The pipeline stage that lies to you
Every CRM has one stage where deals go to wait. It looks like progress on the board and it is the reason the forecast keeps missing.
FrontlineArk Advisory5 min read
Open almost any pipeline and you will find a stage doing no work. It is usually called something like Proposal Sent, or Following Up, or Interested. Deals arrive there and some of them never leave.
It looks healthy on the board. The column is full, the total is large, and everyone can point at it in the Monday meeting. It is also where the forecast goes to die.
01Stages describe the buyer, not the seller
Proposal Sent describes something you did. It says nothing about the person deciding. Waiting on signature describes something they are doing, and it comes with an obvious next question: waiting since when, and who is chasing it.
- Every stage has an entry condition that is true or false, never a matter of opinion
- Every stage has an owner and an expected time in it
- A deal that exceeds that time surfaces itself rather than waiting to be found
- There is no stage a deal can occupy indefinitely without someone being asked why
Two ways to name the same stage
What you did
What they are doing
- Proposal sentWaiting on signature
- Following upReviewing with finance
- InterestedBooked a second call
02Time in stage is the honest number
Deal count flatters you. A hundred open opportunities feels like a good quarter until you sort by how long each one has sat where it is. The ones that have not moved in six weeks are not pipeline. They are a decision nobody has made yet, including you.
A pipeline you cannot forecast is not a pipeline. It is a list of people who were once polite to you.
03Closing the waiting room
The fix is unglamorous. Rewrite each stage as a condition. Put a clock on it. Give the clock an owner. Then work the aged deals once, honestly, and close out what is not real.
Expect the number to drop
The first honest pass usually cuts open pipeline by a large fraction, and it is the most useful week the team will have. A smaller number you can plan around beats a larger one you cannot.
What is left after that is worth forecasting, and worth the sales team's Monday. Everything else was a column with a nice total on it.
What it comes down to
- A stage should be defined by what is true, not by what was done
- Time in stage is the number that exposes a stalled pipeline
- If a deal can sit somewhere forever, that stage is a waiting room