Pipelines and stages

Stages are the columns on your board. The default set works for most businesses, but if your sales process has a step the board doesn't show, your leads will pile up in the wrong column and your reporting will be vague.

1. Pipeline settings

On the Leads page, click Pipeline settings in the toolbar.

What's in here

The panel shows your pipelines on the left and the selected pipeline's stages on the right. A new account has one pipeline called Leads, marked DEFAULT.

Each stage is an editable text box reading "Stage name…", so renaming is just typing over it.

2. Add stage

Add stage appends a new column. Name it, drag it into position, and it appears on the board immediately.

Keep the list short. Every stage is a decision someone has to make about where a lead belongs, and a board with nine columns gets used less carefully than one with five. Add a stage when you genuinely do something different at that point, not to record every phone call.

New pipeline

New pipeline creates a second board. Worth it when you sell in genuinely different ways, for example residential jobs that close in one call versus commercial contracts that take three meetings. Forcing both through one set of stages makes both sets of numbers meaningless.

Most businesses never need a second pipeline. Start with one.

Click Save when you're done. Stage changes apply to the board straight away.

3. Checking your work in Table view

Switch to Table view on the Leads page and stage becomes a sortable column. Quickest way to confirm your leads are where you think they are after a reshuffle.

Tips and gotchas

• Renaming a stage keeps its leads. They don't get reset or moved.
• Deleting a stage has to put its leads somewhere. Move them out first so you decide, rather than the app.
• Won and Lost are what your reporting keys off. Leads parked in middle stages count as neither.
• One pipeline until it genuinely hurts. Two boards means two sets of habits.

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