All our potential clients (leads) live in our CRM. When you get a new lead — say someone filled our website form or you met a prospect at an event — your first step is to create a Lead entry in CRM (if it isn’t already there).
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Capturing new leads: Navigate to the Sales -> Leads section and click “New Lead.” Enter their contact info, company, how we got the lead (the source, e.g. “Website” or “LinkedIn”). The more detail, the better. You can add notes like “Interested in lobby plants for SF office” right in the lead description.
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Kanban view & stages: our CRM displays leads in a Kanban board by stages (like New, Contacted, Proposal Sent, etc.). You can drag and drop leads between stages as they progress. For example, when you’ve made first contact, move that lead to “Contacted.” When you send a proposal, move it to “Proposal Sent,” and so on. This visual helps you see your sales pipeline at a glance
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Follow your process: We have some predefined stages, but feel free to use what makes sense (just be consistent so the team understands the pipeline). Typical flow: New -> Contacted -> Qualified (if they show real interest) -> Proposal Sent -> Negotiation (if there are revisions or discussions) -> Won (if they sign, yay!) or Lost (if they decline or go dark after many attempts). Converting to “Won” will actually convert the lead to a Customer in our CRM (more on that in a sec).
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Logging interactions: Every time you call or email, log a note on the lead. In the lead’s profile, there’s a Notes section – jot down “Called on 4/8, left voicemail” or “Email sent on 4/10 with proposal attached.” This creates a history. It’s super helpful if someone else ever touches that lead or if you revisit them weeks later, you’ll remember what happened. You can also attach important files to the lead (e.g. maybe they sent their office layout – attach it so you have it handy).
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Reminders: our CRM has a nifty Reminders feature for leads. You can set a reminder like “Call this lead next Wednesday” and our CRM will notify you on that day. To add a reminder, go to the lead record, look for the Reminders tab or option, and set date/time and description (e.g. “Follow up call”). On that date, you’ll get an in-app notification (and email, if configured) reminding you. This ensures no lead falls through the cracks. Use it – it’s like having a personal assistant prompt you to follow up.
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Lead to customer conversion: When a lead says “Yes, let’s do this” (they accept our proposal or otherwise, pay an invoice/confirm going ahead), convert them to a Customer. There’s a button for “Convert Lead to Customer.” This keeps all their info and moves it into our customers list (so we can manage the project, invoices, etc., under their account). It will ask you to create a primary contact, etc., if not already. After converting, the lead record remains but is marked converted (so you don’t keep working it as an active lead).
Example: You added “Open AI” as a lead, contacted John Doe there, and sent a proposal. John says yes. You hit Convert, now Open AI is a customer in the system. That means you can create invoices, projects, and subscriptions tied to Open AI easily.
Tip: Keep your leads updated in real-time. If a week goes by and a lead hasn’t responded, maybe move it to a “Stalled” stage or set a reminder. A clean and updated pipeline in our CRM helps you and our team see where things stand. It also gives you a psychological nudge to move things forward (nobody likes seeing too many stuck deals, it motivates you to follow up or decide a path).