Lead generation

Sales Pipeline: What It Is, Stages, How to Build One, Template and Metrics

What a sales pipeline is, the B2B sales pipeline stages, how to build and manage one in 7 steps, a pipeline template and the metrics that matter.

By the traxy teamNov 2, 20268 min read

TL;DR: A sales pipeline is the set of open deals your team is working, organized by stage from first qualified conversation to closed won or lost. To build one, define stages that match how your buyers decide, write exit criteria for each stage, track every deal in your CRM with a value, a next step and a close date, and review the pipeline every week. Measure it with pipeline value, coverage, stage conversion rates, win rate, deal size, sales cycle length and pipeline velocity. A pipeline is only as good as what enters it, so feed the top with qualified opportunities rather than every name you can find.

What Is a Sales Pipeline?

A sales pipeline is a visual and numerical view of every active deal and where it stands in your sales process. Each deal sits in one stage, such as discovery, proposal or negotiation, and moves forward when the buyer completes a step. The pipeline answers three questions for a sales team: how much business is in progress, where deals get stuck, and how much is likely to close this period.

In a B2B company the pipeline usually lives in the CRM, such as HubSpot or Salesforce, where each deal has an owner, an amount, a stage, an expected close date and a next step. Channels such as LinkedIn lead generation feed new opportunities into it.

Sales pipeline vs. sales funnel vs. forecast

Term	What it shows	Who uses it most
Sales pipeline	The open deals and the stage each one is in	Reps and sales managers running deals
Sales funnel	How many buyers convert from one stage to the next, as a percentage	Marketing and sales leadership analyzing conversion
Sales forecast	How much revenue is expected to close in a period	Leadership and finance

The pipeline is the source data: the funnel describes how it converts, and the forecast predicts what it will produce. For a LinkedIn-specific version, see our guide to LinkedIn pipeline forecasting.

Sales Pipeline Stages

Most B2B pipelines use five to seven stages. Name them after what the buyer has done and give each one an exit criterion so everyone moves deals the same way.

Stage	What happens	Exit criterion (move on when...)
1. Qualified lead	A potential buyer who fits your ICP has agreed to a first conversation	A discovery meeting is booked
2. Discovery	You learn the problem, its impact, who decides and how they buy	The buyer confirms the problem is a priority and agrees to see a solution
3. Solution or demo	You show how you solve their problem, usually with the people who will use it	The buyer asks for pricing or a proposal
4. Proposal	You send scope, price and terms	The buyer reviews it with the decision-maker and responds
5. Negotiation or commit	Terms, legal and procurement are worked out	The contract is signed or the buyer says no
6. Closed won or closed lost	The deal is done	Record the reason for the win or loss

Adjust the stages to your sales motion. A product with a free trial might add a "trial active" stage; an enterprise sale might split negotiation into legal and procurement.

How to Build a Sales Pipeline in 7 Steps

Define your ideal customer profile. Write down the industries, company sizes and roles that buy from you, so only fitting opportunities enter the pipeline. Start with this ideal customer profile template.
Map your buyer's journey. List the decisions your buyer makes from noticing the problem to signing, and who is involved at each point.
Turn the journey into stages. Use the buyer's decisions to name your stages and write an exit criterion for each one.
Set up the pipeline in your CRM. Create the stages, make amount, close date and next step required fields, and record the source of each deal.
Fill the top of the pipeline. Generate qualified opportunities through sales prospecting, outbound sales, inbound content and referrals.
Review the pipeline every week. Check each deal's next step, move or close stalled deals, and update amounts and dates.
Measure and improve. Track conversion between stages and the time deals spend in each one, then fix the stage where the most deals stall.

Sales Pipeline Template

A simple pipeline template is a table, or CRM view, with one row per deal and these columns:

Field	What to record	Why it matters
Deal name	Company and product or project	Makes the deal easy to find
Owner	The rep responsible	Clear accountability
Stage	Current pipeline stage	Shows where the deal stands
Amount	Expected deal value	Feeds pipeline value and forecast
Close date	Expected signing date	Feeds the forecast and shows slipping deals
Next step	The next action, with a date	Keeps deals moving
Source	Where the deal came from, such as outbound, inbound, referral or LinkedIn engagement	Shows which channels produce pipeline
Decision-maker	The person who signs	Flags deals without access to the buyer
Last activity	Date of the last meaningful contact	Flags deals going quiet

Most CRMs include a board view that shows each stage as a column, which is the easiest way to run a weekly pipeline review.

Sales Pipeline Management

Sales pipeline management is the routine work of keeping the pipeline accurate and moving.

Hold a weekly pipeline review. Go deal by deal, starting with the largest and the ones closing soonest. Ask what the next step is and when it happens.
Close out dead deals. A deal with no next step and no reply for weeks belongs in closed lost or back in nurture. Keeping it inflates the pipeline.
Watch time in stage. Deals that sit in one stage much longer than usual are at risk; act on them early.
Keep data clean. Required fields, consistent stage definitions and recorded loss reasons make reports trustworthy.
Separate pipeline from forecast. Not every open deal will close this quarter; forecast from the stage and the evidence, not from the total.

Sales Pipeline Metrics

Metric	How to calculate it	What it tells you
Pipeline value	Sum of the amounts of all open deals	How much business is in progress
Pipeline coverage	Open pipeline for the period divided by the target for the period	Whether you have enough deals to hit the number
Stage conversion rate	Deals that moved to the next stage divided by deals that entered the stage	Where deals get stuck
Win rate	Deals won divided by deals closed (won plus lost)	How well you convert qualified opportunities
Average deal size	Total won revenue divided by the number of won deals	Revenue per deal
Sales cycle length	Average days from deal creation to close	How long deals take
Pipeline velocity	(Number of opportunities × win rate × average deal size) ÷ sales cycle length	How much revenue the pipeline produces per day

Pipeline velocity is useful because it shows the four levers you can pull: more qualified opportunities, a higher win rate, larger deals or a shorter cycle. A common rule of thumb is to hold pipeline coverage of about three times the target, but the right ratio depends on your own win rate, so calculate it from your data. For comparison points on LinkedIn-sourced deals, see our LinkedIn B2B lead generation benchmarks.

Where LinkedIn and Buying Signals Fit

A pipeline's quality is set at the top: the opportunities that enter it. Buying signals, such as a prospect commenting on posts about the problem you solve or a new executive joining a target account, help reps choose which accounts to work first and give them a reason to reach out. Our guides to turning LinkedIn engagement into pipeline and buyer intent signals cover how to find and act on those signals, and LinkedIn pipeline attribution covers how to credit LinkedIn for the deals it influences.

Common Sales Pipeline Mistakes

Stages based on rep activity. "Email sent" describes what the rep did. Name stages after buyer decisions.
No exit criteria. Reps move deals at different points, so stage reports mean little.
Keeping dead deals open. A pipeline full of stalled deals looks healthy and forecasts badly.
Missing next steps. Deals without a dated next step tend to stall.
Filling the top with poor-fit leads. More deals at stage one don't help if they never pass discovery.
Not recording loss reasons. Without them, you can't see why deals are lost or fix it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a sales pipeline?

A sales pipeline is the set of open deals a sales team is working, organized into stages from the first qualified conversation to closed won or lost. It shows how much business is in progress, which stage each deal is in and where deals get stuck, and it is usually managed in a CRM.

What are the stages of a sales pipeline?

Typical B2B sales pipeline stages are qualified lead, discovery, solution or demo, proposal, negotiation or commit, and closed won or lost. Each stage should have an exit criterion based on what the buyer has done, such as agreeing to see a solution or asking for a proposal.

How do you build a sales pipeline?

Define your ideal customer profile, map your buyer's journey, turn it into stages with exit criteria, set up those stages in your CRM with required fields, fill the top with qualified opportunities from prospecting, outbound and inbound, review the pipeline weekly and track conversion and time in each stage.

What is sales pipeline management?

Sales pipeline management is the ongoing work of keeping deals moving and the pipeline accurate: weekly reviews, dated next steps on every deal, closing out stalled deals, keeping CRM data clean and watching how long deals spend in each stage.

What are the most important sales pipeline metrics?

The most important sales pipeline metrics are pipeline value, pipeline coverage against target, conversion rate between stages, win rate, average deal size, sales cycle length and pipeline velocity, which combines the number of opportunities, win rate and deal size, divided by the length of the sales cycle.

The Bottom Line

A sales pipeline works when its stages reflect buyer decisions, every deal has a dated next step and the team reviews it every week. Its results depend most on what enters it. traxy helps fill the top with the right accounts: it tracks who engages with your posts, your competitors' posts and the creators your buyers follow, matches them against your ICP and sends them to Slack or your CRM, so reps start new opportunities with people already showing interest.

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