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Eight stages, each entered by an event an outsider could verify rather than by how the rep feels about the account.

The stage definitions behind *The SaaS Sales Playbook for Restoration. Every pipeline review, forecast, and win/loss tally in this library assumes this spec exists. This is it, written down. About a 12-minute read.*

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How to use this spec. Print this page or save it as a PDF. Then do one of two things with it. Either configure the stage list in your customer relationship management (CRM) system to match the table below exactly, field for field, or keep the copy open beside the weekly pipeline review and settle arguments with it. The value is that two people looking at the same account land on the same stage, which is not true of any pipeline built on adjectives.

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The rule the spec runs on

A deal moves to the next stage only when a specific, observable event has happened.

Observable means somebody outside your company did something you could show another person. "They forwarded it to procurement" is observable, because there is a forwarded email. "A date is on both calendars" is observable. "They seem interested" is not observable, and in our experience it is a big reason restoration pipelines are hard to forecast.

The test to apply when a rep asks to move a deal: if I had to prove this stage to somebody who does not work here, what would I show them? If the honest answer is your own notes about the rep's impression, the deal has not moved.

Set this before you use the spec:

• Who is allowed to change a stage in the CRM:
• Where stage changes get reviewed: normally the weekly pipeline review
• The date this spec was last changed, and by whom:

The eight stages

Commercial Pipeline Stage Spec

Three views ship with the table. Entry events only is the one to keep open during a pipeline review, because it is the argument-settler. Staleness limits and drop-backs is the one to configure your CRM from, and it labels which limits come from the source playbook and which this page sets.

The staleness rule

What makes stages useful is that time in stage has a consequence.

Every deal carries a dated next action. When an account sits past its stage's limit with no forward event, it does not sit there quietly. In the weekly pipeline review it gets one of three outcomes:

1. A new dated action, agreed in the room, with a specific date and a specific thing that will happen. The account stays working.