Measure the work that moves a buyer forward, not merely the work that is easy to count.
Activity is an input, not the result
Calls, emails and connection requests help explain how much work happened. They do not establish whether the work was relevant or productive. A team can hit every activity target and still create little usable pipeline.
Define a clean funnel
Track accounts researched, suitable contacts engaged, meaningful replies, qualified meetings held, opportunities accepted and opportunities won. Use consistent definitions and distinguish meetings booked from meetings completed.
Measure quality at the handoff
Ask account executives to accept or reject meetings with a reason. Review common objections, wrong personas, poor timing and missing qualification. This is the fastest way to identify whether the problem lies in targeting, messaging or the handoff.
Work backwards from a business goal
Start with the number and value of new opportunities required. Use your own conversion rates to estimate the conversations and accounts needed. Treat early assumptions as scenarios, then replace them with observed data. Avoid copying conversion percentages from another company.
Build a weekly review
A useful review asks three questions: what changed, why did it change and what experiment should we run next? Segment results by ICP, offer and channel so aggregate averages do not hide important differences.