How do you feel about your sales pipeline? It may have started off well, but maybe it doesn’t seem quite as useful as it once was.
For example, if you’re a sales manager, does every meeting start with a disclaimer about the pipeline’s accuracy and how much each deal is really worth? If you’re a CEO or founder, is it getting harder to understand the figures and make strategic decisions?
For lots of businesses, the pipeline no longer gives a clear view of their business and sales. Instead, it feels like you’re navigating through a fog, trying to decipher all the different details with no clear sense of direction.
Usually, this happens when you’re trying to do too much with just one pipeline.
Now, to be clear, using a single pipeline is absolutely fine for lots of teams. Everyone starts off with one pipeline, and it’s a huge advantage over having no formal pipeline at all. But what happens when you outgrow that?
In this article, you’ll learn how to spot when it’s time to move beyond a single pipeline, the different scenarios where multiple pipelines shine, and how to structure your different pipelines for maximum effectiveness.
Why a single pipeline starts to creak
One pipeline is great when all your opportunities follow the same path. But as your business grows, so does its complexity. You start tackling different types of deals. More information needs to be recorded. More people get involved.
Suddenly, your once-simple pipeline now has to cover new business, renewals, upsells, partner opportunities, post-sales work, and more. It might still seem OK from a distance, but look a bit closer and you can see where it’s creaking under its own weight.
So, how do you know when it’s time to add more pipelines? Here are the symptoms to look out for:
Stage definitions get fuzzy
The default pipeline in Capsule CRM covers the standard stages that apply to most businesses, from new lead to signed contract. However, as time goes by, you’ll likely start offering new products or services, or you might have different processes for different scenarios that don’t fit in with your existing structure.
At this point, companies often try to force these new types of deals into their original stages. For example, the “New” milestone ends up covering both completely new business leads as well as existing customer renewals, or the “Contract” stage is used for both one-off purchases and long-term services.
Forecast accuracy takes a hit
Different types of deals move at different speeds and with different values. When you try to fit them into the same pipeline, it becomes much harder to understand what’s really going on. A $100/mo SaaS renewal and a $5,000 enterprise deal sitting in the same “proposal” stage are misleading and make it impossible to accurately forecast when they’ll close.
Reporting goes manual
Maybe your pipeline is still doing a good job of accurately recording what’s going on, but can your team understand that data? When they look at your pipeline, can they see which product line is creating the most pipeline, or how much new business you’re actually winning compared to renewals? If people find it easier to export your pipeline data into a spreadsheet to analyze it, then there’s something wrong with your pipeline.
Team focus suffers
A pipeline is most useful when people can use the information in it to work more effectively. If reps see every single deal – including ones that aren’t their responsibility – then the pipeline is making their job harder. Each rep has to spend time working out exactly what applies to them and what they need to do next.
Do any of these sound familiar? If so, that’s completely understandable – lots of teams face the same issues. In most cases, this is simply because the business has outgrown the original pipeline.
When people first notice these symptoms, they tend to look for a workaround. Maybe they use tags, custom fields, or filtered views to help make sense of all the data in their pipeline. Those are all useful features and, in some cases, they might be enough to keep things running smoothly.
However, if you find yourself having to repeatedly apply different filters before you get to the good stuff, that’s usually a sign that a single pipeline is no longer up to the task. By adding additional pipelines, you can bring back that original sense of clarity and usefulness, without requiring your reps to jump through any extra hoops.
Let’s take a look at some specific scenarios where adding a second pipeline can make a big difference.
When splitting into multiple pipelines makes sense
There are lots of different situations where adding more pipelines is the smart decision. Here are some of the most common use cases we see among Capsule CRM users:
New business vs. renewals/account expansion
For businesses with an established customer base, it’s important to both win new clients and retain their existing ones.
The problem: New business and renewals end up sharing the same stages, with the milestone definitions stretched to the point they don’t accurately reflect either process. Forecasts become harder to trust and ownership gets increasingly murky.
The solution: Set up two dedicated pipelines, with stages tailored to each process. For new business, this might mean milestones for qualification and demos. On the other hand, renewals benefit from stages for value realization and renewal awareness.
SMB vs. enterprise
Many B2B companies sell similar products or services, but their customer varies. For example, the company might have different offers for SMBs and enterprise clients.
The problem: A $5k SMB deal and a $50k enterprise deal are fundamentally different. An enterprise sale might require pilot periods and legal reviews, steps that will likely be irrelevant to the SMB deals. Either the pipeline gets bloated with stages that only apply to a fraction of deals, or the enterprise process gets compressed into stages that don’t capture the level of time and effort involved.
The solution: Create two pipelines, one for SMB customers, one for enterprise. Set up the milestones to reflect how each buyer makes decisions, and your SMB pipeline will stay lean while the enterprise pipeline includes the additional steps needed to close the deal.
Products vs. services
Businesses often start with a single offer, then gradually add more as they scale. For example, they might begin with a consultancy service, then create an app version to reach more people.
The problem: When you’re selling two different offers, you’re having two different conversations. If you’re selling standardized software, that conversation might include trials and demos. Selling a tailored consultation will more likely have proposals or scoping phases. Either way, one pipeline can’t accurately represent both.
The solution: Set up a dedicated pipeline for any meaningfully different offer, with stages that reflect how buyers actually evaluate the product/service. This enables product-level reporting, so you can see how your sales cycles differ and which line converts better.
Partner deals vs. direct sales
Another consideration is where your sales come from. You might start with a single direct sales channel, but you’ll likely end up with sales coming from a whole host of channels, including affiliate partners.
The problem: With direct deals, your sales team runs the show, from prospecting to closing. With partner sales, someone else is doing a lot of that work, while your internal teams serve more of an enablement/support role. When you lump them together in the same pipeline, your reps are actively working on deals next to ones that are essentially in someone else’s hands.
The solution: Create a separate pipeline for partner sales (or for other channels) that reflects your internal team’s actual workflow. You can then ensure deals are properly handled and correctly attributed.
These are some of the more common scenarios we come across, but they’re far from the only ones. Businesses with regional or international sales teams often benefit from territory-level pipelines. You can also set up pipelines for inbound and marketing-qualified leads.
For example, one Capsule CRM customer (a sailing company) uses a dedicated pipeline to capture guests who attended events with existing bookings. Previously, these guests were completely unknown to the business. By setting up a simple web form on an iPad, each guest was automatically added to Capsule CRM as a new opportunity on a separate pipeline, adding another potential revenue source.
Then there are non-sales pipelines, where you can manage workflows like recruitment, fundraising, and more. Whatever the scenario, if you have more than one offer, process, or channel, then being able to set them up as separate, distinct pipelines comes with plenty of benefits.
The advantages of multiple pipelines
Many businesses put off creating additional pipelines because they worry it’ll make things more complex, especially if they’re already struggling to deal with one on its own. In reality, additional pipelines are easy to set up and even easier to manage. Here are some of the biggest benefits.
Crystal clear stage definitions
With multiple pipelines, you have the freedom to personalize each stage to accurately reflect the process. For example, your enterprise pipeline can include stages for procurement sign-off or executive team review. Instead of trying to work out where those steps fit in your standard pipeline, your teams know exactly what’s happening at each stage and where deals belong in the pipeline.
More accurate forecasting
Forecasts improve immensely when you’re comparing like-for-like deals with similar values, probabilities, and cycles. For example, the proposal stage for an existing customer renewal is almost certainly more likely to succeed than the same stage for a new business. With different pipelines, it’s simple to set more accurate winning probabilities at each stage. In turn, management has a better idea of how much revenue is likely to close each month and what actions they need to take.
Faster, sharper reporting
Separate pipelines mean your reports are easier to interpret and can drill down into the details that actually matter, without having to export your data into another platform or break out the spreadsheets. Just open up the appropriate pipeline’s dashboard and you’ll see all the relevant metrics, without data from your other pipelines muddying the waters. Your team spends less time cleaning data and more time acting on it.
Less noise for managers and reps
Instead of making your process more complex, multiple pipelines mean that each one can focus exclusively on what matters most. Reps can go into the right pipeline knowing that everything there applies to them. This helps managers too, enabling them to coach reps based on the specific process, rather than applying generic advice across different deal types.
Easier onboarding
A well-structured pipeline tells a story. New reps can see how your sales process is mapped out, what each stage means, and how deals move through it. When new team members can see for themselves exactly how things work, without any confusion or unnecessary complexity, they can get up and running faster.
Scales with your business
If you want to grow your business, your processes – including your pipeline – need to grow too. Adding a new product line or region means you can add more details than your original structure was designed to handle. Multiple pipelines mean each process gets its own setup, giving your business room to scale without the headache.
Personalized workflows for each process
The advantages go beyond the pipelines themselves and impact what happens next. With separate pipelines, you can set up more relevant Automations and Tracks (templated task lists) for each pipeline. For example, you can trigger follow-up emails that match the customer’s journey, add them to the appropriate Project Board for any post-sale tasks, and notify the right team of what they need to do next.
Best practices when setting up multiple pipelines
By now, it should be pretty clear that multiple pipelines can be a huge asset to a growing business. But how should you go about setting them up? Here’s how to get the foundations right for the best results.
One of the most common mistakes is simply replicating the original pipeline, just with slightly different names for each stage. Before you build anything, go back to the drawing board and ask yourself what specific journey you’re trying to capture. What does it look like when a lead comes in? What needs to happen before they buy? Let your process dictate the pipeline, not the other way around.
A pipeline is most useful when it tells you about the buyer, not what your team needs to do next. So, “Send proposal” describes your reps’ action, but “Proposal under review” tells you where the buyer is in their journey. It may sound like petty semantics, but it can make a significant difference. When you keep your stage names focused on the opportunity, your forecasting and reports will become much more useful.
It’s easy to get carried away when you start creating new pipelines, with stages covering every possible micro step in the customer journey. In practice, too many stages make your pipeline less effective. Steps get skipped, reps get confused, and the whole thing becomes harder to navigate. As a general rule of thumb, five to seven milestones is the sweet spot for most pipelines.
If you use “Proposal” in your new business pipeline and “Quote Sent” in your renewal pipeline (with both meaning the same thing), then your cross-pipeline reporting will need a translator. Agree on a shared vocabulary for your stages and stick to it. The milestone names you choose will appear directly in your dashboard, so the clearer and more consistent they are, the more useful your reports will be.
Your pipeline stages and definitions should evolve with the business. Pipelines that never get audited accumulate ghost stages, steps that made sense at launch but no one uses anymore. Ask the people who use the pipeline every day if it’s still doing its job. Do any stages feel redundant? Are there any gaps where a deal doesn’t quite fit in with existing stages? Carrying out a quarterly review ensures the pipeline continues to be a useful asset for your business.
Give your sales the pipelines they deserve
A well-structured pipeline reflects a well-structured business. When your pipeline accurately reflects how different deals actually move, it’s a sign that your business knows what it’s doing.
Capsule CRM’s Growth plan includes five pipelines – enough headroom for most growing teams to have a pipeline for each type of deal. You can find full details on our pricing page.
If you’re interested in seeing if multiple pipelines are the right solution for you, compare the scenarios in this article with your current setup. Where are your stage definitions being stretched to cover deals that don’t quite fit? Where do your forecasts require extensive explanations? Where are reps having to work extra hard to filter out unnecessary data that shouldn’t be there in the first place?
Those are the areas worth addressing, and a second pipeline is usually the best place to start.
Try Capsule CRM’s Growth plan free for 14 days and get the benefit of multiple pipelines today.
