Here is some information we shared a few releases back that still applies:

Systematic organization is what makes the difference between good and great salespeople! Set up a pipeline that is in line with your sales cycle.

Aligning your sales organization on a systematic process will allow you to continuously improve your sales performance.

• A good pipeline should have between 5 and 7 stages

• The first stage is usually "New" and the last one is "Won"

• Don't use stages to qualify opportunities, use tags instead

• Every stage should be a step forward in the buyer's decision-making, not a task to carry out

Great pipelines have stages aligned with the buyer's buying process, not your selling process.  If your stages describe things that YOU are doing, then you should re-evaluate until they describe things about what the CUSTOMER is doing.

Recommended: "Qualified" - Customer articulated pain points and asked for pricing.  "Negotiation" - Customer called back with questions about the proposal.

Not recommended: "Qualified" - you understand what the Customer wants and have a good idea of the budget.  "Negotiation" - you called to follow up on the proposal.

Examples: