Deals & pipeline

Track the revenue attached to a lead.

A deal is the money attached to a lead: what it is worth, when you expect to close it, and whether you won.

Creating a deal

From a lead, choose Create deal. Set:

• Value — what it is worth if you win.
• Expected close — when you think it lands.
• Stage — where it is in your process.

Not every lead needs a deal. Create one when there is a real opportunity with a number attached; leaving enquiries as leads keeps your pipeline honest.

Stages

Deals move through stages reflecting your sales process. Keep the list short — five or six stages that mean something beats a dozen nobody applies consistently.

A stage should be defined by something observable. "Quote sent" is observable; "interested" is a feeling, and everything will pile up in it.

Winning and losing

Mark won or Mark lost when it resolves.

Record losses honestly and with a reason. A pipeline where nothing is ever lost tells you nothing, and the loss reasons are usually more informative than the wins — they tell you about price, timing, and which competitor keeps beating you.

Expected close dates

Keep them current. A pipeline full of dates that passed months ago cannot be forecast from, and quietly stops being used.

The pipeline view

See deals grouped by stage with their total value, so you can tell whether the pipeline is healthy or whether everything is stuck in one place.

Signals worth watching: a stage holding far more than the others, deals that have not moved in weeks, and a close date cluster at the end of the month that never materialises.

Deals and leads

The lead is the person and the enquiry; the deal is the commercial opportunity. One lead usually has one deal, but a returning customer can generate several over time.

Deal outcomes feed back into your reporting, which is what makes lead scoring meaningful — see Conversions.

Syncing to your CRM

If you run a full CRM, connect it and let deals sync rather than maintaining two pipelines. LimeCall's pipeline is designed for teams whose selling happens on the phone; it is not a replacement for a large sales organisation's CRM.

See HubSpot.

What to measure

• Conversion rate from lead to deal.
• Conversion rate from deal to won.
• Average deal value by source.
• Time from first contact to close.

The first and third together tell you which channels are worth more of your money — see Analytics & Reporting.