Definition
A sales pipeline is an organized view of prospects and deals as they move through defined stages toward a close. Typical stages are New, Contacted, Qualified, Proposal, Negotiation, Closed-Won, and Closed-Lost. Each stage has entry and exit criteria. The pipeline gives the sales team a shared view of what is in flight, and management a way to forecast revenue by multiplying deal size by stage conversion rates.
A good pipeline tracks time in stage (deals that stall are coaching opportunities), owner (who is responsible), expected close date, and value. Pipeline reviews typically happen weekly - the team walks each open deal, updates status, and agrees next steps.
How SheetLinkWP relates to Sales Pipeline
Many SheetLinkWP customers run their entire pipeline inside the Google Sheet fed by SheetLink Forms. The sheet has columns for submission data plus a Status dropdown (data validation), an Owner column, a Next-Step column, and a Last-Contact date. Conditional formatting colors rows by status. A pivot table on another tab shows deals by stage and by owner. It is not as fancy as a dedicated CRM, but for 100-500 leads per month it works - and there is no monthly subscription.