Gartner Blog Network

Steve Rietberg
Sr Director Analyst, Sales I
1 year at Gartner
25 years IT Industry

Steve Rietberg is a Senior Director Analyst in Gartner's Sales practice.Read Full Bio

Get More from Your Win-Loss Analysis

by Steve Rietberg  |  December 23, 2019

There are plenty of famous quotes that remind us that we learn more from our failures than our successes. I’m sure you’ve seen them: “We learn from failure, not from success” “Failure is success if we learn from it” “There is no failure, only feedback” This popular attitude may help explain why managers conducting win-loss analyses […]

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Sales Velocity: Improving on a Classic Metric

by Steve Rietberg  |  November 15, 2019

I was recently asked whether sales velocity is a good measure of sales performance. My answer was not a simple yes or no. Sales velocity is a good dashboard metric for summarizing a team’s effectiveness and efficiency. But its value is limited by the sheer amount of ingredients that go into its calculation. “Classic” Sales […]

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Use Call Plans to Instill Sense Making Behaviors

by Steve Rietberg  |  October 28, 2019

Your customers spend much less time with sellers than you may think. Gartner research shows that B2B customers spend only 17% of their buying journey engaging with prospective suppliers. So in practice, if your customer considers three suppliers throughout their buying journey, then they may spend only 5% to 6% of total purchase time with […]

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Don’t Confuse Win Rate and Pipeline Conversion Rate

by Steve Rietberg  |  August 29, 2019

Two common measures for sales effectiveness are win rate and pipeline conversion rate. Many confuse or conflate these concepts. “Win rate” has become a generic term used when managers or leaders are looking to quantify a seller or team’s success at closing deals. Win rate is a suitable metric for that purpose, but its value […]

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Start Saving for Predictive Analytics

by Steve Rietberg  |  August 8, 2019

When I was young and fresh out of college, people urged me to start contributing to a retirement fund as soon as I could. They explained that since I had time on my side, even modest investments would pay significant dividends. I just needed the discipline to start saving early. We’re all young, with respect […]

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Why Sales Capacity Matters

by Steve Rietberg  |  July 23, 2019

As a sales operations leader, you are under continual pressure to deliver better analytical insight. But your team’s time is limited, and developing custom analyses can’t interfere with supporting sellers. How do you improve the quality of your team’s insights in this situation? One way is to build analyses that add value to many different use […]

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Set Sales Targets with Confidence

by Steve Rietberg  |  July 15, 2019

As a sales operations leader, determining sales targets is one of your most important responsibilities. When sales targets are set correctly, sellers carry challenging but attainable targets that drive them to meet revenue expectations. When set incorrectly, sellers receive targets that fail to drive productivity or are unattainable and demotivating. There are multiple ways that […]

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