Pipeline.
aka sales pipeline, the funnel (roughly), deals in flight
Everyone you might sell to, lined up by how close they are to saying yes.
What it actually means
A sales pipeline is the organised list of every potential deal a sales team is working on, sorted into stages from first contact to signed contract. It shows how much revenue is in play, where each deal sits and how fast deals move.
Stages vary by company but follow a shape: lead, qualified, demo or proposal, negotiation, closed-won (or closed-lost). Each deal has a value and a stage, and each stage has a historical probability of closing. Multiply and add up, and you get the “weighted pipeline”: a forecast of what will actually land.
The pipeline is also a diagnostic. Too much at the top and nothing at the bottom means marketing is working and sales is not converting. Deals stuck in “proposal” for months are probably dead and nobody has admitted it. “Pipeline coverage” (pipeline divided by quota, usually 3x) is how managers judge whether a rep has enough in play to hit the number.
Where you'll hear it
You’ve got $400K in pipeline against a $150K quarterly quota, so coverage is fine, but $180K of it hasn’t moved in six weeks. Let’s clean it or call it.
Translation: the number looks healthy and is not. Half of it is stale and the real forecast is lower.
Also in board decks (“pipeline grew 40% quarter on quarter”), in CRM software, in hiring plans (“we need more pipeline before we add reps”), and in every sales rep’s inner monologue on the last day of the quarter.
The pop-culture version
Ten schools you might apply to. Six you actually applied to. Three invited you to interview. One made an offer. One you are negotiating a scholarship with.
That is a pipeline. Each stage has fewer names than the last, each name has a rough probability, and the honest question every week is “which of these are actually moving?” The school that has not replied in two months is not a live application; it is a line you have not deleted yet.
A sales pipeline is the same board with revenue attached. The job is to keep adding names at the top, move them down, and be honest about the ones that have gone quiet.
The hard discipline is the last part. Reps keep dead deals in the pipeline because a fat pipeline looks like effort. Managers who forecast from it get surprised at quarter end.
Say it like you mean it
“I have $400K in pipeline, $220K weighted, and three deals in negotiation that should close this month.”
Total, weighted and the near-term reality, in one breath.“My pipeline is huge.”
Huge is not a number, and a huge pipeline full of stale deals is a smaller pipeline wearing a coat.Learn the three numbers your manager cares about: total pipeline, weighted pipeline and coverage ratio. If you can say all three without looking, the Monday meeting gets much shorter.
Stage design, weighting, coverage ratios, hygiene rules and the metrics revenue teams actually run on.
Decoded next
Decoded by the Kurums editorial team. Kurums Decoded translates the language of business for people who are new to it. Definitions are kept short on purpose; the serious version above goes deep. Nothing here is financial, legal or career advice.
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