Setting up your first sales pipeline

Why a pipeline beats a list of names

A list tells you who you're talking to. A pipeline tells you where each conversation stands, what has to happen next, and how much is likely to close this month. That only works when the stages are agreed — when "Qualified" means the same thing to every rep, and a deal can't drift into "Negotiating" without anyone having talked price. Get the stages right first and everything downstream — the board, the forecast, the handoffs — stays honest.

Your first pipeline, step by step

Work through these in order. Each step builds on the one before, and each links to the exact clicks in the Help Center.

1. 01

   Decide what's a lead and what's a deal

   Leads are prospects you're still qualifying. Deals are opportunities with an account you already do business with — every deal belongs to an account. A qualified lead becomes an account with Convert to Customer, and deals are opened from there.

2. 02

   Name your lead statuses

   In Configuration → Leads → Custom Statuses, start from the defaults — New, Contacted, Qualified, Proposal Sent, Nurturing, Won, Lost — and rename or add only what your team really uses. Sub-stages add detail inside a status without lengthening the pipeline.

   Step by step in the Help Center
3. 03

   Set your deal stages and probabilities

   In Configuration → Deals → Pipeline Stages, give each stage a win probability and mark which stage counts as won. The defaults run from New at 10% to Won at 100%; adjust them to match your own close rates.

   Step by step in the Help Center
4. 04

   Add a second pipeline only if you need one

   If you run genuinely different processes — new sales and renewals, say — add a pipeline for each. Record types can give each kind of record its own pipeline and its own required fields.

   Step by step in the Help Center
5. 05

   Protect the stages that matter

   In Configuration → Documents → Checklists, attach the documents a stage needs — a signed agreement before Won, for example — and choose whether a missing one warns the user or blocks the move.

   Step by step in the Help Center
6. 06

   Work the board and read the forecast

   The Deals board shows every stage as a column with its total; drag a deal to move it. Forecasting rolls deals up by rep, team or the whole organization into Pipeline, Best Case, Commit and Closed.

   Step by step in the Help Center

Where first pipelines go wrong

Most pipeline problems aren't software problems. They're stages nobody agreed on.

• Too many stages

  Twelve stages feel thorough on day one and get skipped by week three. Five to seven stages that each mark a real step forward are easier to keep up to date.

• Stages nobody can define

  If two reps would put the same deal in different stages, the stage needs a one-line definition — what has happened, not how hopeful you feel.

• Every enquiry becomes a deal

  Opening a deal for every first contact floods the forecast with noise. Keep prospects as leads until they qualify, then open deals against the account.

• No way out of the pipeline

  Without clear Won and Lost stages, dead deals sit in the middle columns for months and inflate the forecast. Close them out, and keep the reason.

Your setup checklist

Tick these off before you invite the team.

What Worxley gives you for this

Worxley keeps leads, deals and accounts as separate records with their own stages, so qualifying, selling and delivering each get a pipeline that fits.

Pipelines for leads, deals and accounts

Each has its own stages, and you can run several pipelines side by side for different processes.

Stage gates

Document checklists that warn about or block a stage move until the right files are in place.

A deal board with totals

Every stage as a column with its value, and drag-and-drop to move a deal on.

Forecasting from the same data

Pipeline, Best Case, Commit and Closed by rep, team or organization, with quotas alongside.

FAQ