What counts as stuck in a stage?
Stuck means sitting in a stage for more than twice as long as it normally takes to leave that stage, and never less than 30 days. The threshold is therefore different for every stage, and it is set by your own data rather than by a rule somebody picked. If you want the rule for who counts as having reached a stage at all, read What counts as reaching a funnel stage? first.
The threshold, stage by stage
For each stage, MarqIQ takes the typical time people take to leave it and doubles that. The result is the number of days after which somebody sitting in that stage is called stuck, and it is never allowed below 30 days.
The typical time is the median span between that stage's date and the next stage's date, across the people who carry both dates. It is used only when at least ten people carry both. A number worked out from a handful of people is not a standard to hold anybody to.
| What MarqIQ has for that stage | The threshold it uses |
|---|---|
| Ten or more people with a date for this stage and the next | Twice the median days between the two, and never under 30 |
| Fewer than ten, and a sales-cycle length in your business profile | Twice the cycle length divided by the number of steps in the ladder, and never under 30 |
| Fewer than ten, and no cycle length | Twice 45 days, so 90 — and never under 30 |
The cycle length is the one you stated in your business profile, or, where you stated none, the median days your won deals take.
The threshold is written on the screen beside the count, as “stuck over 62 days”, so you never have to work out which of the three rows above produced it.
Why not a flat 90 days
A stage that people normally leave in four days and a stage they normally leave in four months cannot share a threshold. A flat 90-day rule would call nothing stuck in the slow stage and would have called half the fast stage stuck before anybody had time to answer an email.
Who is counted
Three conditions, all of them:
- The person sits in that stage today. Somebody who passed through it a year ago and moved on is not stuck in it.
- The stage is not the last rung of the ladder. Nobody is stuck at the end of the funnel, because there is nowhere further to go.
- The clock has run past the threshold. The clock starts at the date they entered that stage, or, where no stage date exists on the record, at the date the record was created.
The count has no denominator of its own: it is a number of people, and the here now count beside it is how many sit in that stage in all. Read the two together — 40 stuck out of 45 is a dead stage, and 40 out of 4,000 is housekeeping.
Take care
The fallback start date matters. Where a person carries no date for the stage they sit in, MarqIQ measures from when the record was created, so a long-standing record that moved into this stage last week can be counted as stuck. Check the skip count on that step: a stage nobody stamps will also be a stage whose stuck count leans on created dates.
When it becomes something to act on
One stage is raised in What to do next: the one holding the most stuck people, and only when it holds ten or more of them. The sentence names the count and the threshold, and adds “twice as long as it normally takes to leave it” only when the threshold really was worked out from your own timings rather than from the fallback. Nothing is raised at all where your tool records no stage dates.
The advice is to decide whether to re-engage those people or move them out, so the funnel shows what is really in play. That is the point of the count: a stage that holds hundreds of people nobody will ever work makes every conversion below it read low.
What stuck is not
- It is not the same as gone backwards. That is a separate count: people sitting in an earlier stage than one they had already reached, raised on its own at ten or more.
- It is not a deal ageing figure. The Executive Read counts open deals past their close date and open deals older than 180 days; those read deals, and this reads people, so the two will not match.
- It is not a quiet contact. Going quiet is measured on engagement, not on stage, and lives in the Audience health analysis with its own threshold of 365 days.
Read the count differently in snapshot mode
Where your tool records no stage dates, the stuck count is still shown beside each stage, and it is built entirely on the fallbacks: the clock starts at the date each record was created, and the threshold comes from your sales-cycle length or from the 90-day default. No step has a typical time to double. MarqIQ raises no stuck action in What to do next in that mode, because the count is not evidence that anybody stopped moving — only that the records are old.
If it did not work
The threshold on a stage looks far too long
Why: Your own median for that step really is that long, or the ten-person floor was not met and the fallback of 90 days was used.
Fix: Read the typical time printed on that step. Where no time is shown, fewer than ten people carry both stage dates and the fallback is in play. Stamp the stage dates by automation and the threshold tightens to your real timings.
Every stage shows the same threshold of 90 days
Why: No step has ten people carrying dates for both of its stages, and no sales-cycle length is set on the business profile.
Fix: Set the deal cycle on your business profile, or record stage-entry dates. Either one replaces the fallback.
Nobody is stuck at your final stage
Why: The last rung is excluded on purpose — there is no next stage to be late for.
Fix: Nothing to fix. For deals sitting past their close date, read the Open past close date tile on the Executive Read instead.
The stuck count jumped after a sync
Why: Stage dates arrived, so the thresholds were recomputed from real timings and several of them tightened.
Fix: Compare the threshold printed beside the count with the one you remember. A tighter threshold on better data is the count improving, not the pipeline worsening.
Next steps
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