency in the last fourteen days, and whether a next meeting is calendared. These five inputs are available in 94% of deals and collectively explain 68% of the variance in deal outcomes.

Each input carries different predictive weight. Stage position is the baseline — a deal in "verbal commit" is more likely to close than a deal in "initial contact." But stage alone is misleading because reps over-advance deals. Days in current stage is the correction — a deal in "proposal sent" for forty-five days has a fundamentally different probability than one that has been there for five days. Stakeholder count reflects deal complexity and buying committee engagement. Meeting frequency is the real-time engagement signal. Calendared next meeting is the strongest single predictor — deals with no next meeting scheduled have a close rate 4.2x lower than those with one. That is not a guess. That is two years of data.