Sales Pipeline Template: Stages, Metrics and a Copy-and-Paste Layout

A sales pipeline template is a table with one row per open deal and one column per fact you need to move it forward: who, which company, which stage, what happened last, what happens next and when. Add stages with clear entry criteria and four metrics, and you have a pipeline you can actually manage, in a spreadsheet or in any CRM.

This guide gives you all of it: the stages, the LinkedIn-specific early phase, the formulas and a copy-and-paste layout. Last updated: 28 September 2026.

Pipeline, funnel, forecast: three terms, three questions

People use these words interchangeably. They answer different questions, and keeping them apart makes each one more useful.

The pipeline is the working list. The funnel is an analysis of the same data. The forecast is a projection built on top. All three come from a well-kept pipeline, and none of them works without one: if the stages are out of date, every forecast is a guess.

If you are unsure what counts as a lead in the first place, or when a contact becomes a qualified lead, start with What is a lead?. The pipeline picks up from there.

Sales pipeline stages with entry and exit criteria

A stage is only useful if everyone on the team would put the same deal in it. So every stage gets an entry criterion you can check. The exit criterion is always entry into the next stage, or the decision to mark the deal as lost.

The roles assume a team that splits first contact and closing. If you sell on your own, every row has your name in it. What matters is that every row has exactly one name.

Two rules keep the stages honest. First, deals never move backwards. If a proposal turns back into an open discussion, it stays at proposal and the next action says what is missing. Second, “lost” is a stage, not a failure. One deal closed honestly does more for your numbers than ten that have sat at “in conversation” for weeks.

The early phase on LinkedIn: six steps to a meeting

If you prospect on LinkedIn, there are more steps before the first meeting than the classic model shows. It pays to split this part more finely, because this is where most contacts drop out, and you want to see where.

1. Target list: The person is on your list, built from a LinkedIn people search or a Sales Navigator search.
2. Visited: You have looked at the profile. This is where you find the hook for your first message.
3. Connected: The connection request has been accepted.
4. Conversation: The person has replied to your opener or a follow-up.
5. Qualified: The chat has confirmed there is a need and you are talking to the right person.
6. Meeting: You have booked a call.

From the meeting onwards, the deal joins the standard pipeline (stage 5 in the table above). In other words, for LinkedIn prospecting you split stages 1 to 5 into these six steps. Your template can hold both: the coarse view for the overview, the fine one for analysing the early phase.

Pipeline metrics and how to calculate them

Four metrics cover what most teams need. You can track more. You will rarely read them.

1. Count per stage

How many deals sit at each stage today? It is a snapshot, and it shows bottlenecks. Forty contacts in conversation but only two qualified usually means nobody is asking the qualifying question.

2. Stage-to-stage conversion rate

Formula: conversion (stage A → B) = number that reached B ÷ number that reached A × 100.

Always calculate it for a cohort, meaning all contacts that entered stage A in the same period. Otherwise you are comparing deals from different months.

3. Time in stage

Formula: time in stage = date entered next stage − date entered this stage, averaged across all deals that have left the stage.

Add up all stages and you get your sales cycle from first contact to close. It tells you how far ahead you need to plan: with a long cycle, today’s prospecting decides revenue several months from now.

4. Weighted pipeline value

Formula: weighted pipeline value = sum across all open deals of (deal value × win probability).

The probability belongs to the stage. You set the values yourself and adjust them once you have enough closed deals of your own. There is no universal percentage per stage.

Worked example (made-up numbers)

The numbers below are invented to walk through the formulas. They are not benchmarks.

The three meetings turned into three open deals. With the probabilities you have set:

• Deal A, stage meeting: €4,000 × 20% = €800
• Deal B, stage proposal: €6,000 × 50% = €3,000
• Deal C, stage negotiation: €2,500 × 80% = €2,000

Unweighted, the pipeline holds €12,500. Weighted, it holds €5,800. Plan with the second number. The first only shows the ceiling.

You can also run the conversion rates backwards. If this made-up example needed six meetings instead of three, you would have to contact roughly twice as many people at the same rates, or improve one of the rates. The reply rate after connecting is the rate you influence most directly, because you write the messages yourself.

The sales pipeline template to copy

The template has nine columns. Each row is one deal or contact. It works in Google Sheets, Excel or Numbers, and each column maps one to one onto a field in a CRM.

Names and companies are fictional. The header row to copy, comma-separated (paste into Sheets or Excel and use “Split text to columns” or “Text to Columns” on the comma):

Lead,Company,Stage,Source,Last action,Next action,Date,Value,Probability

How to use it:

• Date is the date of the next action, not the last one. Sort by it and you have your to-do list every morning.
• Stage comes from a fixed list (dropdown or data validation). Otherwise, three weeks in, you will have “Conversation”, “In conversation” and “Conv.” side by side.
• Probability follows from the stage. Do not set it per deal by gut feeling.
• Weighted value: add a tenth column (J) with =H2*I2 and total it with =SUM(J2:J500).
• Count per stage: =COUNTIF(C:C,"Proposal") counts every deal at the proposal stage.

These formulas assume English locale settings. In some other locales the function names are translated and the separator is a semicolon.

Pipeline management: the weekly routine

A pipeline nobody maintains turns into a wish list within a month. With a fixed routine, good pipeline management rarely takes more than half an hour a week.

Weekly review

Once a week, on the same day, go through every open row and check three things. Is the stage still right? Is there a next action with a date? Is that date in the past? Any row without a next action gets one today or is closed.

Clear out dead deals

Set a maximum time for each stage, for example your average plus a buffer. Anything beyond it that has not responded to the last agreed follow-up moves to “lost”, with a reason. It feels like giving up revenue. What actually happens is that your forecast becomes honest.

Follow-up rules

Decide in advance how often you follow up and at what interval, then stick to it. Our recommendation for LinkedIn: no more than one or two reminders after an unanswered message, then stop. Wording for every situation is in Cold email follow up: 15 email and LinkedIn templates with timing.

Hi Jana, a quick reminder about my question from last week. If the topic isn’t relevant right now, that’s completely fine. Just let me know and I won’t follow up on it again.

A reply like “not right now” is a result, by the way. Log it, close the deal and, if it makes sense, set a new action a few months out.

How CompLeadly helps

CompLeadly handles the early phase of the pipeline on LinkedIn and gives you the numbers for it. The pipeline itself lives in your spreadsheet or CRM.

• Target list: You build the audience in CompLeadly from a LinkedIn people search, a Sales Navigator search or, with a Recruiter seat, from Recruiter searches. You can also import lists. That is stage 1 of your pipeline.
• Visits, connection requests, openers, follow-ups: Profile visits, connection requests with an optional note, the first message after acceptance and follow-ups run automatically, with a daily limit per feature that you set yourself. A follow-up only goes out once your previous message has gone unanswered for as many days as you specify. If the contact has replied, no further follow-up is sent. That is your follow-up rule from the weekly routine, enforced.
• Smart Chat: Replies land in one inbox inside CompLeadly. Every reply there is a candidate for the “conversation” stage.
• InMail reply collector: It sorts answered, declined and unanswered InMails into separate target audiences. Declines go into your sheet as “lost”, the unanswered ones are your follow-up list.
• Statistics per feature and week: You see connection requests, acceptances and replies week by week. Those are exactly the inputs for your early-phase conversion rates.
• Network export: Network export pulls your connections out of LinkedIn so you can bring them into your pipeline sheet.

For the forecast, use the free campaign calculator. Enter contacts per week, acceptance, reply and booking rates plus your average potential value per meeting. It projects the numbers over a month of four weeks and shows acceptances, replies, meetings and pipeline value (meetings × potential value). Put in your own rates from the statistics, not the defaults, and you know how many contacts per week your pipeline needs. If your ideal customer profile still needs work before you build the list, try the ICP generator.

Step-by-step setup for each feature is in the CompLeadly guide, and the sales teams page shows how it fits into a team.

After the 10-day trial with all features, you can keep using CompLeadly for free with the basic features and daily limits, for example 2 connection requests, 1 opener and 1 follow-up per day, each step started individually; full workflows start with Basic. All plans are on the pricing page.

Pipelines for recruiting and job hunting

The same logic works when you are looking for people to hire, or for a job yourself. Only the stage names change.

In recruiting, the candidate pipeline looks like this: target list → connected → in conversation → interested → interview → offer → accepted. The metrics stay the same: count per stage, conversion, time in stage. Instead of deal value, you track open roles. In CompLeadly you build the audience from a LinkedIn people search, a Sales Navigator search or, with a Recruiter seat, from Recruiter searches, connect, open the conversation with an opener and follow up. Replies collect in Smart Chat. More on the recruiters page and in LinkedIn recruiting messages: 10 templates for every stage.

As a job seeker, you run your own application pipeline: target employer → contact found (recruiter, hiring manager, future colleague) → connected → in conversation → applied → interview → offer. The template above works unchanged; “Company” is the employer and “Value” stays empty. In CompLeadly you build the audience from a people search, connect and send a short first message and one follow-up. The free plan’s daily limits apply here too. Mistakes to avoid are covered in 10 common LinkedIn mistakes when job hunting.

FAQ

What is the difference between a sales pipeline and a sales funnel?

The pipeline shows each open deal and its next step. The funnel shows how many contacts drop out between two stages over a period. Both come from the same data.

How many sales pipeline stages should I have?

As many as you can separate with a criterion you can check. For most B2B teams that is six to nine. If you prospect on LinkedIn, split the early phase up to the meeting more finely.

Which win probability belongs to which stage?

You decide. Start with an estimate and replace it with your own rates once enough deals have been won or lost.

Is a spreadsheet enough, or do I need a CRM?

The template in Sheets or Excel is enough to start. A CRM pays off once several people work on the same deals at the same time. You can carry the template’s columns over as fields.

How often should I update the pipeline?

A fixed review once a week, plus the rows whose date is due today, every day. Every open deal needs a next action with a date.