Sales pipeline
A sales pipeline arranges open deals by stage, from the first contact to a deal won or lost.
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What does Sales pipeline mean?
Stages differ by company, but a typical row is: first contact, needs assessment, quote sent, negotiation, won or lost. Each deal sits in a column, and moving it on is a single gesture.
A pipeline shows how many deals and how much value sit in each stage, and where they stall. A deal that has stayed in one stage much longer than usual usually needs attention.
Why does it matter to a small business?
In a small team open deals blur together: everyone knows there are "a few quotes out", but nobody knows how many or in what state. A pipeline shows at a glance how much work is in progress, which deal has been sitting for a long time and roughly how much revenue to expect. That makes next month plannable, and it shows in time when work stalls in one stage.
What does it look like in practice?
Details
Suppose a web development studio in Pécs uses five stages: first contact, needs assessment, quote sent, negotiation, won. On Monday the board shows four deals in the "quote sent" column, one of them there for three weeks. The project lead calls that customer the same day, and drags a deal won in the meantime into the last column in one gesture.
How does HelloCRM handle it?
Details
In HelloCRM the Deals module (free) shows the pipeline as a board; a company can have several pipelines with their own stages and fields. Reports show time in each stage and stalled deals.
Module: Deals (free).
A CRM for small businesses in Hungary
HelloCRM is an online CRM made in Hungary for small and mid-sized businesses there, in Hungarian and English: the core CRM is free for good, with no time limit and no card, and it can be tried without signing up in a demo company full of example data.
Questions
What is Sales pipeline, in one sentence?
A sales pipeline arranges open deals by stage, from the first contact to a deal won or lost.