Sales teams rarely struggle because they lack deals.
They struggle because they waste time and energy on deals that are no longer viable.
When old opportunities sit in the pipeline, they quietly drain focus, momentum, and capacity that should be directed toward active, qualified opportunities. Time is a real cost in sales, and most teams are burning it without realizing it.
By Jason Pearl, Founder of Nacre Consulting
273 days.
That is how long the deal sat in their pipeline.
No activity. No movement. No decision.
And everyone acted like it was normal.
There was no meaningful activity. No clear next step. No defined decision timeline.
Yet it was counted as an active deal in the pipeline.
This is where many sales teams get into trouble. They have a pipeline packed full of stalled deals.
They frame the problem as a follow up issue, a skill gap, or a closing problem.
It is not.
It is a pipeline management problem. More specifically, it is a time management problem.
Old deals feel normal because the cost of time is invisible. Pipelines look full. Forecasts feel hopeful. Reps stay busy. But underneath it all, time is being spent with very little return.
Here is the real question leaders should be asking:
What is the cost of a deal sitting idle for 273 days?
And whose time is being consumed while nothing moves forward?
While your team waits, time is still moving for the buyer, your competitors, and your own organization.
Sales Is About Getting to a Decision,
Not a Yes.
Sales is not about persuasion, pressure, or convincing someone to buy.
Sales is the management of a discovery process toward a decision.
Every deal is either moving forward or slowly dying. There is no neutral state.
When time is managed intentionally, it creates urgency and clarity. When it is ignored, it creates friction and false confidence.
Most pipelines are focused on moving deals through stages, but rarely factor in time.
A healthy pipeline should measure:
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Number of days a deal spends in each stage
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Total age of the deal from initial contact to closure
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Time elapsed between key activities such as meetings, proposals, and follow ups
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Average cycle time between stages
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Response time to buyer inquiries
If time is not actively managed, the pipeline ends up full of dead ends.
By managing time intentionally, you can see where deals are stalling and take action to either re-engage with a clear process or move the deal to closed lost and move on.
Where Sales Teams Lose Time
1. Failing to Define Pain in the Current State
The most common cause of wasted time in sales is allowing deals to age without clearly defining the problem, issue, or pain in the buyer’s current state.
There is often no movement on a deal because there is no motivation to make any change.
Sales teams make this worse by confusing patience with progress. Waiting feels strategic, but in reality, it is passive.
Time passes. The buyer’s pain becomes tolerated. The urgency fades. The status quo feels acceptable.
A deal without defined pain is not a deal.
It is a placeholder.
2. Selling Without the Real Decision Maker
One of the most expensive ways to lose time is building momentum with someone who cannot actually say yes.
The issue is not timing. It is access.
Sales teams invest hours in discovery, follow up, proposals, and internal alignment, only to find out late in the process that the real decision maker was never in the room.
When the true authority is absent, timelines stretch. Questions get relayed secondhand. Objections surface late. Momentum stalls.
Every deal should clarify two things early:
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Who has final decision authority?
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Will they be directly involved in the evaluation process?
If you are not in front of the person who can approve budget and commit resources, you are not managing a deal.
You are managing a conversation.
And conversations without authority consume time without producing results.
3. Slow Proposal Cycles
One of the most costly losses of time happens in the space between discovery and proposal.
Days easily turn into weeks. Internal approvals delay pricing. Decks are rewritten.
By the time the proposal is delivered, any urgency uncovered in discovery has cooled.
When proposals move slowly, deals do not just stall.
They fall apart entirely.
4. Ineffective Follow Up
Random check-ins are not follow up. They are passive messages that shift responsibility for progress onto the buyer.
Good follow up moves a deal toward a decision. Poor follow up simply keeps it in the pipeline.
Every discovery meeting should end with:
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A scheduled next meeting
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A specific action step, clearly owned, with a deadline
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A mutually agreed upon decision date
Without that structure, sales reps chase leads instead of qualify deals.
While your teams time and energy is consumed.
The Clock Is Always Running
While your deal sits idle, the buyer’s clock does not.
Priorities shift. Budgets get reallocated. Competitors step in. Internal goals change.
Silence is not neutral. It is a signal.
When a buyer says they need more time, it is rarely about contemplation alone. It is usually a signal that urgency was never clearly established or that client pains and solutions was never fully aligned.
In many cases, it is better to close a deal cleanly and define a clear time to revisit than to let it quietly sit in the pipeline.
Because whether acknowledged or not, the clock is always running.
Where to Go From Here
If you want better sales results, start by auditing how time actually moves, stalls, and gets wasted inside your sales process. If your team is busy but not progressing, it may not be a sales problem. It may be a time management problem.
At Nacre Consulting, we have helped over 150 companies design and implement more disciplined, efficient sales systems.
Our Custom Sales Playbook offering specifically defines how timing is structured, measured, and actively managed throughout your pipeline, so momentum is not left to chance.
👉 Learn More About Our Custom Sales Playbook
When your system manages time intentionally, your pipeline becomes an asset instead of a liability.
👉 Schedule a 15‑Minute Discovery Call Your growth is our business.
Learn more at www.nacreconsulting.com
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