Your Pipeline Health Check

Before you move to the intermediate courses, run this health check against your current pipeline. It takes 15 minutes and tells you exactly where your system stands. Be honest — the point is not to pass, the point is to know what to fix first.

1. Stage Definitions Can you write down the entry and exit criteria for every stage from memory? If not, your stages are not well-defined. If they are written down but reps interpret them differently, the definitions need to be more specific.
2. Conversion Rates Can you state the conversion rate between each stage for the last quarter? If not, you are managing pipeline without instrumentation. Pull the data now. The numbers will surprise you.
3. Backward Math Does the math work? Take your target revenue, divide by average deal size, then divide backward through your conversion rates. Does the required lead volume match what marketing actually delivers? If not, the gap is the first problem to solve.
4. Data Hygiene Score What percentage of open deals have a valid amount, close date, and current stage? If the answer is below 90%, your pipeline data is not trustworthy. Fix this before investing in advanced analytics — sophisticated analysis on dirty data just produces sophisticated wrong answers.