Best Practices for Deal Management

A clean, well-maintained pipeline gives you reliable analytics and surfaces the right clients at the right time. These practices help keep your pipeline accurate without adding friction to your daily workflow.

When to Mark a Deal Won

Mark a deal Won when the policy is issued and in force — not when the application is submitted, not when underwriting approves. "Won" means the client has an active policy.

This matters for your analytics: if you mark deals Won at application, your average deal value and win rate reflect a different population than if you mark them at issuance. Consistency is more important than which milestone you pick, but issued-and-in-force is the most meaningful endpoint.

When to Mark a Deal Lost

Mark a deal Lost as soon as you know the prospect isn't going to proceed — don't let them sit in a stage indefinitely. Common signals:

• Prospect explicitly declines or goes silent after multiple attempts
• Prospect chooses another advisor or product
• Prospect's situation changes and whole life banking no longer fits their circumstances

Leaving a deal in "Discovery" for six months when the prospect stopped responding makes your pipeline inaccurate and inflates your average time-in-stage numbers.

Using Loss Reasons Accurately

Loss reasons are only useful if they're honest. Avoid defaulting to "Other" — it's a catch-all that produces no useful signal. The goal is to build a dataset over time that tells you where your process has friction.

| Loss Reason | What It Signals | |-------------|-----------------| | No longer interested | Prospect disengagement — examine what happened in the conversation before the drop | | Chose another advisor | Competitive positioning — a pattern here suggests a differentiation gap | | Chose a different product | Concept wasn't compelling enough, or timing was off | | Not a fit | Good signal — your qualification is working if this is rare | | Timing | Prospect quality was there; execution just needed to wait |

If you notice "Chose another advisor" clustering, that's a useful signal about how you're presenting your practice versus alternatives. If "Timing" is your most common reason, a re-engagement follow-up sequence would likely convert several of those.

Linking Deals to Referral Codes

When you create a deal, you can associate it with one of your referral codes. This is how Policy Stack attributes the referral source for analytics:

1. Open the deal (or create a new one).
2. Click "Edit" in the deal header.
3. In the Source field, select "Referral Code" and choose the code from your list.

This links the deal to the code so that if the prospect becomes an active client, the referral attribution is recorded. Referral credit is calculated based on linked deals that are marked Won.

Notes Cadence

Add a note after every meaningful interaction — calls, emails where you shared materials, meetings. You don't need to write long notes; even a one-line entry ("Had discovery call — sent carrier illustration") is enough to establish a timeline.

Notes are dated automatically and appear in the deal's activity log. When you review the deal later, a clear timeline of interactions tells you immediately where you left off.

Keeping Deal Values Consistent

If you track deal values, decide on one definition and apply it consistently:

• Option A: Annual premium (most actionable for practice revenue forecasting)
• Option B: Total death benefit (reflects policy size)
• Option C: Estimated first-year PUA contribution (reflects capitalization pace)

Mixing definitions across deals makes aggregates meaningless. Document your convention in a team note so all advisors on your practice use the same approach.