Exit criteria

What is meant by exit criteria?

Exit criteria are the evidence a deal must show before it moves to the next stage, such as a confirmed budget owner. They turn a stage from a seller's opinion into a fact someone else can check. CRM platforms support the idea directly. Microsoft's business process flows, for example, let an admin require certain data before a record can advance, which the documentation calls stage-gating.

Why it matters to a revenue leader

Without exit criteria, a stage is a mood. Pipeline by stage, stage probabilities and the forecast built on them all depend on each stage meaning the same thing for every seller. When it does, a revenue leader can compare teams, spot where deals stall and trust the conversion rates used in planning. For a PE-backed company combining branches or add-on acquisitions, shared exit criteria are what make one pipeline report comparable across teams that used to sell in different ways.

A facility services platform acquires two regional companies. Each moved deals into proposal at a different point, so the combined proposal stage converted at very different rates by region and the forecast swung with the mix. Once the regions agreed on what evidence a deal needs before it enters proposal, the stage numbers became comparable and the forecast steadied.