1. Have a discussion with your team regarding how many stages are required.

The experts agree that when it comes to sales pipeline, two stages are not enough; however, more than six stages is too many. Too many stages won’t help your sales reps to act quickly and properly. Therefore, it would be an excellent idea to have three to five stages.

Also, having too many stages will add difficulty to your date analysis, and will not focus on the primary elements.

Having only two stages will not provide any value for data analysis either; you won’t receive helpful information regarding your leads conversion. You must have more than two stages because there are things to be done between making a cold call and signing a contract. Thus, the pipeline helps answer the simple question of how a lead evolves from a prospect to a customer.

2. Name your stages.

We recommend that you use the past indefinite tense, like “Proposal sent,” rather than simply “Proposal.” Your team needs to understand what’s happening with a deal in the same way, so they need to clearly understand when the deal needs to be dragged.

3. Use the buyer’s process, not the seller’s.

Companies usually put in their CRM internal selling process based on tasks. You need to know when your customer buys and why on the fourth stage, not on the third or second. You’ll get the answer if your pipeline stages are similar to your buyer’s.

4. Add, delete or rename your stages any time you need to.

You need a few weeks or months before the pipeline will describe your sales process well and become comfortable for you. So feel free to rename and/or reorder stages, and don’t forget to discuss it with your sales team.