Deal
A deal is a specific opportunity to sell something to a specific client, tracked from first interest to a clear outcome: won or lost.
What it looks like
A client writes that they want to buy. From that moment there is a deal: who the client is, what they want, the expected amount, which rep owns it and what stage it is at. The deal moves through stages and ends one of two ways: paid, or lost for a stated reason.
One client can have several deals over time. A first purchase, a renewal and an extra product are separate deals, even if they all come through the same chat.
Why it matters
The deal is the unit sales are measured in. Conversion, average order value, cycle length, forecast and rep commission all rest on it. If deals are defined loosely, every number built on top of them becomes unreliable.
For an owner, the deal also answers the question of responsibility: who was handling this client, what was promised and why the money did or did not come.
Typical mistake
Creating deals for every incoming message. Questions, complaints and random chats inflate the count and make conversion look terrible, or hide real problems among noise. The opposite mistake is opening a deal only when the client has almost paid. Conversion then looks perfect, and everything lost earlier disappears from view.
Another risk is a deal that never ends. Without a clear won or lost status, it lingers and distorts the pipeline.
What to do
Write down a single rule for when a conversation becomes a deal, and when a deal is closed as won or lost. Require an amount and a reason for every lost deal. Apply the same rules to every rep and channel, so their numbers can be compared fairly.
More in Signals
- A sales director who can’t see each rep: why the CRM lies and pipeline meetings go nowhereA sales director loses sight of each rep because the CRM is filled in by hand and after the fact, while the real work happens in messaging apps outside the system. Decisions end up based on gut feeling, the best and worst reps blur into an average, and problems surface after the client is gone. The source of truth is the conversation itself: reply speed, forgotten clients, promises kept and money per person; and the meeting should run on exceptions, not on retelling.
- Why your CRM isn't working in sales, and what to do about itA CRM stops working when it lives apart from where the selling happens: clients write in messaging apps, sales reps answer from personal phones, and the records get an after-the-fact retelling. The data starts to drift, you stop trusting it, and the CRM goes empty. The fix is not more fields or penalties. It is order: you decide who owns the numbers and the conversations, what counts as a fact and who answers for it, and then you work by those rules yourself.