Velocity Beats Volume

We’ve all told the lie to ourselves, even when it sneaks into our teams or our personal lives.

 “If we just do more, we’ll get better results.”

Sending more emails, running more campaigns, submitting more job applications, making more cold calls.

Cold hard truth: Volume doesn’t equal progress. Velocity does.

Back when I worked for Dell, that first direct outbound program I ran for my business unit could have celebrated a “volume” of tactical results we got. Some of them even looked impressive. (It was the first-ever program of its kind, and, well, the industry liked it.)

Yet when I slowed the whole train down and checked each car, it turned out a lot of those measured results were just noise. They didn’t result in the most deals, and the pipeline that resulted converted in stops and starts.

So I switched it up and had a breakthrough… which was this:

·       I decreased the targeting to focus on fewer, higher-quality plays.

·       I made the distance for conversion shorter, so we weren’t talking a canyon-sized chasm between first touch and real progress.

·       Goodbye activity metrics, hello impact results.

Pipeline velocity became the metric that mattered most, more than “target accounts engaged.” Finally, the conversation wasn’t “We got 10,000 leads” but “We’re accelerating $10M of opportunities through the funnel.”

Thankfully, this lesson travels and translates.

In job searches: 10 tailored apps with fast follow-ups beat 100 resume dumps into black holes.

In leadership: 3 meaningful team check-ins move morale more than 30 scattered Slack messages.

In life: 1 hour fully present with the kids beats 10 distracted ones.

Velocity is more velociter-er (yeah?) when there is precision and acceleration, not just sheer force.

It’s to create momentum that compounds. Next time you’re tempted to fire up the volume, ask instead: “What’s going to move faster, not just louder?”