What a dirty pipeline costs you
Stale deals inflate the forecast, hide the real bottleneck, and let reps coast on zombie opportunities. When 40% of your pipeline hasn't moved in 30 days, your weighted forecast is fiction and your coaching is blind.
The weekly hygiene ritual
Run this every Friday, in 20 minutes:
- Close the dead. Any deal with no activity in 30 days and no next step gets closed-lost or pushed to nurture. No exceptions for "they said they'd call back."
- Fix the dates. Every open deal needs a close date in the current or next quarter. Past-dated close dates are an automatic flag.
- Verify the next step. Every active deal has a concrete, scheduled next action — a meeting on the calendar, not "follow up."
- Audit the stage. A deal in "Proposal" with no proposal sent is mis-staged. Stage must match reality.
Stage definitions must be exit criteria
The most common pipeline disease is fuzzy stages. Define each stage by what the buyer has done, not what the rep feels:
- Discovery → confirmed pain + budget owner identified
- Demo → product shown to a decision-maker
- Proposal → pricing delivered, mutual action plan agreed
- Negotiation → terms under active discussion
If a deal can't meet the exit criteria, it doesn't advance. Period.
Make the report do the work
Build a saved view that surfaces: deals with no next step, deals past close date, and deals stalled 14+ days in stage. Review it as a team. Hygiene becomes a habit when it's visible, not when it's nagged.