Notes for owners · Sales management
How to track your sales pipeline and find where deals get stuck
Track deals by stage and days in stage, then read three reports: deals by stage, days since last contact, and lost reasons. Each stuck stage has its own fix.
The GullySales team · Updated 10 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
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To find where deals get stuck, record the date each deal enters a stage, then read three reports: how many deals sit in each stage, how many days since each was last contacted, and why lost deals were lost. Where deals pile up or age is where they are stuck, and each stage has a usual cause and a usual fix.
How to build the pipeline is in how to build and manage a healthy sales pipeline, and what an outside review reads is in what a sales pipeline audit covers. This post is the do-it-yourself diagnostic.
What you need to record first
Four fields per deal, nothing more: the stage, the date it entered that stage, the date of the last real contact, and the next action with a date. "Real contact" means a conversation or a reply, not a message sent into silence.
Most pipelines fail here. A sheet that shows only today's stage cannot tell you how long the deal has been there, and age is the whole diagnosis.
Report 1: deals by stage, with age
Count the open deals in each stage and note the oldest in each. For example:
| Stage | Deals | Oldest, in days |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiry | 22 | 9 |
| Needs understood | 14 | 12 |
| Quote sent | 17 | 41 |
| Negotiating | 5 | 18 |
Read it two ways. A stage with far more deals than the one after it is where deals wait. A stage where the oldest deal is much older than your usual is where deals die quietly. Here, the quote stage is the problem: seventeen deals, one of them forty-one days old.
Report 2: days since last contact
Sort every open deal by days since the last real contact. This is the list that tells you who has been forgotten. A deal with no contact for a fortnight in a stage that should move weekly is not "waiting for the client". It is waiting for you.
If this list is long, the cause is rarely the buyer. It is a missing next-action date.
Report 3: lost reasons
Every lost deal gets one reason from a short fixed list: price, went to a competitor, no budget, timing, no response, wrong fit. Add "other" only with a written note. Read the counts. If "no response" is the biggest, you are losing at follow-up. If "price" dominates, look at who you are quoting, not only what.
Be strict. A lost reason typed as "client not interested" tells you nothing.
How to read where it is stuck
| Stuck at | Usual cause | Usual fix |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiry | Slow first reply, or enquiries that were never buyers | Reply the same day; qualify before investing time |
| Needs understood | No clear decision-maker or budget found | Ask who else decides and by when |
| Quote sent | Price shock, wrong person, no agreed next step | Agree the next step before sending; see how to follow up on a quotation |
| Negotiating | Discounting before the buyer has said what they need | Ask what changes the answer before changing the price |
| Verbal yes, no order | Internal approval, or an unclear payment step | Ask what has to happen inside their company, and by whom |
Do not treat the table as a verdict. Open three of the stuck deals and read what actually happened. The pattern across three is worth more than the label.
An example, clearly illustrative
A supplier of industrial uniforms in Coimbatore reads its sheet on a Monday morning and finds the quote stage holding most of its value. The deals there are old. Reading five of them, the owner sees that four quotes went to a purchase executive, and the buyer who set the specification was never contacted. The fix is not a better quote. It is asking, at the needs stage, "Who else will look at this?" and sending the quote to that person as well. The next quarter's reading will show whether the stage moves.
What not to read into the numbers
A few deals in one stage prove nothing. With a small team and a handful of deals, one large order sitting in negotiation can make the whole pipeline look stuck. Look at the pattern across several weeks, and read the deals themselves before you change the process. The reports tell you where to look. The conversation with the salesperson tells you why.
Make it a routine
Do this on a fixed morning, with the person who owns the sales numbers in the room. Thirty minutes is enough if the dates are kept. Close or move every deal in the oldest list, with a reason written down. A deal that has gone nowhere and has no next action is closed as lost, not left to flatter the total.
What to do next
Add the stage-entry date and last-contact date to your sheet this week, and run the three reports on what you have. If you would like an outside read of your pipeline and how it is recorded, book the free audit.