MANAGER FRAMEWORK
Timeline. Realism. Activity. People.
Inspect on evidence.
TRAP is our framework for inspecting any deal by what the data shows, not what the rep believes.
What TRAP stands for
4 pillars, 4 metrics each. 16 checks on every deal.
Each pillar asks one question about the deal. Open a pillar to see its four metrics and the default thresholds. Treat the thresholds as a starting point and replace them with your own closed-won numbers once you have them.
Green: criterion metYellow: criterion met, needs a planRed: criterion not met
Timeline Is this deal moving at the pace our winners moved? 4 metrics
Catches: deals that have stalled, and close dates that can't hold.
| Metric | Green | Yellow | Red |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opportunity age | At or under median winning cycle | Over median, up to your longest win | Older than your longest win |
| Stage duration | Under 1x ITiS | 1x to 1.5x ITiS | Over 1.5x ITiS |
| Close date pushesMoves to a later date only | 0 to 1 | 2 | 3 or more |
| Close date vs. stage | Days left cover stages left × ITiS | Remaining stages must compress up to 50% | Remaining stages must compress 50% or more |
ITiS is your Ideal Time in Stage. Here's how to set it.
Realism Does it look like deals we've won before? 4 metrics
Catches: deals that sit outside anything you've actually closed.
| Metric | Green | Yellow | Red |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pain point | Solved at 10+ customers | Adjacent use case, 1 to 9 wins | First-time use case, no wins |
| ICP profileSize, vertical, geography | All match | 1 off | 2 or more off |
| Deal amount | Up to 1.5x median won ACV | Over 1.5x median, up to your largest win | Above your largest win |
| Tech stack | Native integration or incumbent you often replace | Partial match | Non-native, no comparable wins |
Activity Is the prospect engaged, or only the rep? 4 metrics
Catches: one-sided deals where the rep is doing all the work.
| Metric | Green | Yellow | Red |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last stakeholder response | Under 10 days | 10 to 20 days | Over 20 days or none |
| Last live meeting | Under 15 days | 15 to 30 days | Over 30 days or none |
| Responded touches | 6 or more | 3 to 5 | Under 3 |
| Active contacts | 3+ across at least 2 roles | 2, or 3+ in one role | 1 (single-threaded) |
People Are we talking to the people who can say yes? 4 metrics
Catches: deals with no real path to the people who sign.
| Metric | Green | Yellow | Red |
|---|---|---|---|
| Champion | VP or above, active in last 20 days | Director, engaged | Manager or below, or silent 20+ days |
| Key stakeholders | Economic buyer, evaluator, champion and procurement identified and engaged | 1 or 2 role gaps | Single contact, roles unmapped |
| Engagement quality | Calls and meetings are the main channel | Mixed, or live with one contact only | Email only for 30+ days |
| Customer's words | On record from a senior stakeholder confirming selection | Verbal only, not from a decision-maker | Rep's interpretation only |
Customer's words means a senior stakeholder has confirmed, on record and in their own words, that they've selected you. The rep's read of the last call doesn't count.
Why sales managers need their own framework
The rep has a methodology. The VP has a forecast. The manager had nothing.
The gap in the middle
Most forecasts miss for the same reason. In the book's words, "between the rep working the deal and the VP calling the number, there was almost nothing." So managers grade deals on the rep's story and the CRM stage. Neither one tells you if the buyer is still moving.
The finance mindset
Finance doesn't forecast on hope. It benchmarks against what actually happened, and TRAP does the same: every threshold comes from your own past wins. The goal is accuracy, not pessimism.
"The job of a sales manager is to be the best risk manager in the room."
Scoring
How a deal gets scored: Green, Yellow, Red
Score all 16 metrics on every deal. A Green or a Yellow counts as a criterion met. Then look at where the Reds sit, because the pattern matters more than the total. Four Reds in People means nobody who can sign is in the deal. Four Reds spread across all four pillars is a different deal with a different fix.
Green
Inside the range of deals you've won.
What to doConfirm it and move on.
Yellow
Drifting from your wins. Still counts as met, but it needs attention.
What to doName the metric, a specific action and a date.
Red
Outside what your wins look like. The criterion isn't met.
What to doMake a call: invest, deprioritize or remove.
Set your baseline first
Ideal Time in Stage (ITiS)
Every Timeline score runs off this number, so set it before you score anything. Pull your last 20 to 30 closed-won deals and find the median days from open to close. Divide that by your number of stages.
ITiS = median winning cycle ÷ number of stages
20 daysA 100-day median winning cycle with five stages gives you an ITiS of 20 days.
From score to forecast
TRAP forecast gates: Commit, Best Case, Pipeline
Stage records the last thing your rep did. TRAP tells you if the deal is still alive. A deal in Negotiation for 45 days, with no stakeholder reply in 25 days and one Director contact who went quiet, doesn't belong in Commit at 80%.
A deal earns its category from these gates. When it misses one, it moves down that day.
Commit
12+ criteria met
Gets in when
- 12 or more TRAP criteria met (at most 8 risk points from unmet metrics)
- Stage 4 or later
- Fewer than 2 pushes
- VP+ champion engaged
- Customer's words on record
- All key stakeholders engaged
- Last contact within 10 days
- Next step with a date
Comes out when
- Champion goes quiet or last contact passes 10 days
- Time in stage passes 2x ITiS
- Customer's words contradicted
- A competitor re-enters
Any of these drops it to Best Case. A further push (2 or more on record) drops it to Pipeline, not Best Case.
Best Case
12+ criteria met
Gets in when
- 12 or more TRAP criteria met (at most 8 risk points from unmet metrics)
- Stage 3 or later
- Fewer than 2 pushes
- Director+ champion engaged (required)
- 2+ stakeholders in contact
- Last contact within 14 days
- Last meeting within 15 days
- 5+ responded touches
- Next step with a date
Comes out when
- A second push (2 or more pushes)
- Champion silent 14+ days
- Criteria met drops below 12
- Time in stage passes 1.5x ITiS
- Deal falls below Stage 3
Any of these drops it to Pipeline.
Pipeline
10+ criteria met
Gets in when
- 10 or more TRAP criteria met (at most 12 risk points from unmet metrics)
- ICP match confirmed
- Proven pain identified
- Last contact within 21 days
- Close date this quarter or next
- At least 1 named contact
Comes out when
- Age passes 2x median winning cycle
- No response in 21+ days
- More than 2 pushes, unless the customer (not the rep) gives concrete evidence of a real close date
- No longer fits ICP
Any of these removes it from pipeline.
Criteria met is the first check
Count the metrics scoring Green or Yellow. Commit and Best Case need 12 or more. Pipeline needs 10 or more.
The risk score decides the category
Each metric scores Red = 2, Yellow = 1 and Green = 0, for a total of 0 to 32. Higher means more risk. Met metrics that are Yellow still add a point each.
"Stage tells you where you are in the process. TRAP tells you whether you're actually winning."
Pull a deal down the moment it misses its category's gates. Regression is a signal, not a punishment. Catching it in week three beats explaining it at quarter end.
How to run it
Run a TRAP review in 4 steps
- Pre-fill the scorecardUse your CRM and call data before the 1:1. Don't ask the rep for anything the system already knows.
- Score all 16 metricsA Green or a Yellow counts as a criterion met.
- Spend the meeting on Yellows and RedsEvery Yellow gets a named metric, an action and a date. Every Red gets a decision.
- Set the forecast categoryUse the gates. The stage doesn't decide it.
Lose faster
Why killing dead deals early pays
Losing faster means finding and removing dead deals early, so a rep's limited capacity goes to deals that can actually close. Here's the math with two reps, Wedge and Nail. Both can work four deals at once, on a 90-day winning cycle, and win one deal in four.
Wedge holds every deal for the full 90 days. Nail qualifies the losers out at day 30 and refills the slot with a new deal.
That's approaching double the wins from the same capacity. The condition matters: the gain only turns into revenue if the rep refills each freed slot with new pipeline.
Read the full Lose Faster proof
Where TRAP fits
How TRAP works with MEDDIC, MEDDPICC, SPICED and your tools
MEDDIC, MEDDPICC and SPICED are built for reps. They're the builder's blueprint: how to qualify a deal and what to learn from the buyer. TRAP is built for the manager. It's the inspector, checking from the outside whether the deal looks like the deals your team has actually won.
Your CRM holds what the rep reported. Your dashboards surface signals. TRAP gives you the interpretive layer your dashboards can't provide, so you know which signals mean the deal is in trouble.
"TRAP is the inspection layer that sits above your methodology."
FAQ
Questions about the TRAP framework
What is the TRAP framework?
TRAP is a pipeline inspection framework for sales managers. It stands for Timeline, Realism, Activity and People, the four pillars a manager uses to judge any deal by what the data shows rather than what the rep believes. Each pillar has four metrics, and each metric scores Green, Yellow or Red against your own closed-won history. The pattern of Yellows and Reds tells you where to coach and which forecast category the deal has earned.
Is TRAP for reps or managers?
Managers. Reps already have a methodology for running deals. TRAP gives frontline managers, and the VPs and CROs above them, a consistent way to inspect those deals and call an honest forecast.
Does TRAP replace MEDDIC, MEDDPICC or SPICED?
No. Those methodologies tell the rep how to qualify a deal. TRAP tells the manager whether the deal looks like the ones your team has won. The two work together: TRAP is the inspection layer that sits above whatever methodology you already use.
What do you do with a Red deal?
Make a decision on it. You invest (put more effort or senior people into the deal), deprioritize it, or remove it from the pipeline. A Red left sitting in the forecast is how quarters get missed.
How long does a TRAP review take?
Plan on 30 to 45 minutes per deal for your first reviews. Most managers get to 20 to 30 minutes by month two, and a deal that's mostly Green can take about 10.
Do I need new software to run TRAP?
No. You pre-fill the scorecard from the CRM and call data you already have, then score the rest with the rep in the 1:1.
What if our CRM data is bad?
Start anyway. Pre-fill what the system has and get the rest from the rep. The metrics you can't fill tell you something too, about the deal or about how your team logs its work.
What does "lose faster" mean?
It means finding and removing dead deals early, so a rep's capacity goes to deals that can close. In the Wedge vs Nail math, the rep who cuts losers at day 30 works more than twice as many deals and gets approaching double the wins from the same capacity, as long as there's new pipeline to fill the freed slots.
Put TRAP to work