When 'Proposal Sent' Becomes a Parking Lot
Why B2B teams in Taiwan accumulate deals in late stages—and three criteria checks before advancing to negotiation.
Late-stage parking lots rarely appear overnight. A VP approves a simplified CRM model to speed adoption. Sellers learn that “proposal sent” is the easiest stage to select after a pricing email goes out. Six months later, forty percent of open pipeline sits there with no documented buyer response.
In our Taipei client work, we ask three questions before a deal may remain in negotiation:
- Who returned the proposal? A name and role, not “procurement team.”
- What decision date did they cite? Even a rough quarter counts; silence does not.
- What changes if they decline? Competitive path or internal project pause must be noted.
Managers who coach with these questions see fewer zombie deals. Reps initially resist the extra logging—budget five minutes per deal in the first monthly council for CRM updates.
Taiwanese enterprise buyers often route proposals through committees that do not meet weekly. That is not an excuse to skip criteria; it is a reason to document the committee calendar in the stage notes.
If your negotiation stage lacks a buyer response field, add one before rewriting everything else. Small field changes sometimes unlock bigger forecast honesty than a full stage rename.