Sales pipeline · ASRR Tech
When does a pipeline have too many stages?
Stages are redundant when they do not change decisions or work. Keep small activities as actions rather than creating a stage for every call attempt.
A practical example
A pipeline contains three stages for attempts to schedule the same intake.
This is an illustrative situation for assessing your own process.
Checklist for your team
- Compare work by stage.
- Combine equal steps.
- Keep decision points.
What does success look like?
Every remaining stage changes what the team does or assesses.
Test this with a recognisable record and have a colleague review the outcome. Note missing information or decisions. Use that finding to improve a working agreement before applying the process more broadly.
Sales pipeline: the wider process
A pipeline describes the progress of a sales opportunity. Choose stages that represent a business change, such as a completed conversation or a quotation sent. Define the evidence required at each stage and who takes the next action. Separate activities from outcomes: a call attempt is different from a completed intake. Review old and new opportunities before fixing the configuration. Include lost, cancelled and reopened journeys. Those exceptions show whether the definitions are clear enough for the whole team.