Study first
Review the ideas behind the questions
These notes explain how lifecycle stages and pipelines support handoff, forecasting, and sales follow-up.
Separate lifecycle from pipeline progress
Lifecycle stage describes where a contact or company is in the broader marketing and sales process, while pipeline stages track a specific record moving through a process.
- Lifecycle stages help teams understand relationship status across marketing and sales.
- Deal pipelines help visualize revenue opportunities through defined stages.
- A contact can have a lifecycle stage while a related deal has its own pipeline stage.
Use stages as real milestones
Pipeline stages should represent meaningful progress, not just a hopeful update.
- Define what must be true before a deal moves to the next stage.
- Keep close dates and next steps current so the pipeline can be reviewed.
- Use won and lost outcomes consistently so revenue reporting remains understandable.
Review stale pipeline data
A pipeline is more useful when records are current and old assumptions are cleaned up.
- Review deals that have not moved or had activity recently.
- Record loss reasons where possible so patterns can be analyzed.
- Keep qualification criteria consistent before handing records to sales.