ericrisco Sales Pipeline — A Disciplined CRM Out of a Flat File
You run a small team's pipeline from a CSV, a markdown table, or a Notion DB — no Salesforce, no RevOps. Your one rule: the forecast is what the gated stages and current win rates say, not what the rep hopes. Happy-ears deals do not inflate the number on your watch.
This skill does four jobs and refuses to drift into the siblings that own the rest: (1) define a small set of gated stages with objective exit criteria, (2) keep every open deal hygienic (next step + close date + last-touch, flag the stale), (3) run a weekly follow-up sweep, and (4) roll a defensible weighted forecast with a coverage ratio. The heavy statistical modeling, the lead sourcing, the outbound copy, the proposal, the post-close handoff — each belongs to a sibling. Route, do not improvise their job.
When to use / when NOT
Use when the operator already has a list of deals and wants stages, probabilities, hygiene, a weekly sweep, coverage vs quota, or pipeline velocity — or when they describe the symptom "pipeline looks full but nothing closes."
Do NOT use when the ask is one of these — route to the owner:
| The ask | Owner | Why it is not here |
|---|---|---|
| 3-scenario revenue model, seasonality, cohort/time-series projection | forecasting |
That is the statistical/scenario layer. This skill only does the simple stage-weighted roll-up that falls out of the pipeline. |
| Find / scrape / qualify NEW prospect companies to add | lead-gen |
This skill operates on deals that already exist in the list. |
| Write the cold email or follow-up sequence to contact a prospect | cold-outreach |
This skill schedules the next step; it does not write the words. |
| Write the proposal / quote / SOW for a qualified deal | proposals |
A stage transition is not a document. |
| Post-close kickoff, account setup, onboarding | client-onboarding |
The moment a deal is Closed-Won it leaves this skill. |
| Generic dashboard / charting of arbitrary metrics, KPI tree design | dashboard / kpi-framework |
This skill emits pipeline numbers, not a charting layer. |
The boundary worth memorizing: forecasting owns the math models; sales-pipeline owns the operational CRM. When the request needs Monte Carlo, regression, or scenario trees, hand it over.
The artifact first — the deal-record schema
Everything below lints against one table. Define it before anything else, because hygiene, the sweep, and the forecast are all just operations on these columns. One deal = one row. Required columns:
| column | meaning | rule |
|---|---|---|
id |
stable deal id | unique, never reused |
company |
the account | — |
value |
deal value (one currency, document which) | number, no symbols |
stage |
current stage | from the allowed set (next section) |
win_prob |
stage win-probability as a decimal | 0–1, owned by the stage, not the rep |
weighted_value |
value × win_prob |
must equal the product (lint enforces it) |
close_date |
expected close (ISO YYYY-MM-DD) |
required on every open deal |
next_step |
the next concrete action + its date | required on every open deal |
last_touch |
date of last real activity (ISO) | required on every open deal |
owner |
who owns the deal | — |
forecast_category |
Pipeline / Best Case / Commit / Closed / Omitted | a category, not a stage |
One good open row (CSV):
id,company,value,stage,win_prob,weighted_value,close_date,next_step,last_touch,owner,forecast_category
D-104,Acme,40000,Discovery,0.30,12000,2026-07-15,"2026-06-09 demo with VP Eng",2026-05-30,Dana,Best Case
Hard rule, no exceptions: no open deal may be missing next_step, close_date, or last_touch. A deal with no next step is not a deal, it is a wish. The sweep and the forecast both treat a missing field as a defect, not a blank.
The stage model — small, gated, stage-owned probability
Default to six stages. Five stages with clear exit criteria beat nine stages with none. Each stage advances only on an objective, verifiable buyer action — never on rep optimism.
| stage | default win_prob |
exit criterion (the verifiable buyer action that advances it) |
|---|---|---|
| Prospecting | 0.05 | Buyer agreed to a first real conversation (meeting on the calendar). |
| Qualification | 0.10 | BANT/MEDDIC documented "yes" — budget, authority, need, timeline confirmed. |
| Discovery | 0.30 | Buyer confirmed the problem + success criteria; you have the buying process and review layers. |
| Proposal/Demo | 0.40 | Proposal or demo delivered and acknowledged; buyer engaged on it. |
| Negotiation | 0.65 | Terms/price under active discussion; verbal intent + a mutual close plan. |
| Closed | 1.0 / 0.0 | Signed (Won) or formally lost (Lost). |
Rules that make the table hold:
- Probability belongs to the stage, not the deal. A rep who hand-sets one deal to 90% in Discovery is sandbagging or happy-ears; both poison the forecast. The stage carries the number, uniformly. (Why: it removes the single biggest source of forecast inflation in small teams.)
- No stage advances without its exit criterion met AND a calendared next step. "If you don't know the criteria, timeline, review layers and legal steps, the close date is a guess."
- Negotiation 50–80% is a band, not a default 80. Pick within the band on real signal (legal in motion → higher); never max it out reflexively.
Qualification gate: run BANT as a ~60-second screen for small deals; switch to MEDDIC/SPICED above ~$25K ACV. The full six-stage playbook — every exit criterion, required fields per stage, the BANT-vs-MEDDIC pillars, and the forecast-category mapping — lives in references/stage-playbook.md.
Deal hygiene — the required-field gate and the stale rules
Roughly 40–60% of B2B CRM pipeline is stale (no progression in 30+ days). A forecast built on a stale list is fiction. Apply an activity-decay model on every open deal:
| condition | action |
|---|---|
Missing next_step / close_date / last_touch |
Defect — flag, do not forecast until fixed. |
| No touch for 14+ days | Halve the deal's effective weight in the forecast. |
| No touch for 30+ days | Exclude from coverage entirely (treat as stale, not pipeline). |
| Sitting > 1.5× the average time-in-stage | Flag for review — it is stuck. |
close_date already in the past, deal still open |
Flag — the date is a lie; re-set or disqualify. |
Bad → Good on a single row:
BAD (open, but a wish dressed as a deal — fails the gate):
D-220,Globex,60000,Proposal,0.80,48000,,,,Sam,Commit
^ win_prob hand-set to 0.80 in Proposal, no close_date, no next_step,
no last_touch, Commit category on zero evidence.
GOOD (gated, hygienic, stage-owned probability):
D-220,Globex,60000,Proposal,0.40,24000,2026-08-01,"2026-06-12 send revised SOW",2026-06-02,Sam,Best Case
^ win_prob = stage default, weighted_value recomputed, dated next step,
fresh last_touch, category demoted to match the evidence.
The weekly follow-up sweep
Build hygiene into a ~45-minute WEEKLY pipeline review, not a quarterly cleanup — stale deals compound fast and a quarterly purge always finds the rot too late. The sweep is a fixed checklist; run it and emit a prioritized follow-up list:
- Every open deal has
next_step+close_date+last_touch— list the defects first. - Stale: no touch 14+ days (halve) and 30+ days (drop) — surface both buckets.
-
close_datein the past on an open deal — re-set or disqualify. - Slipped:
close_datepushed two weeks in a row — flag; two slips is a pattern, not noise. - Stuck: time-in-stage > 1.5× the average for that stage.
- Output: a ranked follow-up list (highest
weighted_value× most stale first), each with the one concrete next action and its date.
Track coverage as a 4-week rolling trend, not a single snapshot. Two consecutive weeks of declining coverage with no closes is a red flag — escalate, do not wait for quarter-end.
The forecast roll-up
Three numbers fall out of a clean pipeline. Compute them; do not model beyond them (that is forecasting).
Weighted forecast = Σ over open deals of value × stage win_prob. Apply the stale decay first (halve at 14d, drop at 30d) so the number reflects live pipeline, not the wish list.
Pipeline coverage ratio = Total Qualified Pipeline Value ÷ Revenue Target. Read it against the segment, because win rates differ:
| segment | ACV / win rate | coverage min | coverage target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | $100K+ / 15–20% win | 5× | 6–7× |
| Commercial | $25–100K / 20–30% | 3.5× | 4–5× |
| SMB | <$25K / 30–40% | 2.5× | 3–4× |
Pipeline velocity = (Open opps × Avg deal size × Win rate) ÷ Sales-cycle length (days) → dollars/day. Cycle length has the most leverage: a ~20% cut in cycle length lifts velocity ~25%.
Forecast categories are not stages — map them separately: Pipeline / Best Case / Commit / Closed / Omitted. As a sanity expectation, roughly ~25% of "Pipeline", a third-to-half of "Best Case", and near-all of "Commit" typically lands in-quarter.
The current-win-rate caveat — non-negotiable. 2025 benchmarks moved against sellers: B2B win rates fell ~21% → ~18% and cycles lengthened ~12% YoY. Forecast with the current ~18% win rate and your real cycle length, never last year's optimistic numbers. A 24-month-old win rate is the quietest way to over-forecast.
Worked examples — weighted forecast on a 5-deal list, coverage by segment, velocity, and the exact column contract verify.sh enforces — are in references/forecasting-math.md.
Anti-patterns
| Anti-pattern | Why it fails | Do instead |
|---|---|---|
Rep hand-sets win_prob per deal |
Happy-ears/sandbagging inflate the forecast; the number stops being comparable | Probability is owned by the stage, applied uniformly |
| Stages with no exit criteria | "Discovery" becomes a place deals go to die; no one can verify progression | Every stage gates on an objective buyer action |
| Counting stale deals (30+ days no touch) in coverage | 40–60% of pipeline is stale; coverage looks healthy while nothing moves | Drop 30d+ from coverage, halve 14d+, flag stuck deals |
| Forecasting off list price, not weighted value | Treats a Qualification deal like a signed one; massive over-forecast | value × stage win_prob, decayed for staleness |
| Quarterly cleanup instead of weekly | Rot is found three months too late; the quarter is already lost | 45-min weekly sweep; 4-week rolling coverage trend |
| Using a 24-month-old win rate | 2025 win rates fell to ~18%, cycles +12%; old numbers over-forecast | Use the current win rate and your real cycle length |
forecast_category set to "Commit" on a Discovery deal |
Category drifts from evidence; the commit number becomes a fantasy | Category must match documented evidence, not hope |
| Nine micro-stages "for granularity" | More stages, less discipline; reps can't tell them apart | Six gated stages beat nine ungated ones |
Open deal with no next_step |
It is a wish, not a deal; it silently ages into staleness | No next step → it is a defect, surface it in the sweep |
References and siblings
references/stage-playbook.md— the six stages in full, exit criteria, required fields per stage, BANT-vs-MEDDIC, forecast-category mapping.references/forecasting-math.md— worked weighted-forecast / coverage / velocity examples and the verify column contract.
Siblings that own the adjacent jobs — route to them by name: ../forecasting/SKILL.md (the math models), ../lead-gen/SKILL.md (sourcing), ../cold-outreach/SKILL.md (the outbound copy), ../proposals/SKILL.md (the quote/SOW), ../client-onboarding/SKILL.md (post-close). For wiring the list to Sheets/Notion or bulk edits, ../spreadsheet-ops/SKILL.md.
To lint a pipeline file you produced — required columns, required fields on open deals, stage names in the allowed set, win_prob in range, weighted_value == value × win_prob, and a coverage line present — run scripts/verify.sh path/to/pipeline.csv (read-only; a clean or empty file exits 0).