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Most contractors know their backlog to the dollar and their pipeline to the nearest “a lot”. That’s backwards. Backlog tells you about the work you already signed. The pipeline tells you whether there’ll be backlog next year, and by the time a thin pipeline shows up in the WIP, it’s too late to fix.
The trouble is that the headline pipeline number is easy to inflate. Dead pursuits never get closed, every probability is 50%, and a long-shot public bid counts the same as a negotiated job you’re about to sign. Here are six numbers that hold up better, with the math. The examples are illustrative.
1. Pipeline value, by stage
Pipeline value is the estimated amount of every open pursuit, not yet won or lost. On its own it’s the least useful number on this list. Split by stage, it starts to talk:
| Stage | Pursuits | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Qualification | 1 | $6.2M |
| Site visit | 1 | $3.1M |
| Estimating | 2 | $17.2M |
| Proposal | 2 | $28.5M |
| Negotiation | 1 | $22.5M |
| Open pipeline | 7 | $77.5M |
A pipeline heavy in estimating and light in proposal usually means the estimating team is the bottleneck, not the market. Mistake to avoid: leaving pursuits open after the owner has gone quiet. Close them as lost with a reason; the reason is data too.
2. Weighted pipeline
Weighted pipeline multiplies each open amount by its probability and adds them up. On the table above, with probabilities from 10% in qualification to 75% in negotiation, $77.5M of open pipeline weights to roughly $40M.
It’s a forecast, not revenue, and it’s only as good as the probabilities. Mistake to avoid: probabilities nobody updates after the site visit. If the number never changes, it isn’t a forecast.
3. Win rate, on decided pursuits only
Win rate is won ÷ (won + lost). Open pursuits don’t count, because they haven’t been decided.
Say you won three pursuits this year, lost two, and have seven open. Win rate is 3 ÷ 5 = 60%. Divide by all twelve and you’d report 25%, which is simply wrong. Mistakes to avoid: counting no-bids as losses without saying so, and reading a win rate on five decisions as if it were on fifty. Split it by lead source (repeat customer, referral, invitation, public bid) before drawing conclusions; blended win rates hide the story.
4. Sales cycle
Sales cycle is the average number of days from creating a pursuit to winning it. If your three wins took 90, 80 and 65 days, the cycle is about 78 days.
Cycle time turns pipeline into a calendar: a pursuit opened today lands in backlog roughly one cycle from now. Mistake to avoid: backfilling old dates from memory. Count only the wins where you recorded when the stage changed, and let the history build.
5. Average deal size and lead conversion
Average deal size is won value ÷ won pursuits. Three wins of $48.2M, $7.4M and $2.6M average $19.4M, but the median is $7.4M. One large job can hide a run of small ones, so look at both.
Lead conversion is inquiries converted into a real pursuit ÷ inquiries received. Eight website inquiries, four converted, is 50%. Pair it with first-response time: slow follow-up is a common, fixable reason conversion drops.
6. Quote hit rate, the buyout view
The same thinking works in the other direction. For each subcontractor, quote hit rate is quotes awarded ÷ quotes received. A sub who quotes everything and never wins may be misreading scope; a sub who wins nearly everything may have no real competition on your jobs. Put it next to quote coverage (quotes received ÷ vendors invited) and you know whether the vendor list is healthy.
From pipeline to backlog
Put the numbers together and you get a rough but honest check on next year:
- Weighted pipeline ≈ $40M
- Sales cycle ≈ 78 days, so most of that lands within the next two quarters
- Compare it with the backlog you’ll burn over the same period
If the weighted pipeline won’t replace the backlog you’re burning, you need more pursuits, better ones or a higher win rate, and the split by source tells you which.
In os.construction
These metrics are in the metric catalog in Analytics (in preview, on for every user), calculated from the opportunities, inquiries and RFQs in CRM and preconstruction, with the definitions above. The CRM & Pipeline pack puts pipeline value, weighted pipeline, win rate, deal size, sales cycle and lead conversion on one dashboard, split by stage, source and owner, and every number drills to the pursuits behind it. Each person sees only the CRM rows they’re allowed to. Definitions are in the glossary: win rate, weighted pipeline, sales cycle, lead conversion rate and quote hit rate.
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