Sales Pipeline
A sales pipeline is a visual representation of where prospects are in the sales process, tracking deals through stages from initial contact to closed-won or closed-lost.
In Depth
The sales pipeline provides visibility into the health and velocity of your sales process. Typical stages include lead generation, qualification, discovery, proposal, negotiation, and close. Each stage has specific criteria that must be met before a deal advances.
Pipeline metrics like conversion rates between stages, average deal size, sales cycle length, and pipeline velocity help sales leaders forecast revenue and identify bottlenecks. AI transforms pipeline management by automatically logging activities, predicting which deals are most likely to close, identifying stalled deals that need attention, and recommending next-best actions for each opportunity. For customer support teams, understanding the sales pipeline is important because pre-sales support directly impacts conversion rates — a prospect who receives fast, helpful answers to their questions during evaluation is more likely to become a customer.
Related Terms
Pipeline Management
Pipeline management is the process of monitoring and optimizing the flow of deals through the sales pipeline to ensure consistent revenue generation and accurate forecasting.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring is a methodology that assigns numerical values to leads based on their characteristics and behaviors to prioritize sales efforts on the most promising prospects.
Sales Forecasting
Sales forecasting is the process of estimating future revenue by predicting how much a sales team will sell over a given period based on pipeline data and historical trends.
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