What happens before an opportunity exists, and the one gate every source passes through. Lifecycle states live on the person or account; the gate creates the opportunity; the stages after it are on the Sell page.
Boxes marked ↗ open the page for that part of the model.
How to read this
- Lead, MQL and PQL are states on the person or account record, owned by Marketing, Sales Development or Product. Nothing before the gate is pipeline.
- The gate is one definition for every source: meeting held, need and budget owner confirmed, AE accepts. Passing it creates the opportunity record and flips the account to sales-qualified.
- Product-led accounts above the size threshold come to the same gate as sales-assist; below it they convert self-serve, and the system creates the closed-won opportunity so the revenue is still counted.
- Closed-lost at any stage goes back to nurture with a reason; nurture re-scores on every new action.
- The exact criteria for every state and stage are on the Stage definitions page, which is the only place they are written.
Where it connects
Diagram source: 01-funnel.drawio 01-funnel.svg
