Open your CRM and look at the pipeline. If stages like “Qualified” and “Proposal Sent” mean different things to different people, your forecast is a guess. The problem is rarely the tool. It’s that stages are labels instead of rules.
What a stage exit criterion is
An exit criterion is a fact that must be true, and recorded, before a deal can move forward. It turns a subjective feeling (“this feels qualified”) into a checkable condition.
Examples for a technical B2B sale
- Discovery to Evaluation: problem and business impact written in the deal notes; technical contact identified.
- Evaluation to Proposal: decision process and timeline confirmed; economic buyer named.
- Proposal to Negotiation: budget range acknowledged by the buyer; next meeting booked.
Adjust these to your own sale. The principle is that each one is observable.
Make the CRM enforce it
Criteria nobody enforces get ignored. Use required fields at stage transitions so a deal can’t advance with blanks. Keep the fields few: every extra one lowers compliance.
Add a stall rule
Set a maximum time per stage. A deal past that limit gets flagged in the weekly review, where the question is “what’s the next step and who owns it?”
Keep outreach activity connected
Stage rules cover deals. Early outreach (emails, calls, postcards) needs its own tracking so leads don’t vanish before they become deals. RepChaCha is an outreach tracker that runs alongside your CRM for this, with a defined hand-off when a lead becomes a deal.
The takeaway
Rewrite each stage as an exit criterion, enforce it with required fields, and flag stalls. Your pipeline report starts to mean something. This is a core part of what Pipeline Rig builds. Book a review and we’ll look at your current stages.