Sales pipeline
What is a sales pipeline?
A sales pipeline is a view of all open deals, organised by stage: for example contacted, meeting booked, proposal sent, negotiating, won or lost. Each deal has a value and a likelihood of closing.
The sales funnel describes the buyer’s journey in aggregate; the pipeline tracks the seller’s actual deals.
Why a sales pipeline matters
A pipeline shows whether there are enough deals to hit a target, where deals stall and which need attention this week.
Related marketing terms
A sales funnel describes how many people move from first hearing about you to buying, stage by stage, narrowing at each step.
CRM (customer relationship management)
A CRM is software that keeps every lead, customer and conversation in one place, so a team knows who to contact and what was said.
A sales qualified lead, SQL, is a lead that sales has checked and confirmed as a real opportunity worth a direct sales conversation.
Prospecting is searching for and qualifying potential customers, then making first contact to start a sales conversation.