Pipeline Hygiene – Keep Your CRM Real
Day 24 of 30 · Build Your Sales – 30 Days to More Deals
Your pipeline is a decision system. Garbage data creates bad decisions.
Learning goal
- Define stage exit criteria.
- Run a weekly pipeline review checklist.
- Reduce forecast bias by enforcing data minimums.
Why it matters
- Leaky pipelines waste time and break trust in forecasts.
- Clear exit criteria improves team alignment.
- Hygiene frees time for selling instead of chasing.
Explanation
Minimum fields per deal
- Stage + next step + next step date
- Primary stakeholder + champion
- Use case + success metric
- Decision date
- Top 2 risks
Guided exercise (10–15 min) — Weekly review
- Pick 10 deals.
- For each, verify minimum fields and next step date.
- Close or downgrade deals with no progress path.
Independent exercise (5–10 min) — Stage criteria
Write exit criteria for one stage (e.g., “Qualified” → “Proposal”).
Self-check
- My deals have next steps with dates.
- Stages have exit criteria.
- Forecast is based on reality, not hope.