The sales cycle measures elapsed time from when a pursuit is created to when it’s won. For a contractor it bundles qualification, site visits, estimating, proposal and negotiation into one number of days.
Why it matters
Cycle time turns pipeline into a calendar. If negotiated healthcare work takes eight months from first meeting to award, a pursuit opened today won’t fill backlog until next spring. It also exposes slow steps: a long cycle on work you win anyway often means proposals waiting on estimating.
Worked example
Illustrative: three wins took 90, 80 and 65 days from creation to Won. Average sales cycle: (90 + 80 + 65) ÷ 3 ≈ 78 days.
Common mistakes
- Including lost pursuits, which mixes two questions.
- Starting the clock at the RFP date for some pursuits and at first contact for others.
- Back-filling dates from memory for old wins.
How os.construction handles it
Sales cycle is a metric in Analytics: average days from creation to Won, counted only where the app recorded the stage change. Wins from before stage tracking are left out rather than guessed.