Sales Transformation
Sales process stages: how to write exit criteria a deal has to meet
4 mins read
KEY TAKEAWAYS
A stage describes where the buyer is in their decision, and each one needs exit criteria the deal must meet before it moves.
Base exit criteria on what the buyer has done, such as confirming a budget range, rather than on seller activity like a demo delivered.
Name the evidence for each criterion and where it is recorded, so a manager can check it in a deal review.
Agree the exceptions up front. A rule with a clear exception route gets used; one nobody can bend gets worked around.
Sales process stages work when each one has exit criteria: the things that must be true, and recorded, before a deal can move on. Most CRMs have stage names. Far fewer have exit criteria anyone checks, so two sellers can put very different deals in the same stage and the forecast becomes a collection of opinions.
Stage, activity and evidence are different things
A stage describes where the buyer is in their decision. An activity is something the seller did. Evidence is what shows the stage is complete.
"Demo delivered" is an activity. It tells you the seller showed the product, and nothing about whether the buyer thinks the problem is worth solving. A stronger exit criterion describes what the buyer did: confirmed the problem and the outcome they want, named who else is involved, or agreed a next step with a date.
An illustrative stage set
The table shows how this can look in a complex B2B sale. Treat it as an illustration, because stage names and criteria should follow how your own customers buy.
Stage | Exit criteria: the buyer has... | Evidence recorded | Who checks |
|---|---|---|---|
Qualify | Confirmed a business problem we can solve, and agreed to explore it | The problem in the buyer's words; fit against the ideal customer profile | Seller, checked by the manager |
Discover | Explained how they will decide, who is involved and their timeline | Named stakeholders and roles; known decision steps | Manager, in the deal review |
Validate | Agreed our solution addresses the problem and confirmed a budget range | A note or email from the economic buyer | Manager, in the deal review |
Propose | Received a proposal that reflects their decision process, including procurement and legal | Proposal sent; approval steps and approvers recorded | Manager |
Commit | Agreed terms in principle and a signature date | Written confirmation of the terms and date | Sales director, for the forecast |
Write criteria a manager can check
Test each criterion with three questions. Could a manager see the evidence without asking the seller? Does it describe something the buyer did? Would two sellers apply it the same way? If the answer to any of them is no, tighten the wording.
Keep the list short. Two or three criteria per stage, applied every time, do more than a long checklist that sellers skip.
Plan the exceptions
Some deals will skip a stage. A renewal may never need discovery, and an existing customer buying more may already have a budget agreed. Write those exceptions down: which deal types can skip which criteria, and who approves the skip. When exceptions have a clear route, sellers use the process instead of working around it.
Make the stages part of the deal review
Exit criteria only matter if managers check them. In a deal review, ask for the evidence behind the current stage rather than an update. A deal without its evidence moves back a stage or comes out of the forecast.
This is also where your qualification method belongs. Whichever method the team uses, its questions should show up as evidence in the stages. When Source 1 Solutions built a new sales operating system with Merlin5, it was based on Customer-Centric Selling and MEDDPICC, with improved qualification standards, forecasting disciplines and pipeline governance. The Source 1 case study covers the full programme.
Once the stages are agreed, configure the CRM to enforce them, with required fields at each stage gate and nothing required that doesn't support a decision. Our CRM transformation guide covers that step, and what a transformed sales process consists of sets out the full scope. Stage design is also phase three of a sales transformation roadmap.
A deal that has met its criteria but stopped moving is a different problem. Our guide to stalled deals covers the signs.
Where to start
Take the deals currently in one stage and ask what they have in common. If the answer is "not much", that stage needs exit criteria.
Rewrite each stage's criteria as buyer actions with evidence.
Agree the exceptions and who approves them, then run a month of deal reviews against the new criteria.
Frequently asked questions
How many stages should a B2B sales process have?
There is no right number. Each stage should mark a real step in the buyer's decision and have its own exit criteria. If two stages share the same criteria, merge them.
What is the difference between entry and exit criteria?
Entry criteria say what must be true for a deal to enter a stage, and exit criteria say what must be true for it to leave. One stage's exit criteria are the next stage's entry criteria, so most teams only write the exit side.
NEXT STEP
See where your sales process breaks
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WRITTEN BY
Chris Thomas