The Stuck Stage. Proposal-to-client conversion fell from 37% in early May to about 7%, while the normal firm held near 40%. If nothing changes it stays near 6%. Restoring follow-up brings it back to 42% by February.
Illustrative. Juniper Ridge Advisory is a fictional firm with a full year of modeled data, analyzed the way we analyze yours.
How to calculate it
First, define each step and a recorded behavior that proves someone reached it. Then, for each step, measure the share of people who advance within a set window, such as 90 days. The step worth fixing first is the one where people at the step × the improvement in conversion × the value gained by advancing is largest.
200 qualified leads a year, and 30% of them reach a proposal. Raising that to 35% moves 10 more leads one step forward. If each proposal is worth about $9,000 in expected profit (a 37% win rate on $25,000 of first-year profit), that step is worth about $90,000 a year. Run the same math at every step, and the biggest result marks your priority.
You can't say how many people are at each step today. Growth feels slow, but nobody can point to where it stalls.
Make the next step obvious, easy and personally offered. Give each step one owner. Make sure every person has a specific next step in front of them.
Mostly time: defining steps and recording the behaviors that prove them.
Treating the measurable signs as the mission. When the end state can't be measured directly, use two or three behaviors that point to it, and check once a year that they still do.