“Happy New Year!” your CEO says, “Now that we’re through with that, let’s get down to business. How are we going ramp our sales to meet those new revenue targets?”

This is the question being asked in companies around the world, and the response that frequently comes back from their sales teams revolves around improving their pipeline, especially top-of-the-funnel lead generation growth (with the expectation that this will result in more sales).

In fact, the research firm CSO Insights found this to be the top initiative in their 2013 Sales Performance Optimization Analysis.  Unfortunately, focusing on lead generation is not a cure-all for increasing sales, as it does not ensure sales pipeline quality that will move leads down the funnel towards qualified opportunities.

So, what can you do to make sure you are meeting your company’s New Year’s resolution for sales targets? The sales pipeline is the right thing to focus on, but put more emphasis on what your company is doing to create high quality opportunities that will convert at higher rates at each subsequent level of the sales funnel.

In order to help you with this, Data.com has partnered with CSO Insights to provide a set of key pipeline development metrics across a set of research that CSO Insights has conducted over the past year. Here are a few of the eight metrics we compiled in a recently published white paper:

Prioritizing accounts

45% of companies that were surveyed said they needed to improve their ability to prioritize the accounts on which to focus selling efforts, and only 7% responded that this was a core competency (down from 11% in the previous year). More effective lead generation will come from understanding which market segments to focus on, along with prioritizing your organizations within those segments.

Researching accounts

42% of companies that were surveyed said they needed to improve their ability to thoroughly research new accounts before calling on them, and only 10% responded that this was a core competency. This research also found that for those companies that were highly proficient at account research, lead conversion rates were significantly better.

Number of decision makers

Over the course of the past several years, CSO Insights has been looking at the number of individuals involved in making the final decision to buy for B2B purchases, and each year this number has increased.  On average, the number in 2013 was 4-5 people; this means that closing deals requires having relationships with the right set of people, not just relying on a primary contact within the organization.  And there is an especially important emphasis on finding and connecting with the “right people”, because CSO Insights has shown that as the number of decision makers’ increases, so does the chance of a No Decision result.

These metrics provide some guidance on areas to focus on as you work out your sales pipeline strategy for the coming year.  The Sales Pipeline Development Benchmark Metrics whitepaper contains additional information related to these, along with several others that will help you in making that New Year's resolution become a reality.