Diagnose Stalled Deals by Stage

You are a sales process consultant who specializes in digital marketing agencies. You diagnose stage-level bottlenecks by reading pipeline data, not by interviewing reps.
Agency: [AGENCY_NAME] — [SERVICES]
Stages in our process: [STAGE_LIST]
Benchmark days per stage (if known): [STAGE_BENCHMARKS]
'Stalled' threshold: [STALLED_DEFINITION]
Pipeline export:
[PIPELINE_EXPORT]
For every open deal, determine if it's stalled per [STALLED_DEFINITION]. Group stalled deals by stage. For each stage with stalled deals, report count, % of stage's open deals, total dollar exposure, and the median 'days stuck'.

- Use only the deals in [PIPELINE_EXPORT].
- If [STAGE_BENCHMARKS] are provided, use them; if not, derive 'expected' from sales cycle.
- Surface the WORST stage clearly at the top.
- Do not prescribe fixes — diagnosis only.

## Worst-Performing Stage
[Stage name] — [X] stalled deals, $[Y] exposure, [Z] median days stuck.

## Stage-by-Stage Stall Breakdown
| Stage | Stalled Count | % of Stage | $ Exposure | Median Days Stuck |

## Stalled Deals (per stage)
[stage]: [deal — owner — days stuck — amount]

## Diagnosis (1 paragraph)
[Where is the choke point and what does the data suggest about it?]

• [AGENCY_NAME] — Your agency name
• [SERVICES] — Service lines
• [STAGE_LIST] — Your pipeline stages in order (e.g. Discovery → Proposal → Negotiation → Close)
• [STAGE_BENCHMARKS] — Days each stage should take, if known. Leave blank if not.
• [STALLED_DEFINITION] — e.g. 'in current stage >2x benchmark' or 'no activity >21 days'
• [PIPELINE_EXPORT] — CSV with deal, owner, amount, stage, days_in_stage, last_activity_days_ago

Agency: Northwind Digital — SEO, paid, web
Stages: Discovery → Proposal → Negotiation → Close
Benchmarks: Discovery 10d, Proposal 14d, Negotiation 10d
Stalled: in stage >2x benchmark
Pipeline:
deal,owner,amount,stage,days_in_stage,last_activity
Acme,Jamie,6500,Proposal,30,4
BlueTrail,Priya,4000,Discovery,74,16
Cedar,Jamie,15000,Negotiation,21,5
Delta,Marcus,2500,Discovery,53,27
Echo,Marcus,8000,Proposal,32,11
Foxtrot,Priya,5500,Discovery,8,2

## Worst-Performing Stage
Discovery — 2 stalled deals, $6,500 exposure, 63 median days stuck.

## Stage-by-Stage Stall Breakdown
| Stage | Stalled | % of Stage | $ Exposure | Median Days |
| Discovery | 2 | 67% (2 of 3) | $6,500 | 63 |
| Proposal | 2 | 100% (2 of 2) | $14,500 | 31 |
| Negotiation | 1 | 100% (1 of 1) | $15,000 | 21 |

## Stalled Deals
Discovery: BlueTrail — Priya — 74d — $4,000; Delta — Marcus — 53d — $2,500
Proposal: Acme — Jamie — 30d — $6,500; Echo — Marcus — 32d — $8,000
Negotiation: Cedar — Jamie — 21d — $15,000

## Diagnosis
The choke point is split: Discovery has the highest count of stalls (and the longest median stuck-time), but Proposal has 100% of its deals over 2x benchmark — meaning every single proposal is sitting. Diagnose Proposal as a process problem (templates, pricing pushback, or no follow-up cadence) and Discovery as a qualification problem (deals shouldn't reach 53+ days in Discovery).

• If 100% of a stage is stalled, the problem is your process, not your reps.
• Run this AFTER you've defined stage benchmarks — guessing benchmarks defeats the purpose.
• Compare quarter-over-quarter to see if a process change actually moved the needle.