Pipeline stages that mean something

A pipeline is the list of open deals, each sitting in a stage that says how far it has come. Stages are useful only if two people looking at the same deal put it in the same place. Names like «hot», «very interested» or «almost there» fail that test: they describe how the seller feels, and one label can cover a warm first call and a budget the finance director has already approved.

So define every stage by something the buyer did that you can check: a meeting held, a budget owner named, a contract sent to their legal team. Each of these has a date and often a document behind it.

Leo's sheet at Klasna for Teams shows eleven deals at «almost there». Until each one is tied to a buyer action, nobody can tell whether that means eleven contracts or eleven pleasant conversations.

Teams uses four stages, and a buyer action opens each one:

• Discovery: the buyer described their problem in a call and agreed to a next meeting.
• Qualified: you know the need, who owns the budget and how they approve purchases, the timing, and the alternative the buyer would choose instead.
• Proposal: the budget owner has your proposal, with the scope they asked for.
• Contract: the buyer sent your contract to their legal or procurement team.

After that a deal is won or lost, and a lost deal gets a recorded reason.

Notice what is missing: «they loved the demo». A good demo is pleasant, but by itself it moves nothing. If the buyer then books a second meeting with their operations director, that booking is the evidence.

Each stage has an entry criterion: what must be true for a deal to enter it. There is no separate exit rule; a deal leaves a stage by meeting the next stage's entry criterion. That keeps the pipeline clear: a deal is either qualified or it isn't. There is no «qualified-ish».

If a deal has some of the qualified answers but not all, it stays in discovery until the missing ones are known. That isn't a penalty. It tells you exactly what to find out at the next meeting.

A deal may skip a stage when the evidence is already there. A renewal with an existing client can go straight to contract, because the need and the budget were proven last year. What no deal can do is enter a stage without that stage's evidence.

The hardest test of stage discipline is a friendly one. The champion, the person inside the buyer's company who wants your product, says: «We'll definitely sign next month.» It is tempting to move the deal to contract on the spot.

But a promise is one person's forecast, not a buyer action. The champion may mean it sincerely and still not control the decision: finance, procurement and legal may each have a say. The contract stage starts when the buyer sends the contract to their legal or procurement team, because that step shows the organisation is moving, not just one fan.

Keep the promise, with its date, as a note. Then ask what has to happen inside their company before the contract reaches legal, and who does it. The answer is your next checkable step.

Leo never marks a deal lost, and many sellers don't: closing a deal as lost feels like admitting failure, and an open deal still looks like a chance. The result is a pipeline full of deals nobody is really working on.

Treat lost as a proper stage with its own entry criterion: the buyer chose another option or said no, and the reason is recorded. «Renewed with their current school», «no budget until next year» and «only wanted a free trial» are reasons; «went quiet» is not one yet.

Two things follow. The pipeline shrinks to deals that are actually alive, so its total stops flattering you. And the loss reasons become data: they show which kinds of leads aren't worth chasing, which is how Teams sets its disqualifiers. A pipeline with no losses isn't healthy; it's unedited.

Stages tell you where a deal is; time tells you whether it is still moving. Track two numbers for every deal: days in stage and days since the buyer last did anything, such as replying, booking a call or sending a document.

Teams flags a deal when either of two things happens: no buyer activity for more than 30 days, or the expected close date has moved twice. This is Teams' house rule, chosen for its own sales cycle, not an industry standard; another company might use 14 days or 60.

The probability in the sheet doesn't protect a deal. A contract-stage deal at 95 % whose close date has slid from August to September to October is flagged all the same: a date moved twice is the pattern of a deal that isn't really closing.

When a deal gets flagged, the usual answer is «but I emailed them last week». Emails, calls and reminders are real work, yet they measure our effort. The flag measures something else: whether the buyer is still moving. Five follow-ups with no answer is still thirty-five days of silence.

So log what the buyer did, with a date: «replied asking about group sizes, 3 October», «booked a call with their finance director, 10 October», «sent our contract to legal, 14 October». Keep your own activity separate, if you log it at all.

Then the pipeline becomes a record of facts that anyone, your manager or a new colleague, can audit in a minute, instead of a mood board that shows how hard the team tried.

A flagged deal doesn't get deleted, discounted or quietly upgraded. It gets one honest question to the buyer, for example: «Is this still a priority for you this quarter?» Whatever the answer, the deal then moves: forward with a next step, back to an earlier stage, or to lost with a reason.

This isn't pushy. A short, clear question lets the buyer say no without a meeting and saves both sides weeks of polite follow-ups. A fake deadline would be pushy: «the price goes up on Friday» when it doesn't is pressure, not information, and it costs trust.

The fintech startup in Leo's sheet, silent for 41 days, gets exactly this treatment.

How it fits together: stages now mean buyer actions, and stuck deals surface on their own. The next lesson adds the four questions that move a deal from discovery to qualified, and how to ask them honestly.