Measuring a seller's first 90 days

You can't judge a new services seller on revenue in their first 90 days. The sales cycle is longer than that. But you can tell whether they're going to make it, and you should know by day 90.

The trick is measuring the work that leads to revenue, not revenue itself.

Why revenue is the wrong early measure

A $200K services engagement usually takes months from first conversation to signature. A seller who joins in January rarely closes their own new deal before summer.

So if you judge them on closed business in the first quarter, you'll either panic and fire a good hire or wait too long on a bad one. Neither helps.

And inherited deals tell you little. A seller who closes a deal that was nearly signed when they arrived hasn't proven anything yet.

What to measure in the first 30 days

Learning. Can they explain your firm's offer in plain terms, without the marketing language? Do they understand the three or four problems you solve best and who has them?

Then research. By the end of the first month, they should be able to pull a 3x3 on a target account and write a sharp hypothesis without help. Three sources, a few facts each, a guess at the misery. If their hypotheses are vague after a month, that's a warning. The 3x3 research post is a good shared standard.

And their account list. They should own a short list of target accounts and know which ones have live signals.

What to measure at 60 days

Conversations with senior buyers. Not booked meetings. Real exchanges with economic buyers, champions or technical leads, whether by email or on a call.

Look at the replies they're getting. Are buyers correcting their hypotheses with substance? That means the notes are specific enough to engage with. Are they mostly getting silence or polite brush-offs? That means the notes are generic.

And check committee coverage. On their best accounts, are they reaching more than one person? A seller who only talks to single contacts will struggle with every deal they touch.

What to measure at 90 days

Pipeline they created. Deals where an economic buyer has agreed there's a real problem and there's a defined next step. Not a list of companies who took a call.

Quality of meetings held. Sit in on a few. Do they ask good questions? Do they listen more than they talk? Do they leave with a clear next step?

And judgment. Can they tell a real opportunity from a polite one? Do they drop accounts that aren't moving, or hang on hoping?

A scenario

Say a consulting firm hires a seller with a strong track record at a software company. At 30 days, their research is thin. At 60 days, they've sent lots of notes but most are generic and replies are rare. At 90, there's one real conversation with an economic buyer.

That's not a disaster, but it's a signal. Coach hard on research and hypotheses now, with a clear bar for the next 60 days. If the work changes, the revenue will follow. If it doesn't, you've learned early, and the harder decision gets easier to make.

What not to measure

Activity volume. A new seller who sends hundreds of notes in their first month is probably sending templates.

Booked meetings without context. Twenty meetings with junior contacts is worse than three with economic buyers.

And CRM hygiene alone. Clean records are nice. They're not a sign the seller can sell.

The conversation at day 90

Sit down with the seller. Walk through their best three accounts together. What signals did they find? What did they guess? What did buyers say back? What's the next step?

That conversation tells you more than any dashboard. And it tells the seller exactly what good looks like for the next quarter.