Sales lifecycle intelligence — which way is each deal moving?

Sales lifecycle intelligence answers one question: Which way is each deal moving, and which ways lead to our best customers? Every morning it places your deals on Beacon’s six standard stages, reads each deal’s stage history — where it has been, which way it is going, how long it has sat where it is — and counts, stage by stage, how many deals move on and how many are lost. It belongs to the Sales family — see Modules.

This page describes the module as it runs today. Your deals on the six standard stages, each deal’s stage history and direction, and conversion through the stages are live. The lifecycle score, the eight patterns, open deals by pattern and the alerts built on them are designed and not calculated yet. A deal is scored only once the key steps of its stage can be read from your CRM, and Beacon does not look for them yet. The rules the live figures follow are set out below.

What it does

Two deals can close at the same rate and become very different customers. One moved steadily with the buyer doing the work at every stage; the other was pushed through, slipped back and went round in circles. Sales lifecycle intelligence is built to read the shape of each deal’s path — not only its speed — and to learn which shapes become your best customers. Today it does the part that needs no score. Once a day, straight after your CRM loads and Deal likelihood has listed your open deals, it:

Places each deal on one of six standard stages — New, Discovery, Demo, Proposal, Negotiation and Closing — through the way your CRM’s stages line up with them, which you confirm once in Setup. Your CRM keeps its own stages.
Reads each deal’s stage history — every stage change your CRM recorded — and records which way the deal has moved over the last 60 days, how many times it moved forward and back, and how many days it has sat in its current stage.
Records every stage each deal reached while Beacon has watched it, and what happened next: moved on, lost there, still there, or went back.
Counts conversion through the stages for each segment: of the deals that reached a stage and left it, how many moved on.

Beacon never writes into your CRM. It does not move deals between stages or change your pipeline.

What it produces

Its headline is three figures. One is calculated today.

KPI	What it measures	Today
Lifecycle score	Each open deal’s progress from 0 to 100, against deals in its own segment — five parts, weighted — with its band: Strong, Healthy, Concerning or Critical	Not calculated yet — a deal is scored only once its stage’s key steps can be read from your CRM
Open deals by pattern	How many open deals follow each of the eight patterns — On track, Buyer-led, Thorough, Recovered, Cooling off, Rushed, Stuck, Going in circles — by segment. The figure the page leads with	Not calculated yet — a pattern needs 30 days of stage history, and seven of the eight need the stage’s key steps
Stage conversion rate	For each segment and standard stage, the share of the deals that left the stage that moved on to a later stage or were won	Produced daily

Stage conversion rate links to its definition, which also says how the Data API and MCP will carry it — neither serves it yet. The lifecycle score and open deals by pattern get their definitions when they are calculated. Behind them it also produces:

What	What it tells you	Today
Your deals on the six stages	Every open deal Beacon follows, with its standard stage beside the stage your CRM names	Produced daily
Direction	Whether each open deal moved forward, held, or went back over the last 60 days — or is new	Produced daily
Moves forward and back	How many times each deal changed standard stage in each direction	Produced daily
Days in stage	How long each open deal has sat in its current standard stage, and the average days deals took to move on from each stage	Produced daily. Read against the usual time from Pipeline velocity where it has one
Closed deals	Every deal Beacon follows that was won or lost in the last 12 months, with the stage it closed from	Produced daily
What each reading can use	Which of the nine things behind a deal’s reading Beacon can read on your data today — velocity, key steps, direction, buyer engagement, data trust, customer fit, deal likelihood, contract terms, customer quality	Produced daily
The five parts	Pace through stages, milestones done, direction, time in this stage, engagement kept up — each from 0 to 100	Not calculated yet
Patterns	The pattern each open deal follows	Not calculated yet
Alerts	Six rules — stalled, rushed, going in circles, score under 30, pattern and likelihood disagree, recovered	Described, none sent

How it is worked out

The figures produced today

These are counts and placements of what your CRM records, worked out by fixed, written rules — the same data always gives the same figures. The page itself works nothing out: it shows what the morning run wrote.

Which deals. The open deals Deal likelihood listed that morning — a deal it did not list is not followed here either — and the deals that entered a won or lost stage in the last 365 days.
The stage line-up. Your answer in Setup to How do your deal stages line up with Beacon’s six? Each of your open CRM stages can point to one standard stage. A CRM stage with no line-up places no deal, and a line-up that names a stage your CRM does not have is refused by name — neither is ever guessed. With no answer at all, no deal is placed on a standard stage; the deals are still listed.
Segment. The segment Deal likelihood gives an open deal; for a closed deal, the customer’s top group by the same rule — or Unsegmented.
A stay at a stage runs from entering the first of your CRM stages on that standard stage to leaving the last one. Several of your CRM stages on the same standard stage are one stay. Days are whole calendar days, counted to today while the deal is still there. Stages before a deal’s history begins are never guessed: a deal first seen at Proposal reached Proposal only.
Direction, over the last 60 days: Back if the deal moved to an earlier standard stage; otherwise Forward if it moved to a later one; otherwise New if its history began less than 7 days ago; otherwise Holding. No history, no direction.
What happened at each stage, from where the deal is now: Still here if it is open at that stage; Lost here if it was lost while at it; Moved on if it was won or is now at a later stage; Went back otherwise.
Moves forward and back count changes between two different standard stages, in stage order. Moving into won or lost is not a stage move.
Groups. One for all deals, one per segment, and one per segment and standard stage — every standard stage written even when empty, so the zeros come through. Open deals, value, deals reached, moved on, lost here, still here, the conversion rate and the average days to move on are worked out for each group in Beacon’s data layer from those rows.
Conversion for a stage is moved on ÷ (moved on + lost here). Deals still in the stage are not counted yet, and deals that went back count as having reached it but as neither. With no deal yet left, there is no rate — never 0.
A deal no longer followed is marked as no longer current and kept, never deleted.

The run is part of the morning CRM load, straight after Deal likelihood’s and Deal health’s steps. It stops without writing anything if your billing or your CRM is not connected.

How the lifecycle score and the patterns will be worked out — designed, not calculated

Each open deal is scored on five parts, each from 0 to 100, then weighted and added up. Higher is better.

Part	Weight	What it will read	Readable on your data today
Pace through stages	30%	Days since the deal entered the pipeline, against the usual time to the end of its current stage: 100 at the usual time or less, falling to 0 at twice it	Where Pipeline velocity has a usual time for the stage
Milestones done	25%	The share of the current stage’s key steps done — executive sponsor confirmed, joint plan agreed, technical evaluation done, more than one contact, decision process known, contract review started. Steps with no source show as not tracked	No — Beacon does not look for these in your CRM yet
Direction	20%	The stage now against 60 days ago: later 100, the same 60, earlier 0	Yes
Time in this stage	15%	Days in the current stage against its usual time: 100 at the usual time or less, falling to 0 at two and a half times it	Where Pipeline velocity has a usual time for the stage
Engagement kept up	10%	Whether the buyer stays as engaged after a stage change as before it, from Signals	No — calls, emails and meetings are not on the CRM connection

No score without milestones. If none of a stage’s key steps can be read, the deal gets no score at all — a score built only from timing is not shown. If engagement is missing, the other four parts are reweighted and the score is labelled provisional. Until a segment has 30 closed deals with stage history, each part is scored on the fixed scales above; from then on, against the segment’s own best and worst quarters. Every score says which scale it used. Bands. Strong — 75 and over. Healthy — 55 to 74. Concerning — 30 to 54, a sales manager reviews it. Critical — under 30, taken out of the forecast until reviewed. The Critical line is the same for every growth plan and cannot be moved. The eight patterns. Each open deal’s path over the last 90 days is read as one of eight:

Pattern	What it means
On track	Each stage’s key steps done, at the usual time for the segment
Buyer-led	Key steps done, quicker than usual because the buyer is pulling it through
Thorough	Slower than usual but always moving forward, with the key steps done
Recovered	Was stuck or going in circles for 60 days or more, then moved forward again with the key steps done
Cooling off	Still moving forward, but each stage takes longer and the buyer is less engaged after each change
Rushed	Under half the usual time, with the stage’s key steps not done
Stuck	Over one and a half times the usual time in a stage, with the stage’s key steps not done
Going in circles	Back and forth between two stages, twice or more in 90 days

The rules.

When a deal is first read — once it has 30 days of stage history. A new pattern shows as Pending for 21 days before it is declared.
Usual times — always Pipeline velocity’s, per segment and stage: its own middle value once 10 deals have closed, a starting estimate until then.
Quarterly tuning — weights per segment from month 6, usual times and milestone thresholds from month 2. A change of 10% or less applies by itself; a bigger one needs your sales leader.
Customer fit and deal economics are ways to view the patterns, not parts of the score.
The six stages and eight patterns are the same for every company. Changing them needs your sales leader and Beacon to agree.
Recalculated — the stage on every stage change, the score every day and after each change, the patterns every week.

None of this is calculated today. Milestones are not looked for in your CRM yet, buyer engagement is not read, and patterns need 30 days of stage history. Until then the page shows what your CRM records and says Not yet calculated for the score.

What you see on its page

In Beacon, open Go-to-Market under Growth and choose Sales lifecycle intelligence. The banner shows how many open deals Beacon follows and since when, that a pattern needs 30 days of stage history, and how many of the nine things behind a reading it can read on your data today. The page has six tabs:

Overview — open deals by pattern (Pending), how the eight patterns are told apart, what each deal’s reading is built from and what Beacon can read for each today, the deals to act on, how the score is built, and who it is for, its data sources, what it reads from and feeds, and where it shows up.
Dashboard — six charts: pattern mix, where patterns sit by stage, the spread of the lifecycle score, days in each stage against the usual time, conversion through the stages, and closed deals’ patterns against the customers they became. Days in each stage and conversion through the stages are drawn from your CRM today — select a stage for its deals; the closed-deals chart needs 18 months and lists the deals kept for it; the others say what they wait for.
Signals & alerts — what the module watches and what it can see so far, its six alert rules with what each waits for, recent alerts and whether they worked.
Scorecard — the weights, the five parts, the eight patterns, the nine things around the score and the rules.
Deals — every open deal Beacon follows, filterable by segment and stage, with its standard stage and your CRM’s, its pattern (Waits for key steps), score, velocity, direction, customer fit, deal likelihood (Not calculated) and value. Select a deal for its stage path.
Setup — the module’s questions, starting with your stage line-up, and the company questions it shares with the rest of Beacon.

The page reads Not measured yet until your CRM is connected, Coming until the first morning run has written, and Running with gaps once it has. It does not read Live yet, because the score and the patterns are not calculated.

What it needs

Tool		What it adds	Checked today
CRM (HubSpot)	Needed to start	Your deals, every stage change with its date, and whether each closed deal was won or lost	Yes
Your stage line-up	Needed to place deals	How your CRM’s stages line up with Beacon’s six — answered once in Setup	Yes
CRM deal fields and activity	Needed for the score	Where each stage’s key steps are recorded, and calls, emails and meetings with the buyer	Not read yet
Call recording (Gong, Chorus)	Adds detail	Calls held and milestones mentioned on them	Not read yet
Billing (Stripe)	Must be connected	Beacon runs no module without billing. Sales lifecycle intelligence reads nothing from it today	Yes

See Connect your tools for how each connection is made.

Reads from

Module	What Sales lifecycle intelligence uses it for
Deal likelihood	The list of open deals and the segment of each — read today. Later, a cross-check: the pattern and the chance of closing should agree
Data model	Your deals and their stage history, matched to the right customer — read today, through your CRM’s load
Segments	Each deal is judged against deals in its own segment. Today the page groups by the segment Deal likelihood gives each deal
Pipeline velocity	The usual time per segment and stage — read where it has one
Deal health	Which key steps are done on each deal — not read yet
Signals	Whether the buyer stays engaged across stage changes — not read yet
Data integrity	Marks a deal’s reading as less certain when its record is unreliable — not shown per deal yet
Customer fit	A hint for the pattern, and a way to view the patterns — shown where a customer has a fit band

Which modules read it

Module	What it uses Sales lifecycle intelligence for
Pipeline velocity	Each deal’s standard stage and every stage change — the anchor for its usual times
Deal likelihood	A starting chance of closing for each stage
Deal health	What each stage should look like, and which of your stages count as Demo and Proposal
Sales forecast	The conversion rate of each stage, per segment — the base of the forecast
Customer fit	How closed deals moved, to sharpen what a good customer looks like
Signals	Which signals matter at which stage
Segment revenue paths	How long each segment takes through each stage
Customer lifecycle	A won deal hands over with its full stage history and final pattern

None of these modules reads from it yet. Today the Pipeline performance page reads it — the closed deals Beacon follows and the stage each lost deal was lost at — and Beacon’s connector in Claude can read the same figures the page shows. The Modules page in The Brain shows which modules are running for you.

Alerts

Six alert rules are described.

Alert	When it fires	Goes to
Deal stalled	A deal has read Stuck for 21 days and its score is Concerning or Critical. Urgent	Deal owner and sales manager — HubSpot and Slack
Deal rushed	A deal has read Rushed for 21 days. High	Deal owner and sales manager — HubSpot and Slack
Deal going in circles	A deal has moved back and forth between two stages twice or more in 90 days, held for 21 days. Urgent	Sales manager and sales leader — Slack
Score under 30	A deal’s lifecycle score falls under 30. It leaves the forecast until a decision is logged. Urgent	Sales leader and sales manager — Slack and email
Pattern and likelihood disagree	The score and Deal likelihood differ by 15 points or more, or a stuck or rushed deal is rated 70 or more — held 21 days. Urgent	Sales manager — Slack
Deal recovered	A deal that was Stuck or Going in circles for 60 days or more has moved forward for 30 days with its key steps done. Normal	Deal owner — Slack

No alert is sent yet. Going in circles waits for 30 days of stage history and for the pattern to be built; Stalled, Rushed and Recovered wait for key steps; Score under 30 for the score; and Pattern and likelihood disagree for Deal likelihood’s own reading. Who gets the alerts is picked from your Beacon users; stuck and rushed deals also go to each deal’s owner.

Setup questions

How do your deal stages line up with Beacon’s six? Read from your HubSpot sales pipeline. Beacon proposes the line-up; you confirm or change it. Your CRM keeps its own stages. Every figure on the page waits for this answer.
Where does your CRM record each stage’s milestones? Answers: point Beacon to the fields; we don’t record them yet — use Deal health’s defaults; help me set them up.
Who counts as an executive sponsor? Recommended: the standard — vice-president and above for Enterprise deals, director and above for Mid-market and Small business. Other answer: director and above for every segment.
Do you agree a joint plan with buyers? Answers: yes, on most deals; on large deals only; no. Without one, that milestone scores low until you do.
How does a lead become a deal in your CRM? Recommended: a deal is created. Other answers: a lead status changes to sales-accepted; a lifecycle stage changes to Opportunity.
Who gets the stage alerts? The sales manager and sales leader, picked from your Beacon users. Not available on the page yet.

The first five are saved from the Setup tab. Today’s figures depend only on the line-up; the others are used once the score is calculated. The line-up is also the one Deal health uses for Demo and Proposal. How you segment your customers, whether you have a sales team and which growth plan you are on are asked once, in Company DNA.

What is not calculated yet

The lifecycle score for each deal, its five parts and its band.
The eight patterns and open deals by pattern, by segment, stage, customer fit or deal economics.
The spread of the score and closed deals’ patterns against the customers they became on the Dashboard.
Milestones — not looked for in your CRM yet — and buyer engagement — not read.
The cross-check with Deal likelihood — waits for Deal likelihood’s own reading.
Alerts — none is sent yet.
Stage conversion rate through the Data API, MCP, events and your CRM — defined, not served yet.

Modules

The ten module families and which modules are available today.

Stage conversion rate

For each segment and stage, the share of deals that moved on rather than being lost there.

Deal stage

Where a deal is in your pipeline, and the six standard stages.

Days in stage

How long a deal has sat in its stage, against how long deals like it normally take.

Deal likelihood

Whether each open deal closes — and the list of open deals this module follows.

Deal health

The relationship behind each deal — where the key steps this module needs will come from.

​What it does

​What it produces

​How it is worked out

​The figures produced today

​How the lifecycle score and the patterns will be worked out — designed, not calculated

​What you see on its page

​What it needs

​Reads from

​Which modules read it

​Alerts

​Setup questions

​What is not calculated yet

​Related

Modules

Stage conversion rate

Deal stage

Days in stage

Deal likelihood

Deal health

What it does

What it produces

How it is worked out

The figures produced today

How the lifecycle score and the patterns will be worked out — designed, not calculated

What you see on its page

What it needs

Reads from

Which modules read it

Alerts

Setup questions

What is not calculated yet

Related