Sales Referral Analysis — Full Funnel Report

28.0%

2,035

Won

21.8%

1,580

GD Declined

5.6%

410

Member Declined

3.2%

231

No Response

7.9%

577

Aborted

2.8%

201

On Hold

30.7%

2,225

Still in Pipeline

7,259 total referrals — all segments above sum to 100%

Executive Summary

This analysis examines all 7,259 referral records across the full pipeline — from initial research through GD review, member outreach, and final outcome. The end-to-end conversion rate is 28.0%, meaning roughly 1 in 4 referrals initiated ultimately results in a successful nomination.

The data reveals two major chokepoints and one consistent predictor of success:

Chokepoint #1: GD Gatekeeping (1,580 lost — 21.8% of all referrals) The Group Director decision is the single largest loss point. Check-in call referrals are hit hardest: only 50.8% pass GD review vs 85.5% for summit referrals.

Chokepoint #2: Member Follow-Through (641 lost — 8.8%) Of 3,473 referrals that reach the member stage, 410 are declined by the member and 231 get no response. Advisors follow through at 76.2% vs 57.3% for regular members.

The #1 Predictor: Same-Group Referrals When a member refers a prospect into their own community, the end-to-end win rate is 40.7% vs 23.9% for cross-group. This advantage holds at every funnel stage.

1. The Referral Funnel

How 7,259 referrals flow through the pipeline, with exit points at each stage.

7,259 Referrals Initiated

↓ 577 aborted · 83 on hold · 1,130 still in early stages ↓

5,469 Reached GD Review 75.3% of initiated

↓ 1,580 declined by GD · 118 GD on hold ↓

3,473 Reached Member Stage 47.8% of initiated

↓ 410 member declined · 231 no response · 14 not made ↓

2,035 Referral Made / Nomination Confirmed 28.0% end-to-end

Of every 100 referrals initiated, roughly 75 make it to GD review, 48 get approved and sent to members, and 28 result in a successful referral. The biggest single drop is at GD review (29% of those reviewed are declined).

2. GD Decision Stage — What Gets Approved?

Of 5,469 referrals that reached GD review, 3,771 were approved (69.0%) and 1,580 were declined (28.9%).

Channel	Reviewed	Approved	Declined	Approval Rate
Summit (In Person)	387	331	56	85.5%
Email/Text	2,487	2,048	439	82.3%
Other	285	218	67	76.5%
Member Check-In Call	2,309	1,173	1,136	50.8%

Top Decline Reasons (from comment analysis of 1,579 GD declines)

Reason	Count	% of Declines	Preventable?
Prospect already being worked / in cadence	354	23.4%	Yes
Weak connection / not enough leverage	211	14.0%	Partially
Too many asks of this member recently	180	11.9%	Yes
Previous outreach failed / prospect unresponsive	153	10.1%	Partially
Budget / cost concerns	104	6.9%	No
Reports to prospect / hierarchy issue	101	6.7%	Yes
Too new in role	74	4.9%	Yes
Not a fit / wrong level	39	2.6%	Yes
Already alumni / former member	41	2.7%	Yes

~42% of GD declines are preventable. A pre-submission checklist ("Is this prospect already in an outreach cadence? Has this member been asked 2+ times in the last 90 days? Does the member report to the prospect?") would eliminate nearly half of declines.

3. Member Stage — Who Follows Through?

Of 3,473 referrals that reached the member, 2,035 resulted in a successful referral (58.6%), 410 were declined (11.8%), and 231 got no response (6.7%).

Member Follow-Through by Channel

Channel	Reached Member	Referral Made	Declined	No Response	Follow-Through %
Summit (In Person)	314	257	24	13	81.8%
Other	202	160	13	13	79.2%
Member Check-In Call	1,031	602	185	78	58.4%
Email/Text	1,925	1,015	188	127	52.7%

Member Follow-Through by Member Status

Status	n	Follow-Through %	Decline %	No Response %
Advisor	63	76.2%	3.2%	9.5%
Advising Member - Non Paying	77	68.8%	13.0%	1.3%
Member - Non Paying	147	61.2%	10.9%	4.1%
Alumni	397	60.5%	11.3%	11.3%
Member	2,737	57.3%	12.3%	6.2%

Why Members Decline (410 declines)

Reason	Count	%
Not comfortable / doesn't know prospect well	32	8.2%
Too busy / bad timing	32	8.2%
Doesn't think prospect is a fit	29	7.5%
Left company / role change	21	5.4%
Doesn't want to make asks	7	1.8%
Political / sensitive situation	5	1.3%

Email/text has the highest no-response rate (127 of 231 total). Consider adding a follow-up cadence for email/text asks that don't get a response within 7 days.

Advisors follow through at 76.2% and almost never decline (3.2%). Prioritizing referral asks through advisors would significantly improve member-stage conversion.

4. Aborted & On-Hold Referrals

577 referrals (7.9%) were aborted before completing the funnel. Many overlap with GD decline reasons.

Abort Reason	Count	% of Aborts
Left company / role change	72	12.9%
Budget / timing issues	43	7.7%
Prospect already being worked	40	7.2%
Research found issues	27	4.8%
Prospect already member/alumni	20	3.6%
Duplicate submission	15	2.7%

Earlier cross-referencing of prospect pipelines and CRM data during the research stage would catch many of these before time is invested in the referral process.

5. Channel Performance — End-to-End

Each channel shows a distinct profile. Check-in calls fail at the GD gate; email/text leaks at the member stage; summits are strong everywhere.

Channel	Initiated	GD Approval %	Member Follow-Through %	End-to-End Win %
Summit (In Person)	566	85.5%	81.8%	45.4%
Other	428	76.5%	79.2%	37.4%
Email/Text	3,124	82.3%	52.7%	32.5%
Member Check-In Call	3,140	50.8%	58.4%	19.2%

If check-in call referrals had the same GD approval rate as email/text, you'd recover ~730 additional approved referrals per year. The issue is quality, not channel — better pre-vetting of check-in call asks before they reach the GD would dramatically improve the pipeline.

6. Same-Group & Same-Company Patterns

Dimension	Total	Win Rate	GD Decline %	Member Decline %	No Response %
Same-Group	1,782	40.7%	14.4%	7.3%	2.3%
Cross-Group	5,477	23.9%	24.1%	5.1%	3.5%

Cross-Company	3,935	30.6%	20.0%	5.2%	2.8%
Same-Company	3,324	25.0%	23.9%	6.2%	3.7%

Best & Worst Combo Win Rates

Combination	Win Rate	n
Same-Group + Summit	59.2%	179
Advisor + Email/Text	57.4%	54
Same-Group + Email/Text	46.0%	802
Member + Summit	43.9%	453

Alumni + Check-In Call	15.4%	585
Cross-Group + Check-In Call	16.9%	2,476
Same-Company + Check-In Call	17.2%	1,420

Cross-group referrals via check-in calls convert at just 16.9% — and it's the most common combination (2,476 referrals). This is the "hey, do you know anyone for [other group]?" style ask. These should either be pre-vetted more carefully or deprioritized entirely.

7. Member Group Performance (Full Funnel)

Member Group	Total	Won	Win %	GD Dec	Mem Dec	No Resp	Abort
Marketing Executive 50	204	107	52.5%	28	9	7	20
Communications 50	455	183	40.2%	109	48	8	13
General Counsel 50	428	169	39.5%	123	45	33	27
Sustainability 50	207	81	39.1%	58	13	4	20
HR Executive 50	181	64	35.4%	36	8	4	12
Procurement 50	319	110	34.5%	79	23	4	11
HR 50	504	142	28.2%	108	26	12	52
G100 Chief Executive	332	90	27.1%	47	20	14	25
Finance 50	240	51	21.2%	134	15	12	8
Marketing 50	336	62	18.5%	88	24	2	15
HR 50 II	246	31	12.6%	11	5	1	21
Security 50	273	29	10.6%	142	5	9	20

Security 50 has a 10.6% win rate with 142 GD declines out of 273 referrals (52%). This group needs fundamentally different referral criteria. Finance 50 also has 134 GD declines out of 240 (55.8%).

8. How the Funnel Has Changed Over Time

One of the most important questions: is your referral process getting better? The answer is nuanced — some stages have improved dramatically while a new bottleneck is emerging. Note that recent quarters have high "still in pipeline" percentages because those referrals haven't finished the funnel yet, so raw win rates appear lower than they will ultimately be.

Quarterly Funnel Comparison

Quarter	Total	Won	Win %*	GD Decline %	Mem Decline %	No Response %	Abort %	Still in Pipeline %
Q1 2025 (Jan-Mar)	947	261	27.6%	26.3%	8.1%	10.9%	17.4%	6.3%
Q2 2025 (Apr-Jun)	1,771	500	28.2%	31.0%	5.5%	2.7%	13.7%	13.8%
Q3 2025 (Jul-Sep)	1,323	422	31.9%	25.8%	6.1%	2.6%	6.4%	23.7%
Q4 2025 (Oct-Dec)	1,305	376	28.8%	16.6%	4.7%	2.1%	3.8%	41.9%
Q1 2026 (Jan-Mar)	1,913	476	24.9%	11.7%	4.9%	0.9%	1.8%	54.7%

* Win % for Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 is understated because many referrals are still in the pipeline and haven't reached their final outcome.

Stage-Level Conversion Rates (the real story)

Since raw win % is distorted by pipeline lag, the stage-level rates tell the real story of process improvement:

Quarter	GD Approval Rate	Member Follow-Through Rate	Trend
Q1 2025	64.8%	54.1%	Baseline
Q2 2025	56.8%	67.9%	GD tightened, member stage improved
Q3 2025	66.8%	64.1%	Both stabilizing
Q4 2025	76.3%	55.0%	GD improving, member dipping
Q1 2026	81.6%	52.1%	GD best ever, member stage is new bottleneck

GD approval has improved from 64.8% to 81.6% — a 17 percentage point gain. This is a major process win. Fewer referrals are being wasted on asks that the GD will reject. The abort rate also dropped from 17.4% to 1.8%, meaning far less wasted effort on referrals that get abandoned mid-process.

Member follow-through has declined from ~62% to 52% and is now the #1 bottleneck. As GD gatekeeping has improved and more referrals get through, the member stage hasn't kept pace. More referrals are reaching members, but a smaller percentage are converting into actual introductions.

What's Driving the Shift: Channel Mix Change

A massive channel mix shift explains much of the improvement at the GD stage:

Channel	Q1 2025 Share	Q1 2026 Share	Change
Member Check-In Call	51.2%	26.8%	↓ 24.4pp
Email/Text	36.2%	54.4%	↑ 18.2pp
Summit (In Person)	8.2%	8.8%	+0.6pp
Other	4.3%	10.1%	+5.8pp

You've shifted heavily from check-in calls (51% → 27%) toward email/text (36% → 54%). Since email/text has an 82.3% GD approval rate vs 50.8% for check-in calls, this channel mix shift alone explains most of the GD approval improvement. The trade-off: email/text has a lower member follow-through rate (52.7% vs 58.4% for calls), which is why the member stage is now the weaker link.

Same-Group Referral Trend

Quarter	Same-Group % of Volume	Same-Group Win Rate	Cross-Group Win Rate
Q1 2025	16.5%	41.0%	24.9%
Q2 2025	19.8%	43.7%	24.4%
Q3 2025	25.9%	47.5%	26.4%
Q4 2025	29.0%	42.9%	23.1%
Q1 2026	29.0%	33.2%	21.5%

Same-group referrals have nearly doubled from 16.5% to 29.0% of volume. This is another smart process shift — you're increasingly asking members to refer into their own communities, where the win rate is consistently higher. There's still room to push this further toward 35–40%.

Half-Year Summary

Period	Total	Win %	GD Approval	Member Follow-Through	Abort %	No Response %
H1 2025 (Jan-Jun)	2,718	28.0%	59.6%	62.5%	15.0%	5.6%
H2 2025 (Jul-Dec)	2,628	30.4%	71.3%	59.5%	5.1%	2.4%
Q1 2026 (Jan-Mar)	1,913	24.9%*	81.6%	52.1%	1.8%	0.9%

* Q1 2026 win % is understated due to 54.7% of referrals still in the pipeline.

Bottom line: your process improvements are working, but the bottleneck has shifted. The front of the funnel (research quality, GD vetting, abort reduction) has gotten dramatically better. The new opportunity is at the member stage — improving the rate at which members actually follow through on approved asks, particularly for the growing volume of email/text referrals.

9. Monthly Trends

Volume scaled from 171 in Jan 2025 to 830 in Mar 2026. Win rate peaked at 45.4% in Sep 2025 and dipped to 18.0% in Feb 2026 during a high-volume push, suggesting quality suffers when volume targets are aggressive.

10. Recommendations: Additional Data to Strengthen Analysis

Prioritized by which funnel stage they would most improve.

1. Structured Decline/Abort Reason (Dropdown)

Replace freetext with standardized codes at each loss point. The single highest-impact addition.

2. Dates at Each Funnel Stage

Timestamps for research, proposal, GD decision, member outreach, and outcome. Unlocks velocity and SLA analysis.

3. Relationship Strength Score

Structured field: "worked together 3+ years," "LinkedIn only," "direct report," "met at event." Quantifies connection threshold needed.

4. Prior Outreach Count for Prospect

How many previous contact attempts. Reveals optimal touch count and when to stop.

5. Member's Rolling Ask Count (90-Day)

Enables caps and routing to prevent ask fatigue.

6. GD Name

Reveals whether approval rates vary by individual GD. Enables calibration.

7. Prospect Tenure in Role (Months)

Prevents premature outreach to new-in-role executives.

8. Prospect Company Size

Revenue band / employee count to reveal community fit patterns by company scale.

9. Member Engagement Score

Composite of event attendance, call participation, content contribution. Confirms engaged members make better referrers.

10. Revenue Attributed

Ties referrals to membership revenue for true ROI by channel, group, and member type.