What is a sales pipeline?
The sales pipeline is the structured view of all active prospects and deals moving through defined sales stages — from first qualified contact to closed-won or closed-lost. The pipeline is the leading indicator of future bookings and the operational artefact that lets sales leaders forecast revenue, coach reps and identify systemic bottlenecks.
Standard pipeline stages (B2B SaaS)
- Qualified lead: meets ideal customer profile and has expressed initial interest.
- Discovery / needs analysis: rep has met decision-maker; pain and budget understood.
- Demo / evaluation: prospect has seen the product; technical fit validated.
- Proposal / quote sent: commercial terms in customer’s hands.
- Negotiation / legal: contract redlines, security review, procurement.
- Closed-won / closed-lost: contract signed or deal lost.
Key pipeline metrics
- Pipeline coverage: total weighted pipeline ÷ bookings target. Healthy: 3–4× for early-stage, 2.5–3× for mature.
- Stage conversion: what % of stage-N deals advance to stage-N+1.
- Velocity: average days from first stage to closed-won.
- Win rate: closed-won ÷ (closed-won + closed-lost).
- Average deal size: total bookings ÷ deal count; trend signals up-market or down-market motion.
Pipeline hygiene
- Aging: deals stuck in a stage beyond expected velocity are at risk; review weekly.
- Stage definitions: each stage must have objective entry/exit criteria — not rep judgement.
- Forecast categorisation: commit / best-case / pipeline / omitted — forecast based on commit + pull-forward best-case.
- Closed-lost reasons: capture and analyse loss reasons to feed product and positioning.
Pipeline vs. forecast vs. bookings
- Pipeline: total qualified opportunity.
- Forecast: the subset the team commits to closing in the period.
- Bookings: what actually closes — the result.
Do: review pipeline weekly with explicit entry/exit criteria; instrument velocity and conversion at every stage; clean stale deals ruthlessly.
Don’t: let the pipeline become a wishful list — vanity pipeline that never closes erodes forecast credibility and team morale.