Should reps be allowed to move deals backwards in the pipeline?

Sometimes sh*t hits the fan and your deal is now at risk.

You’re no longer negotiating the deal but need to save it from landing with the competition.

Do you let reps move the deal back to discovery?

You’re conflicted. One option is to take an illogical step and move the deal backwards in the timeline. The other is to keep it in “Negotiation” and muddy up your forecast.

Sure, you could just omit the deal from your projection, but you shouldn’t even be having this dilemma in the first place.

I’ve seen this happen over and over again as a first-time Sales Manager.

Today I know that things look much different when there’s clear separation between sales stages and the activities that need to take place throughout the buyer journey.

Let’s dive into how this could look like for you!

“What gets measured, gets managed”

How do you know what’s causing conversion issues if you’re not tracking the right things in the first place?

I often see sales orgs making one or more of these mistakes:

1. Their sales process has too few stages
2. Expectations of what needs to happen in each stage aren’t documented
3. Even when SOPs are documented, they’re vague and not actionable.

Here’s how we’re solving this with two clients I’m advising right now:

Introduce clear separation between:

1. sales stages (buyer milestones),
2. expected activities, and
3. exit criteria.

Put in place enough stages so they can:

1. measure conversions and
2. diagnose friction throughout the buyer journey

Separate but don’t overcomplicate!

You might be asking: “But Viktor, aren’t we going to confuse our reps by adding too many stages? Aren’t 4-5 stages enough?”

It doesn’t have to be ‘either, or’, but you do need to keep this in mind:

Too few stages and you’re left analysing why you MIGHT BE losing deals. Too many stages and reps MIGHT not know what you’re expecting from them.

You might be asking what good looks like then - and I wish there was a cookie-cutter answer to this.

The right stages will differ by company but they’ll commonly look like this for tech sales:

1. Meeting booked
2. Problem validated
3. Priority confirmed
4. Impact confirmed
5. Technical requirements met
6. Contract terms accepted
7. Closed Won/Lost

These stages might differ slightly based on:

1. If you’re using a Direct Sales or Product-led Sales motion.
2. If the deal is Net New, Upsell, or Cross-sell
3. If the product you’re selling is hardware, software, or both.
4. If the industry you’re selling to is regulated or not
5. if your offer includes selling services or not.

If anything, I recommend having more separation in the first half of the sales process, because that’s where conversions tend to be the lowest.

That’s where small improvements will make the biggest impact to your attainment.

More stages won’t cause confusion, but this might!

How can we expect reps to follow the process if they don’t know what you’re expecting them to do in the first place?

There’s one thing that matters more than how many stages are in the sales process - and that’s predictability.

Are we asking reps different questions on every deal review?

Are they told to follow different advice every month or so?

Is “what good looks like” documented with examples??

Choosing the right sales methodology solves this.

Sales methodologies deserve to be their separate article, but for now this seems like a good place to start:

Diagnose why you’re losing deals first AND THEN find out what you need to uncover to prevent it in the first place.

Pick a methodology that best supports it, train the team on it, and stick with it.

It there’s one thing you take away from this post

Diagnosing conversion issues is not possible unless you’re tracking the right things to begin with. Measure what matters, train your team on what good looks like, and stay consistent with the process.

Do this and reps won’t need to move deals ‘back in time’.

Now let’s get your deals unstuck!

Book your free deal review and find out what you can do to get it over the line.

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