Cutting through the noise: How ClickZ built pipeline confidence

The Challenge

When George Looker stepped into his new role as Commercial Director at ClickZ Media, he faced a familiar but daunting reality: the pipeline looked full, but confidence in what would actually close was low.

ClickZ, with decades-old media brands and a growing digital presence, had no shortage of inbound interest. New followers, new newsletter readers, new sponsors knocking on the door. The problem wasn’t leads. It was clarity.

• No trusted history of deals. As a new sales leader, George couldn’t lean on years of company knowledge to explain why some opportunities closed while others fizzled.

• Scattered data. HubSpot dashboards, call transcripts, rep updates, and weekly business reviews all told different pieces of the story - but never the whole thing.

• Wasted cycles. Too much energy was being poured into “almost” deals: opportunities that looked promising, consumed meetings and proposals, but ultimately stalled.

The cost? Roughly a full day every week spent on deals that were never going to convert. Multiply that across a quarter, and you’ve lost weeks of productive selling time - time that could have gone into high-momentum opportunities.

For a scaling business with ambitious growth targets, this wasn’t sustainable.

The Fix

George didn’t need more reports or another dashboard. He needed a system that cut through the noise and told him, objectively, what was happening in the pipeline.

That’s where Hive Perform came in.

Hive Perform bridges the gap between revenue intelligence and sales execution, turning scattered data into clear insights and actionable next steps. For George and his team, this meant:

• Deal-by-deal clarity. No more relying on rep optimism or patchy CRM fields—just a distilled view of where every deal really stood.

• Early signals of disengagement. When a prospect stopped showing buying intent, the team knew quickly and could stop wasting cycles.

• Holistic pipeline visibility. Instead of jumping across tools, George had one place to see the bigger picture and coach reps more effectively.

• Objective decision-making. The system provided the evidence needed to walk away from low-probability deals and double down on those with real momentum.

As George put it:

Hive helps cut through the noise of all the different metrics and dashboards. It gives me one clear framework to decide whether a deal is likely to progress or not. I haven’t seen another platform do that.

The Results

The impact was immediate:

• 20% of the week reclaimed. By eliminating wasted time on unproductive deals, the team clawed back a full day each week to focus on higher-potential opportunities. Decrease in LTV to CAC. 

• Faster time-to-insight. Within a week of onboarding, Hive Perform surfaced accurate signals about pipeline health using ClickZ’s CRM and call transcript data.

• Sharper forecasting. George gained confidence in pipeline accuracy, making forecasts not only more reliable for his team but also more credible at the leadership level.

• Better team focus. Sales reps spent less time chasing dead ends and more time closing deals aligned to pre-defined success criteria.

In a world where most CROs cite forecast inaccuracy and wasted cycles as their top pain points , ClickZ’s results show what’s possible when execution gaps are closed.

Overall, using Hive Perform enabled ClickZ Media to see a tangible improvement in: 

• Deal Capacity per Rep
  
• Deal Velocity 
• Conversion Rates

The Takeaway

ClickZ Media’s journey is proof that scaling companies don’t always need more data—they need better decisions.

The lesson for CEOs, CROs, and sales leaders is clear:

• Stop spending hours verifying pipeline updates.

• Start trusting one clear view of deal health.

• Stop wasting cycles on “almost” opportunities.

• Start reallocating energy toward deals with real momentum.

For George Looker, that shift turned a noisy, fragmented pipeline into a trusted growth engine.

And that’s the bigger story: in sales, clarity isn’t a luxury. It’s the difference between hoping to hit target and knowing you will.