Stages defined by what the customer does
It is the change that does the most for a pipeline’s reliability. “Proposal sent” describes what you did and says nothing about the customer. “Proposal reviewed by the customer, with a follow-up meeting booked” describes a fact you can check.
Three signs of a misleading pipeline
- Opportunities with no dated next step. If nobody knows what happens next, it is not alive.
- Close dates that move every month. An opportunity that has been “closing next month” for five months is lost, and nobody has said so.
- Probabilities set by gut feeling. If nearly all your opportunities sit at 70%, the probability means nothing.
The usual mistake
Not closing lost deals. A pipeline full of dead opportunities makes a forecast impossible and demoralizes the team. Closing them as lost, with the reason, is information; leaving them open is noise.