A sales pipeline gives salespeople a visual overview of where prospects are in the buyer’s journey.
Rather than create a pipeline from scratch, it’s faster to start from a template. In this article, you’ll find a sales pipeline template that your team can download and use for free.
You’ll also learn when a simple spreadsheet is enough and when it makes sense to move to CRM software as your sales process grows.
Key takeaways from sales pipeline templates
-Sales pipelines are an important way for businesses to keep track of all the leads in their funnel.
- The fastest way to create a pipeline when you’re starting out is to use an existing template or create one yourself in Google Sheets.
- As you scale, you’ll need CRM software to centralize lead communication, coordinate follow-ups and enable reporting.
- Pipedrive’s CRM has a Kanban-style view that’s easy for sales reps to learn. Sign up for a 14-day free trial to start organizing your pipeline.
Download your free sales pipeline template
Below, you can find a free sales pipeline template to help you get started.
Download the template, customize it to match your sales process and start tracking deals right away.
Get organized with your free sales pipeline excel template
Even a simple sales pipeline Excel template can lead you toward more revenue. Research shows that effective sales pipeline management increases revenue by as much as 15%.
What is a sales pipeline?
A sales pipeline is an organized way to visualize and keep track of prospects as they move through the buyer’s journey.
From “lead generation” to “deal won”, each stage in the pipeline is clearly defined. Increased visibility helps streamline your sales operation, ultimately decreasing churn and maximizing conversions.
In Pipedrive, pipeline trackers give you an easy-to-digest, real-time overview of your team’s performance.
For example, if one salesperson outperforms the rest of your team members, you can evaluate that rep’s actions and implement the same sales tactics teamwide. The same is true for stopping actions that don’t yield results.
Pipelines also help busy salespeople stay organized. By glancing at their pipeline, reps can easily see exactly where each deal is and what activity comes next. The results are increased productivity and improved sales performance.
Many teams visualize their sales pipeline as a funnel. Here’s an example of a sales funnel from a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business:
In short, a sales pipeline helps you see where deals are in your process and your reps’ ideal next steps.
Why you need a sales pipeline
Your business already has a pipeline, whether you know it or not. This is because your team members follow a typical range of procedures whenever they interact with prospects.
However, actively documenting your sales cycle and processes can help your reps organize new leads coming into the funnel and track specific actions.
For example, reps can pinpoint the moment they qualify a lead or exactly how many times and through which channels they’ve contacted their prospects.
Detailing these sales activities removes guesswork and encourages a more structured process at every stage. A pipeline is a way to reflect these activities through sales pipeline stages, making them trackable.
By collating key information and sales data, salespeople can easily identify which leads to nurture. This helps them prioritize who to reach out to, when to schedule meetings, when to follow up and what steps they need to take to move the deal forward.
They can also more easily weed out hot leads from cold leads, reducing time wasted trying to sell to a potential customer who doesn’t fit the ideal customer profile (ICP).
Ultimately, a well-managed, documented, accessible pipeline enables you to optimize and automate your processes. It helps you set realistic goals and choose key metrics to track, reduce bottlenecks, improve your sales results and increase revenue.
When to use a spreadsheet as a sales pipeline template
A sales manager who oversees a small team with a handful of deals may be able to manage their sales process with a straightforward sales pipeline spreadsheet – at least to start.
Here’s a summary of the pros and cons of using a spreadsheet to manage your sales pipeline:
Pros | Cons |
A good start for small teams | Harder to keep data accurate across teams |
You can set up formulas and create basic graphs and bar charts | Performance struggles with high data volumes |
Gives a high-level overview of the sales process | May struggle when multiple people access it |
Many people are familiar with the main spreadsheet tools | No built-in automations |
Easy to export data | Harder to scale as your business grows |
Often free | Not designed with sales pipeline management in mind |
If you’ve been tracking your pipeline mentally or on paper, moving to a spreadsheet in Excel or Google Sheets is a welcome upgrade.
Spreadsheets are a great initial tool for handling your team’s deal data, including:
Deal size
Sales stage
Profitability
A pipeline spreadsheet gives you a high-level overview of all current deals. It helps you track your team’s progress and streamline your daily processes, freeing up valuable time and energy that you can put back into managing your team.
One of the biggest benefits is that a spreadsheet completes calculations for you. This becomes crucial if your team handles multiple deals at various stages with different closing probabilities.
At the same time, it also helps you keep a pulse on your sales process. You can track all reps’ sales activities and progress, as well as deal sizes and sales forecasts.
You can also tailor the sales pipeline template to your unique business requirements.
For example, adding stages and modifying formulas to suit your process and prospects’ behaviors is straightforward with most spreadsheet tools.
As your team grows, it’s crucial to document leads and prospects in an organized fashion..Salespeople must be able to quickly sort through individual and teamwide records to track sales and find the information they need.
Cloud-based CRMs help you ensure your team inputs data correctly. Many also integrate with email platforms and calendars to automatically update records as prospects move through the pipeline.
Pipedrive in action: If you’re running a startup or a small business, switching to a CRM from a spreadsheet can have huge benefits. AGT Engineering & Operations grew its revenue by 161% in the first two years after making the switch, while Mybanker was able to triple its sales team thanks to new business.
You can access and update a CRM from both desktop and mobile devices. This allows reps to input new information on the go, further improving timeliness, accountability and collaboration.
Why Pipedrive’s CRM stands out
Pipedrive offers a simple, affordable way for SMBs to create a sales pipeline.
If spreadsheets are starting to slow your team down, the platform offers a more scalable way to manage your pipeline without adding complexity.
The CRM software visually represents the sales pipeline through an intuitive Kanban dashboard. Reps can move deals between stages by dragging and dropping them.
Customize each deal stage to make your exact sales process. For example:
Change the deal stage’s name
Add or remove stages
Set probabilities for a deal reaching each stage
Create multiple pipelines (e.g., inbound sales vs outbound)
On each deal card, your team can log emails, meetings and other sales-related activities, so all your communication records are in one central place.
To keep each deal moving, reps can schedule follow-up activities like calls and demos. This ensures that leads don’t go cold.
Automations help reduce manual work by triggering follow-up emails or moving deals from stage to stage based on actions they’ve taken.
Integrations with popular tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams and Gmail mean that you can even have Pipedrive automatically create sales workflows in other tools.
Pipedrive in action: Content creation experts Visionair Media built their sales funnel around Pipedrive. By eliminating other tools and reducing the complexity of their tech stack, they reduced their CRM costs by 75%, saving hundreds of dollars per month.
To keep management abreast of your sales team’s progress, simply create a sales report in a couple of clicks.
You can track metrics like forecasted revenue, the performance of individual reps and the conversion rate for each deal stage.
What should a sales pipeline include?
Your pipeline may look different depending on your tool, but the key components stay the same. Here’s what you’ll need to include.
Basic details
Don’t forget to include columns for “deal name” and “contact name”.
If one of your sales reps has to take over someone else’s activities, you don’t want to lose a deal because nobody knows who to contact.
Consider the following questions:
Who’s your point of contact?
Are there multiple contacts?
Have you confirmed you’re talking to the right person, or is there someone else at the company in a better position to deal with you?
Make sure your salespeople record this information for every deal in your pipeline.
The best sales reps master the art of gathering detailed information early to avoid wasting efforts on low-value customers.
Deal stages
Deal stages help you identify where prospects are in the buyer’s journey.
Consider what deal stages you’ll need for your business. If in doubt, review your sales process with your team and ask salespeople what the typical process looks like to close a deal.
Many of these steps are straightforward, such as booking a call or sending a sales proposal. Others may be more complex and need further clarification.
For example, contacting a lead may involve multiple touchpoints across different platforms (e.g., email or social media channels like LinkedIn), and qualifying a lead may require weighing several factors.
To avoid confusion, ensure all stages are clear and specific, so any reps handling the deal know when to move it along in the pipeline. That might mean breaking a complex stage into more manageable steps.
However, avoid having so many steps that your team spends more time updating the pipeline than selling.
In the downloadable template that comes with this article, you’ll find the following default stages:
Lead generated: You’ve identified the prospect as a good fit for your product or service
Contacted: A rep has reached out to the prospect
Proposal sent: The prospect has shown interest and received a proposal
Terms negotiated: You’ve negotiated the terms of the contract
Verbal yes: The prospect has agreed to the proposal and needs to sign
Closed: The lead has signed the contract and is now a paying customer
You can modify these stages by opening the “Instructions” tab in the spreadsheet and changing the stage name.
You can also add additional stages through the “Name Manager”. This makes each stage available through the relevant drop-down menu, ensuring your team consistently records the same stages.
Deal size
Include a space to write down how much each deal is worth.
If you have one, use an exact figure. If you don’t know the exact deal size yet, use your average deal size as a placeholder.
Make sure your salespeople know to update this figure if and when new information arises. It’s important to keep it up to date so your forecasting is as accurate as possible.
Probability
In the template, each deal stage has a win probability. The further along a deal is in the sales process, the better the chance it will close.
For example, contacted leads have a 25% probability of closing, while those who give a “verbal yes” have a 90% probability. The spreadsheet then auto-fills the probability depending on the stage.
You’ll likely need to change the probabilities to reflect your business.
This is a simple matter of changing the formula in the appropriate cell. For the most accurate results, base your formula on past sales data rather than guesswork.
Weighted forecast
You can create a weighted forecast by multiplying the expected revenue of a deal by the probability that the deal closes.
For example, if a deal is worth $100,000 and has a 20% chance of closing, the weighted forecast is $20,000.
Knowing how much revenue you can expect in a quarter enables you to make smart business decisions and focus your attention on the right places.
Rather than guessing, opportunity-stage forecasting uses the pipeline data you already have to predict your total revenue.
Note: Get input from your sales team before creating your pipeline. Remember that they’ll be the ones using and updating it daily. Their involvement will encourage them to invest in the long-term success of your sales process.
Expected close date
For your forecast to be useful, you need to know when deals are likely to close.
Unfortunately, this isn’t always clear. Many reps underestimate how long it takes to close deals. In addition, the more people involved in the purchasing decision, the more difficult it is to estimate an accurate date.
The best way to estimate the close date is to look at your previous deals and see how long they took to close. Even then, the date will almost certainly change as the deal progresses.
Still, it’s important to keep a target date in mind as this encourages your reps to keep the deal moving. It’s all too easy to lose track and neglect a “sure” deal.
Deal owner
The deal owner is the sales rep who is managing the deal from your side.
This person may change as the sale progresses (e.g., transferring from a sales development representative to an account manager), so make sure you keep this up to date.
Tracking who’s handling each deal enables you to measure team performance and distribute deals properly.
Clear next steps
Your pipeline should always specify clear next steps for each deal.
To work this out, consider how you can get the prospect from their current stage to the next one. For example:
A prospect in the “lead generated” stage needs contact from a rep.
A “contacted” prospect needs a follow-up message.
Anyone should be able to look at the designated next step and know what’s required to progress the deal.
These shouldn’t be complicated, but don’t be afraid to get specific. “Follow-up email by June 10th is a lot clearer than just saying you need to “follow-up”.
If sales managers are vigilant about monitoring leads that turn dormant, this will encourage sales reps to remain proactive in reaching out to them.
Final thoughts
The best sales pipeline template for your SMB depends on the size of your sales operation.
When you’re just starting out, a simple sales pipeline template in Google Sheets can help you organize your leads and stay on top of following up.
As you scale, you’ll need to invest in a CRM. Pipedrive’s visual interface is easy to learn and comes with lots of helpful automation that saves reps time.
Get a 14-day free trial of Pipedrive and start streamlining your pipeline management today.
