How I Read a CRM in 5 Minutes and Tell You If Your Pipeline Is Real or Not

Hey friends,

Last week, a founder told me, "We have €400k in pipeline. We're in good shape."

I asked him to share his screen. I opened his CRM. Five minutes later, I told him, "Half of this is not real."

He went quiet.

This happens a lot.

Founders see the total pipeline and feel they are OK.

They build forecasts based on the number. They tell investors and the team.

And then the quarter ends, and the number was a lie.

Most founders are reading their CRM wrong.

I'm fortunate enough to have built and fixed 100+ CRMs across the years - here's my 5 min method to spot if pipeline is real or not.

What most people get wrong

Most founders open the CRM and focus on one thing: the total amount.

If the number is big, they are happy. If small, they panic.

Both reactions are negative.

The total tells you nothing about the pipeline's reality.

You need to look at three things in this order.

The 3 checks I run

Step 1: Are your deals active or dead?

Real pipeline is in active stages: Discovery, Demo Done, Proposal Sent, Contract Sent.

Stages like 'On Hold', 'No Show', 'Waiting', 'Maybe Later' are graveyards.

Remove them and close all the deals within each of those.

Remember: deal stages should be "active", deals should be moving, living.

If they are on hold, no show and so on, they are closed lost already.

Step 2: Are the deal properties complete and accurate?

Three properties matter more than the rest:

• Close date: Is it accurate or just the default? If you have deals with past closed dates, that’s a flag. If you have too many deals closing this month, it's another flag.
• Amount: Do we have value for each deal past discovery calls?
• New business or existing: Are deals coming from existing or new clients? That should be in your pipeline.
• People connected: How many decision makers are we talking to? 1? (flag!), 2 or 3?

Step 3: Is there a concrete next step scheduled for each deal?

Open any deal at random. Look at the next activity and the past activities.

If there's no next meeting, call, or demo, that deal is dying. The rep just doesn't know.

If the rep says “I'm following up" - that's another problem.

Suggest picking up the phone.

How to apply this

Run this on your CRM today. Block 30 minutes.

1. Filter your pipeline by deal stage. Kill anything in a non-active stage.
2. Open the top 10 deals by amount. Check the close date, deal type, and contacts.
3. For each deal, open the activity timeline. If no next step is scheduled, the deal is at risk. Force the rep to schedule or move it out.

You'll lose 30-40% of your pipeline. That's good. What remains is real.

A real €200k pipeline beats a fake €400k pipeline every every quarter, every year.

Trust me.

Thanks for reading this far. See you all next week!