B2B pipeline stages that work

Open the deal board of an average B2B team and you see it straight away. Forty deals sit in Quote sent. Some really received a quote. Others are there because the rep will send one "soon". A few have been there since last year because nobody dares to close them.

The result: the pipeline says there is half a million in the late stages, and at the end of the quarter only a fraction closes. The sales manager stops trusting the board and walks around every Monday asking what is "really" going on. Reps see the pipeline as admin for the boss.

That is not a people problem. It comes from stages that describe what the rep does instead of what the buyer has done. "Prepare quote" is a task for the rep. "Buyer has received the quote and named a date to decide" is a fact you can check.

That is the difference between a stage and an exit criterion. An exit criterion is the condition a deal must meet before it can move to the next stage. It is always something the buyer said or did, never something the rep feels. And you can check it: is it in a note, an email or an activity on the deal?

With clear exit criteria every stage means something. Weighted value adds up, your sales forecast works and you can see where deals get stuck. Then you can give each stage a win probability based on what actually happens, and a limit after which a deal counts as stalled.

This guide is about which stages to choose and what they mean. How to build the pipeline in your CRM after that is covered in how to set up a sales pipeline.

An exit criterion has to pass three tests.

It is about the buyer. "We prepared a proposal" is not an exit criterion. "The buyer discussed the proposal with their director" is. The question is always: what did the buyer say or do?

It can be checked. A colleague who opens the deal must be able to see the criterion was met. That means a note, an email or an activity on the deal. "I have a good feeling" cannot be checked.

It is binary. Met or not met. Never "sort of". If you are in doubt, it is not met.

From weak to strong

• Weak: "Interested". Strong: "Buyer booked a second meeting with someone who shares the decision."
• Weak: "Quote". Strong: "Buyer received the quote and named a decision date."
• Weak: "Almost there". Strong: "Buyer said they will sign if the start date moves by a month."
• Weak: "Warm". Strong: "A budget was named and it falls within our price range."

Put exit criteria where everyone sees them. In the stage description in your CRM, on screen during the sales meeting, and in onboarding for new reps. Review them once a quarter.

How many stages?

Five to seven open stages work for most B2B teams. Fewer than four and you cannot see where deals stall. More than eight and reps skip stages or only move deals at the end. Won and lost do not count as open stages.

A made up deal to show how exit criteria work in practice. A software company sells a scheduling tool to an installation firm with sixty field engineers. In this example the rep is called Eva.

First meeting booked. The operations director fills in a form on the website. Eva calls the same day and books a forty five minute meeting for the following week. The director is a decision maker, so the exit criterion is met. The deal gets a provisional value based on the number of engineers.

Needs confirmed. In the meeting the director explains that planners lose two hours every morning moving jobs around in a spreadsheet, and that the current contract ends in four months. That is a problem and a reason to decide now. Eva asks who else is involved: the finance director and the head planner. She adds a note to the deal and moves it.

Demo or proposal discussed. Eva runs a demo for the director and the head planner using their own example. The head planner says it fits if the link with their time tracking works. Budget and timeline are discussed. The deal moves on.

Quote sent. Eva sends a quote. The director says the finance director will review it within two weeks and names a date. Without that date the deal would have stayed in the previous stage, with a task to ask for one.

Negotiation. The finance director wants different payment terms. The buyer wants to go ahead and the talk is about terms. The deal is in Negotiation.

Won. Eight days later the quote is signed.

At every point a colleague could open the deal and see why it was in that stage. That is the whole point of exit criteria.

The win probabilities in the template are a start. After six months you have enough data to adjust them. This is how it works, with made up numbers.

Take every deal closed in the last twelve months, won or lost. For each stage, count how many deals ever reached it and how many of those were eventually won.

• 200 deals reached First meeting booked. 24 were won. Win probability: 12%.
• 110 deals reached Needs confirmed. 24 won. Win probability: 22%.
• 70 deals reached Demo or proposal discussed. 24 won. Win probability: 34%.
• 45 deals reached Quote sent. 24 won. Win probability: 53%.
• 30 deals reached Negotiation. 24 won. Win probability: 80%.

In this example the real win probability at Quote sent was lower than the 60% in the template. You have two options. Lower it to 53%, or look at why deals drop out after the quote and make the exit criterion of the stage before it stricter.

Do not do this with fewer than twenty won deals. With less data, one deal is the difference between 40% and 60%. Use the starting values instead and check again in six months.

Look at time per stage at the same time. How long does a deal that ends up won spend in each stage on average? Set the stall limit at roughly one and a half times that. A deal that sits longer deserves a conversation. For the related numbers, see the guide on sales KPIs.

Stages that are tasks

"Prepare quote", "Call", "Book meeting". Those are activities, not stages. A stage says where the buyer is. What the rep needs to do belongs on the deal as an activity.

A stage for every exception

Adding a stage every time something unusual happens makes the pipeline unreadable. Use a label or a field for exceptions. Keep stages for the path most deals follow.

Leads on the deal board

A lead that is not yet qualified does not belong on the deal board. Keep leads separate until they meet your qualification, then create a deal. Otherwise they clutter the first stage and your conversion never adds up. More in the guide on lead follow up.

Never marking anything lost

Deals that never close keep inflating the pipeline. Agree that a deal is lost after three attempts without a response, with a reason. You can always reopen it.

Skipping without checking

Sometimes a deal jumps from stage 2 to stage 4. That is fine if the exit criteria of stage 3 are also met. Agree to check that whenever a stage is skipped.

One set of stages for everything

New business, growth and renewals work differently. One pipeline for all three means none of them fits. Two or three pipelines with five stages each are clearer than one with twelve.