Question
How to know when to walk away from a deal.
A deal is over when it is past your own median time in stage, the signals are falling rather than rising, no buying process step has started, and the buyer has not committed to a next step. Any one of those is a warning; all four together is an answer.
Why reps hold on.
A deal in the pipeline is a deal that might close. Removing it makes the number smaller today in exchange for being right later, and almost every incentive points the other way.
It is also personal. Somebody spent three months on it.
The four conditions.
Past your own median time in stage for deals you have actually won from there.
Signals falling rather than rising. This is the one that separates a dead deal from a slow one.
No buying process step started. Nobody has spent any of their own time.
No committed next step with a date on the buyer side.
What walking away actually means.
Not deleting the record. Mark it closed lost with a reason, which is what makes the next twelve months of analysis possible. A deal left open forever is worse than a loss, because it corrupts every timing and win rate measurement you will want later.
The deal that looks dead and is not.
Long in stage with rising signals is the opposite situation and needs the opposite response. Somebody is building an internal case and nobody has called them. Kaypo separates the two explicitly, because in a CRM they look identical.
Questions
When should you disqualify a deal?
When it is past your own median time in stage, signals are falling, no buying process step has started, and the buyer has not committed to a dated next step. All four together, not any one alone.
Should you delete lost deals from the CRM?
Lost deals should not be deleted from the CRM. Mark them closed lost with a reason instead. Deleting them destroys the history every future win rate and stage timing measurement depends on.
It arrives in Slack
Every morning, each rep gets one message naming the deals on their own book that moved overnight, biggest mover first, with the reason beside each number and the deals that have gone quiet underneath.
$99 a month, cancel any time.. Everyone on the team. No per seat charge. Connect a CRM and it runs. No implementation fee. 14 day trial. No card.
Related reading
How to tell if a deal is stalled, and whether to keep working it
A stalled deal that is getting better and a stalled deal that is dying look identical in a CRM. How to tell them apart.
A CRM hygiene checklist that takes an hour
The handful of data problems that quietly break forecasting, reporting and any scoring model built on top. What to check and in what order.
Why deals go quiet, and what to do about it
A deal going silent almost never means what a rep hopes it means. What the silence usually is, and how to tell the difference early.
What revenue intelligence actually costs, cheapest first
Almost nobody in this category publishes a price. What the reported figures are, ordered, and what you give up at each level.
Reviewed September 20, 2026 against the product as it behaves today.