Deal stage

Fuzzy stages turn the pipeline into fiction. Two reps can look at the same number and mean different things by it. Clear stages give a team a shared language and a map of where deals get stuck, which is more useful than a vague sense that sales feels slow.

Stages also feed the numbers you plan with. A forecast, a win rate and the length of the sales cycle are all calculated from stage movements, so inconsistent stages spoil every one of them.

• Write an entry criterion for each stage: the one fact that must be true before a deal can move in.
• Require a short note when a deal changes stage, saying what happened.
• Match stages to what the buyer does, not what the seller does. "Buyer has agreed a budget" tells you more than "follow-up sent".
• Watch where deals pile up and stay. That is where the process needs work.
• Keep the list short. If reps jump between two stages without a clear difference, merge them.

A deal stage is the label on a deal that says where it sits in your sales process. A simple pipeline might run: new lead, discovery done, proposal sent, negotiation, closed won or closed lost. Each deal sits in exactly one stage at a time, and it moves forward when something specific has happened.

The important word is specific. "Proposal sent" is a stage anyone can check, because either the proposal went out or it did not. "Seems keen" is a feeling, and it will mean something different to every person on the team.

• Moving a deal forward to make the dashboard look healthier.
• Adding stages for every step until nobody updates them.
• Never closing out stale deals, which inflates the pipeline.