If your sales team is chasing more meetings and stuffing the pipeline to hit quota, it might be time to pause and rethink the strategy. According to the newly released 2025 Ebsta Sales Qualification Report, the real revenue driver isn't hustle—it's discipline.

Analyzing over 655,000 B2B opportunities worth $48 billion, Ebsta found that well-qualified deals are 6.3 times more likely to close and close an average of 21.6% faster than poorly qualified ones. That kind of efficiency isn't just a nice-to-have in a resource-constrained environment—it's mission critical.

“Qualification isn't a one-time gate,” said Guy Rubin, CEO of Ebsta. “It’s a dynamic, ongoing process that shapes every stage of the deal.”

Yet despite the data, sales orgs are often flying blind. Only 36% of deals that pass Discovery include a qualification score and supporting notes. That’s not just sloppy—it’s setting up teams for forecasting errors, longer sales cycles, and wasted effort.

Key Takeaways from the Report:

• Win rates jump to 50% for highly qualified deals vs. just 8% for weakly qualified ones.

• Well-qualified deals are nearly 2x less likely to slip past their forecasted close date.

• Top-performing teams disqualify faster, manage nearly twice the pipeline, and keep deals moving.

• Weak qualification correlates strongly with slippage, no decisions, and late-stage churn.

Warren Zenna, Founder of The CRO Collective, cuts to the heart of the issue:

“The goal of qualification isn't to weed out bad deals. It's to unify the org around what a good deal actually looks like.”

That clarity creates organizational alignment and, more importantly, predictable growth.

Sales Rooms, Champions, and Shorter Cycles

Beyond scorecards and notes, the report also features tactical gems from sales leaders like Ollie Sharpe (CRO, trumpet), who notes that:

“When your champion shares a sales room internally at least twice, the sales cycle shortens by an average of 15%.”

That's a simple signal that many RevOps teams overlook—internal champion engagement is a better predictor of momentum than most CRM fields.

Implications for CROs and RevOps Leaders

This report isn’t just another data dump—it’s a wake-up call for Chief Revenue Officers and sales enablement pros. Ebsta recommends doubling down on rigorous qualification frameworks like MEDDPICC, not just in early Discovery, but throughout the entire deal cycle.

Why? Because qualification rigor is a leading indicator of:

• Forecasting accuracy

• Coaching effectiveness

• Pipeline velocity

In short: Get qualification right, and everything else starts to align.

As the economy continues to pressure B2B sales teams to do more with less, this study from Ebsta makes one thing clear: Discipline is the new growth hack.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.