sales
Sales Pipeline
The collection of active deals across all sales stages. The forward-looking view of revenue.
Definition
The sales pipeline is the set of all active deals, organized by stage (discovery, proposal, negotiation, closed). It's the forward-looking view of revenue - what's likely to close, when, and at what value. Pipeline health depends on three things: coverage (typically 3-4x quota in qualified pipeline), velocity (how fast deals move through stages), and accuracy (do reps' forecasts actually convert). A great-looking pipeline with poor conversion is just optimism on a spreadsheet.
In your business
- →Pipeline coverage should be 3-4x quota - less means you'll miss number, more means clogged pipeline
- →Track velocity (days in stage) - slow stages reveal bottlenecks
- →Hold weekly pipeline review - clean out stale deals, advance fresh ones