10 sales stages

Every stage of the B2B deal, covered with AI prompts

The full B2B sales cycle mapped to prompts. Find exactly what you need based on where you are in the deal — from first prospect identification through renewal and expansion.

10 lifecycle stages2,900+ prompts164 subcategoriesMEDDPICC and more
1
Find your stage

Start with what has actually happened in the deal.

2
See what matters now

The objective, the evidence to collect, the risks, and the exit criteria.

3
Use the right prompts

Open the prompts built for this exact moment in the deal.

MEDDPICC aligned
SPIN aligned
BANT aligned
Challenger aligned
1

Prospecting

Find and prioritize the accounts and people worth your time before you spend any of it.

›
Seller objective

Build a focused list of accounts and people worth pursuing.

Buyer state

Often unaware of you, or only loosely aware of the problem.

Evidence to collect
  • ICP/account fit
  • Relevant trigger or context
  • Likely stakeholders
  • Potential pain hypothesis
Where AI helps
  • Account research
  • Buyer research
  • Trigger monitoring
  • Pain hypotheses
  • Message preparation
Common mistakes
  • Researching without a hypothesis
  • Treating every account the same
  • Writing before understanding context
Three questions to ask
What do we actually know?
What are we only assuming?
What evidence is missing?
Exit criteria — what should be true before advancing

You have a prioritized account/person, relevant context, and a clear reason to reach out.

2

Outreach

Write the first messages that earn a reply, across email, phone, and social.

›
Seller objective

Create enough relevance and credibility to earn a response or meeting.

Buyer state

Aware of the message, but not yet committed to a conversation.

Evidence to collect
  • Relevant reason to contact
  • Persona fit
  • Message-to-context alignment
  • Clear next action
Where AI helps
  • Cold email drafting
  • Call opener creation
  • LinkedIn messaging
  • Personalization
  • Follow-up sequences
Common mistakes
  • Generic personalization
  • Over-writing
  • Asking for too much too soon
Three questions to ask
What do we actually know?
What are we only assuming?
What evidence is missing?
Exit criteria — what should be true before advancing

A real two-way conversation or meeting is established.

3

Discovery

Find out what is actually happening in the business before you propose anything.

›
Seller objective

Validate the problem, business impact, urgency, stakeholders, and desired outcomes.

Buyer state

Exploring whether the problem is worth solving and whether you understand it.

Evidence to collect
  • Confirmed problem
  • Business impact
  • Urgency
  • Stakeholder context
  • Mutually agreed next step
Where AI helps
  • Question generation
  • Pre-call prep
  • Transcript analysis
  • Gap detection
  • Follow-up drafting
Common mistakes
  • Interrogating instead of diagnosing
  • Jumping to demo too quickly
  • Confusing interest with urgency
Three questions to ask
What do we actually know?
What are we only assuming?
What evidence is missing?
Exit criteria — what should be true before advancing

The buyer confirms a meaningful problem, impact, and reason to continue.

4

Qualification

Decide honestly whether this is a deal, and say so either way.

›
Seller objective

Verify buying conditions, stakeholders, process, urgency, and commercial viability.

Buyer state

Considering options and deciding whether a change is realistic.

Evidence to collect
  • Decision process
  • Decision criteria
  • Budget/commercial path
  • Stakeholder roles
  • Timeline
Where AI helps
  • MEDDPICC gap analysis
  • Deal review
  • Risk identification
  • Stakeholder mapping
  • Qualification summary
Common mistakes
  • Treating assumptions as facts
  • Qualifying only for budget
  • Ignoring access and process risk
Three questions to ask
What do we actually know?
What are we only assuming?
What evidence is missing?
Exit criteria — what should be true before advancing

The opportunity has enough evidence to justify further seller and buyer effort.

5

Demo & Presentation

Show the product against the buyer's problem, not the product tour.

›
Seller objective

Connect capabilities to the specific problems and outcomes the buyer cares about.

Buyer state

Evaluating proof, fit, differentiation, and internal confidence.

Evidence to collect
  • Priority use cases
  • Success criteria
  • Relevant proof points
  • Stakeholder reactions
Where AI helps
  • Demo planning
  • Narrative design
  • Use-case mapping
  • Objection preparation
  • Stakeholder messaging
Common mistakes
  • Feature dumping
  • Running the same demo for everyone
  • Showing capabilities without outcomes
Three questions to ask
What do we actually know?
What are we only assuming?
What evidence is missing?
Exit criteria — what should be true before advancing

The buyer sees credible solution fit and agrees on what must happen next.

6

Proposal & Pricing

Put the offer in writing so it survives being read without you in the room.

›
Seller objective

Align scope, value, pricing, responsibilities, and decision steps.

Buyer state

Comparing the proposed commitment against expected value and alternatives.

Evidence to collect
  • Agreed scope
  • Commercial assumptions
  • Business case
  • Decision path
  • Mutual action plan
Where AI helps
  • Proposal structuring
  • Executive summary writing
  • ROI framing
  • MAP creation
  • Pricing narrative
Common mistakes
  • Sending paper too early
  • Introducing surprise terms
  • Using the proposal as a substitute for alignment
Three questions to ask
What do we actually know?
What are we only assuming?
What evidence is missing?
Exit criteria — what should be true before advancing

The buyer understands the proposal and the path to decision is explicit.

7

Negotiation

Hold the value of the deal while working through terms, procurement, and legal.

›
Seller objective

Reach workable terms while protecting value and momentum.

Buyer state

Testing flexibility, risk, commercial fit, and internal approval requirements.

Evidence to collect
  • Known objections
  • Give/get options
  • Approval path
  • Procurement/legal status
  • Non-price levers
Where AI helps
  • Scenario planning
  • Trade-list creation
  • Objection rehearsal
  • Term comparison
  • Call preparation
Common mistakes
  • Discounting before understanding the objection
  • Making one-way concessions
  • Treating procurement as the buyer
Three questions to ask
What do we actually know?
What are we only assuming?
What evidence is missing?
Exit criteria — what should be true before advancing

Material commercial and contractual issues are resolved or have a clear path to resolution.

8

Closing

Run the last mile as a process, not a hope, and get the signature.

›
Seller objective

Remove final blockers, confirm commitments, and get the agreement completed.

Buyer state

Completing internal approval and execution steps.

Evidence to collect
  • Final approver alignment
  • Signature path
  • No unknown blockers
  • Confirmed implementation handoff
Where AI helps
  • Close-plan review
  • Risk checklist
  • Executive follow-up
  • Signature-path summary
  • Handoff prep
Common mistakes
  • Assuming verbal agreement equals closed
  • Ignoring legal dependencies
  • Stopping multithreading too early
Three questions to ask
What do we actually know?
What are we only assuming?
What evidence is missing?
Exit criteria — what should be true before advancing

The agreement is executed and all required parties are aligned on what happens next.

9

Onboarding & Handoff

Transfer the deal to delivery without losing the context that made it work.

›
Seller objective

Transfer goals, commitments, stakeholders, risks, and success criteria without losing context.

Buyer state

Expecting the value promised during the sales process to become operational.

Evidence to collect
  • Success criteria
  • Stakeholder map
  • Committed outcomes
  • Risks/open items
  • Implementation owners
Where AI helps
  • Handoff summaries
  • Kickoff briefs
  • Success-plan drafting
  • Risk capture
  • Context preservation
Common mistakes
  • Starting onboarding from zero
  • Dropping commercial context
  • Failing to document promised outcomes
Three questions to ask
What do we actually know?
What are we only assuming?
What evidence is missing?
Exit criteria — what should be true before advancing

Customer and internal teams share a clear plan, ownership, and definition of success.

10

Expansion & Renewal

Protect the account and grow it on evidence rather than on the relationship.

›
Seller objective

Demonstrate realized value, reduce renewal risk, and find credible expansion paths.

Buyer state

Assessing whether outcomes justify continued or expanded investment.

Evidence to collect
  • Adoption and outcome proof
  • Stakeholder sentiment
  • Renewal risk
  • Expansion triggers
  • Executive value story
Where AI helps
  • QBR prep
  • Renewal risk analysis
  • Value summary
  • Expansion research
  • Stakeholder monitoring
Common mistakes
  • Waiting until the renewal window
  • Leading with upsell before value proof
  • Relying on one champion
Three questions to ask
What do we actually know?
What are we only assuming?
What evidence is missing?
Exit criteria — what should be true before advancing

The customer has a clear value case, renewal path, and — where appropriate — qualified expansion opportunity.

Understand the difference

Stage is where the deal is. Task is the work you are doing.

This is why this page is not the library. The stage gives the work its context.

Sales stage

Where the deal sits in the buyer journey.

ProspectingDiscoveryNegotiationExpansion & Renewal
is not

Sales task

The type of work you are doing inside the stage.

ResearchWritingCall prepCRM updates

Questions about sales stages

What are the stages of a B2B sales process?

Promptifi uses 10: Prospecting, Outreach, Discovery, Qualification, Demo and Presentation, Proposal and Pricing, Negotiation, Closing, Onboarding and Handoff, and Expansion and Renewal. They run from first identifying a buyer through renewing them a year later.

How is a sales stage different from a category?

A stage is where the deal is. A category is what kind of work you are doing. Writing an email is one category of work, and it happens at almost every stage, so the two are separate ways to browse the same library.

Which stage should I pull prompts from?

Start with the stage the deal is actually in, not the one you want it to be in. Most prompts that disappoint were pulled from a later stage than the buyer had reached.

Do these stages match MEDDPICC, SPIN, BANT, or Challenger?

They map onto all four rather than replacing any of them. The stages describe where a deal sits; those frameworks describe what to establish while it sits there. Prompts inside each stage reference whichever framework fits the task.

The other ways in

All 16 categories

Browse by the kind of work instead of the stage of the deal.

All 164 subcategories

The specific task level, grouped under those categories.

Prompt add-ons

Short snippets that change what any prompt returns.

Browse the library →See pricing
Methodology crosswalk

Stages and methodologies are not the same thing.

A stage says where the deal is. A methodology helps you evaluate, develop, or advance it.

Stage
MEDDPICC
SPIN
BANT
Challenger
Prospecting
Medium
Medium
Low
High
Discovery
High
High
Medium
High
Qualification
High
Medium
High
Medium
Demo & Presentation
Medium
Medium
Low
High
Proposal & Pricing
High
Low
Medium
Medium
Negotiation
High
Low
Low
Medium