Get To Know Your CRM

Managing CRM
Opportunities

Track every deal and project through its stages, so you always know where things stand and your reporting can be trusted.

The pipeline

How a deal moves

Every opportunity travels left to right through your stages. Tap a stage to see what it means and what you should be doing there.

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New Lead

A fresh opportunity that has just entered the pipeline. Your job here is to not let it sit. Move it out of this stage as soon as you have made first contact, because a crowded New Lead column is the clearest sign follow-up is slipping.

Contacted

You have reached out and made contact. Add a note recording what was said and what you agreed to next, so anyone picking this up later has the context.

Booked Appointment

A meeting or call is on the calendar. Create the appointment directly from the opportunity so the two stay connected, and the contact record shows it.

Follow-Up

The conversation happened and the decision is pending. This is where deals quietly die, so create a task with a real date rather than trusting yourself to remember.

Closed

The opportunity has reached its end. Set the correct status, Won, Lost, or Abandoned, and update the value if it changed. This is what makes your reporting trustworthy.

Lost and Abandoned are not the same thing

Lost means the opportunity is finished with no future potential: the prospect was not a fit, said no outright, or went with a competitor. Those leads will not be revisited. Abandoned means it is not active now but may have future potential, where the timing was wrong rather than the fit. Using the two correctly is what lets marketing know who is worth reaching out to again later.

📊

Kanban view

A visual board with your stages as columns and opportunities as cards. Drag a card between stages to update its progress.

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List view

The same opportunities in a table, which is where bulk actions become possible.

⚙️

Creating one

From the Opportunities tab with Add Opportunity, from a contact record under Associations, or from the Quick Action plus button. Set the pipeline, stage, status, and value, then assign yourself as owner.

"Update your opportunities at least weekly to keep forecasting and team reporting accurate. Honestly, check it every day."
Key definitions

Terms worth knowing

A potential sale, deal, or project you are tracking through stages. Each one is connected to a contact and represents a possible transaction.
The visual representation of your sales or project process, showing all opportunities and their current stages. Your account may have several pipelines for different processes.
A specific point in the process, such as New Lead, Contacted, Booked Appointment, Follow-Up, or Closed. Stages show current progress.
The current state of an opportunity: Open, Won, Lost, or Abandoned. This says whether it is still live and, if not, how it ended.
The board layout showing pipeline stages as columns, with cards you can drag between stages to update progress.
Things to do

Try it now

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Tips

Worth remembering

  • Check your pipeline daily. Weekly is the minimum for accurate forecasting, but daily is what actually keeps deals moving.
  • Move new leads out of the New Lead stage immediately after first contact. That column should not be where things live.
  • Add a note whenever you move an opportunity between stages, so the reason is recorded while you still remember it.
  • Keep opportunity values current. Forecasting built on stale numbers is worse than no forecast, because people trust it.
Check yourself

Quick Knowledge Check

Four quick questions on this lesson. One attempt each, and the answer is revealed either way.

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A prospect went with a competitor and will not be back. Which status fits?

A prospect likes what you offer but cannot buy until next year. Which status fits?

The board layout that shows your stages as columns, with cards you can drag between them, is called ______ view.

What should you do right after moving an opportunity to a new stage?

Apply it

Try this with your favorite AI

📈Design your pipeline stages
You are helping me define the stages in my company's opportunity pipeline so they match how deals actually move, not how a generic template says they should. Here is my context: - What I sell: [product or service] - My typical sales cycle length: [days, weeks, or months] - The real steps a deal goes through with me: [describe them in your own words] - Who else touches a deal along the way: [just me / a team, describe] Give me: 1. A recommended stage list, five to seven stages, each with the name and a one-line definition 2. For each stage, the specific thing that must be true before a deal is allowed to move forward 3. Which single stage in my process is most likely to become a graveyard, and one habit to prevent that Rules for your answer: - Stage names of three words or fewer - The exit criteria must be observable, something I could point at, not a feeling - Do not add stages my described process does not actually have - No software brand names Finish by asking where deals currently stall for me, so you can tighten that stage's criteria.
🔍Run a pipeline cleanup
You are helping me clean up a neglected opportunity pipeline and build the habit that keeps it clean. Here is my context: - Roughly how many open opportunities I have: [number] - How long since I last updated them honestly: [time] - My stages: [list them] - How I know a deal has gone cold: [describe it] Give me: 1. A triage order for working through the backlog, so I start where it matters most 2. Three questions to ask about each stale opportunity to decide whether it is Open, Lost, or Abandoned 3. A weekly maintenance routine of 10 minutes or less that keeps this from happening again Rules for your answer: - Assume I will do this in one sitting, so keep the triage realistic - Be decisive, give me a rule rather than "it depends" - No paragraphs, short numbered lines - No software brand names When you are done, ask me how many of my opportunities are older than 90 days so you can adjust the triage.
Your pipeline is current. Now let's build the daily rhythm that keeps it that way.