Sales stage exit criteria

Exit criteria are the conditions a deal must meet before it moves to the next stage. A recap sent by a seller and a recap confirmed by a customer are different exit criteria. Keep necessary internal checks, and make the customer's confirmation explicit wherever a criterion is meant to show buying progress.

Ask for these inputs

1. The current stage names and the exit criteria for each, as written.
2. Where criteria are recorded (CRM fields, documents, emails).
3. Whether the team uses MEDDICC or a variant.
4. Any rules for how long a deal may sit in a stage.
5. For a single deal: its current stage and the evidence the team has.

Step 1: Define each stage

For each stage, write four things, as Fleet's handbook does: a probability, a definition of one or two sentences, a timeline (how long a deal may stay before it is reviewed and possibly closed), and the exit criteria.

Step 2: Test every criterion with two questions

Ask of each item: who did it, and where is it recorded?

Distinguish the person who acts from the person who records it. A seller's CRM note can record a customer's confirmation. Sending a recap does not establish that confirmation by itself. Classify each criterion as a seller task or internal check, or as a customer act or agreement.

Step 3: Add the customer act

Keep the seller work and internal checks needed to qualify the deal, and add the customer confirmation each criterion needs. Examples of rewrites:

Step 4: Place MEDDICC evidence at the gates

MEDDICC has no stages of its own. Decide which elements need supporting evidence before each transition. Keep an unresolved element visible; entry into a later stage is not proof the gap was closed. A field labelled "decision criteria documented" still needs an identified source. If the customer agreed success criteria and a timeline for an evaluation, establish which purchase criteria that evaluation tests and which remain to be confirmed.

Step 5: Set what happens when a deal misses its criteria

Keep the deal in its stage until it meets the criteria, and set a deadline for deciding whether it should remain open. Set early-stage limits around the customer steps you expect instead of copying another company's day counts. Decide what restarts the clock, and specify what new customer commitment or completed step a CRM update must record to count. If the customer has agreed a future milestone, record its owner and date so a planned wait can be told apart from unexplained inactivity.

Output template

A suggested starting point for a contract-led sale. Adapt the stage names and thresholds.

For each row, also record what the evidence establishes and what remains unconfirmed. A close plan agreed with the customer is a mutual action plan, and each customer step in it needs a named owner at the customer.

For an audit of an existing process, also produce a two-column list per stage: criteria without explicit customer confirmation, and criteria naming a customer action or agreement.

Checks

• A criterion that a seller can complete alone does not show buying progress.
• "Sent" (a recap, a contract for signature) is weaker than "confirmed" or "signed".
• A criterion with no named record cannot be checked.
• A deal in a late stage with an open early element should show that gap.
• A stage clock that any CRM edit can restart, without a new customer commitment or completed step on record, cannot tell a planned wait from inactivity.

Based on: Sales stage exit criteria: examples from published processes