If two people read the same stage name two different ways, your forecast is a guess. One rep’s “Proposal” is a draft. Another’s is a signed quote. The report adds them together and nobody notices until the quarter ends.
The fix takes about 10 minutes and no new software. For each stage, write down three things.
- What has to be true before a deal leaves it. One sentence a stranger could check.
- The proof. The field, note or file in your CRM that shows it is true.
- The most days a deal can sit there.
Then add one rule: no proof, no move.
An example
“Qualified” means the buyer named the pain in their own words, you know who decides, and they gave you a date it has to be fixed by. Anything less is still a new lead. The proof is a call note that holds all three, and a close-by date in the deal record.
The catch
It only works if you check it. Set a 10-minute check every Friday. Open the deals that have passed their day limit or have no proof, and make a decision on each one: move it, fix it or close it. That replaces another “just checking in” email.
Your rules will also need a tweak after the first few weeks. That is normal. If a rule is hard to check, rewrite it until a stranger could check it without sitting in the call.
Who this is for
Owners and small sales teams without a RevOps person: usually one to fifteen sellers, one pipeline, and a forecast that feels like a guess. A large team with a documented sales process and a RevOps owner probably has this covered.
I made a free two-page PDF for this: a worked example with six stages, then blank boxes for your own. It works in any CRM or a spreadsheet. Get the stage definition one-pager in the shop.
Related: Name your stages for what the buyer did, not what the rep did; Three filters that cut your list of sales steps; If the CRM doesn’t enforce it, reps will skip it
I’m Seth Levanen. I find the AI shortcuts that keep the quality and drop the busywork. Email me if you want to talk about it.