The complexity of the enterprise sale has led many sales leaders to employ a creative handicapping system for the different stages of the sales cycle. For instance, a Suspect is a 10% opportunity, a Prospect has a 50% chance of buying and a Closed Opportunity is rated at 100% (you think?) The early stages of the sales cycle are based on imaginary numbers since the sales rep has no way of knowing the value of a deal at the suspect stage.

A $100,000 deal at the Suspect stage now becomes $10,000. Now all the imaginary numbers are being handicapped and rolled up to a pipeline number. Let's say the rolled up number is $1,000,000. Congratulations, you now have a million-dollar pipeline. Or do you?

A handicapping system based on percentages and incorporating imaginary numbers is a recipe for failure. It creates a false sense of security and impedes the sales management process. Not to mention it can ruin credibility.

The sales cycle stage is meant to represent the progression to YES. The typical challenge question is “where are you in the sales cycle with XYZ Corporation?” The typical answer: “Should come in this quarter.” What percentage should be assigned to that answer?

Distilled to its basics, a sales cycle has only three stages: YES, NO and MAYBE.

If you want to know where you really stand in the sales cycle, try this exercise. Across the top of your war room whiteboard, write the headings YES, NO and MAYBE. Then put your open deals under one of the categories. Depending on where you are in the quarter, most if not all of your deals will end up under the MAYBE heading.

The percentage handicapping system would actually put some of your MAYBES into the YES column, simply because the rep has rated the deal as high probability. This encourages passivity about the true status of deals and encourages creative upward communication about the real value of the pipeline. MAYBES kill.

Selling is about getting to YES or NO. Sales people hate NO, so sales cycles always represent the steps to YES. But NO doesn't have to mean, well, NO. NO is better than MAYBE, but not as friendly as YES. NO is out of the sales comfort zone. Yet it does not mean THE END, it simply means NO.

Managing your sales cycle means working towards YES or NO. Arriving at NO removes MAYBE and means you will have to determine if you can get to YES. The more efficient and scientific you are at getting to one or the other will determine how real your deals, and subsequently your pipeline, truly are.

Oversimplification? I doubt it. A deal is or it isn't. Try the exercise. Take the reality check. Get real about your deals and your pipeline.