The leads pipeline

Every lead you are working is somewhere in the sale. Some are waiting on a quote, some have had the quote and gone quiet, some have signed and not paid. The Leads list shows them a tab at a time. The pipeline shows the whole sale at once: one column per step, a card for every lead, and a clock on each card telling you which ones are going cold.

You never drag a card to update it. 1pm puts each lead in the column for the furthest step it has actually reached, worked out from what has happened: the quote went out, the client opened it, accepted it, signed the agreement, paid. The board stays right without anyone remembering to move anything.

This article covers opening the pipeline, what each column means and how a lead gets there, reading a card, the actions on a card, searching, the Stage filter and saved views, and renaming the stages in your own words.

Where it is

Open Leads in the sidebar and click Pipeline underneath it. There is also a Pipeline button at the top of the Leads list, next to Add lead.

The pipeline shows the same leads as the Leads list, laid out by stage instead of by tab. A booking you created straight from Events, with no lead behind it, has no card here: the pipeline is the sale, and that booking skipped it.

The columns

The board runs left to right in the order a sale goes. Under each column heading is one line saying what puts a lead there.

A lead always sits at the furthest step it has reached. If a client opens the quote, accepts it and signs the agreement in one sitting, the card goes straight to Awaiting payment. A lead still on the New tab that already has a quote out sits under Quote sent, because the quote going out is what counts.

Awaiting signature is usually a short stop. Accepting a quote raises the agreement and takes the client straight to it, so on the path most clients take you don't send anything at all. Event confirmations covers the agreement itself.

Awaiting payment means the first payment: a deposit on a booking that takes one, the whole amount on a booking that doesn't. Deposits and balances covers setting those up.

When a lead leaves the pipeline

A lead comes off the board in three ways:

• It is paid or confirmed. Once the first payment on the booking is recorded, whether the client paid online or you recorded it by hand, the sale is done and the card leaves. Setting the booking's status to Confirmed does the same, which covers a client who paid you outside 1pm. The Booked leads button at the top of the pipeline opens the Converted tab on the Leads list, where those leads still are.
• It is lost or spam. Mark a lead lost or spam and it leaves the board. It is on the Lost or Spam tab of the Leads list, and you can reopen or restore it from there.
• Its booking is cancelled. A lead whose booking you cancel counts as lost on the pipeline. The lead itself stays converted, so your Leads report still counts it as a lead you won.

Leads whose event date has passed are left off, the same as on the Leads list. Tick Show past events at the top of the pipeline to bring them back. A lead with no event date is never treated as past. Once a lead has an event, it is the event's date that counts, and the event's date is the one the card shows.

Reading a card

Each card carries what you need to decide which lead to work next, without opening it:

• The name, and what the booking is worth once it has priced items on it. Click the name to open the lead on the Leads list.
• The company and event type, when the lead has them.
• The event date and pax.
• The Space, and the salesperson when more than one person works in your account.
• How long it has been in this column, named by what put it there: "Quote sent 12 days ago", "Quote opened yesterday", "Agreement signed 3 weeks ago".
• When you last contacted the client: "You last replied 4 days ago", or "You haven't replied yet". This counts a reply you sent from the lead's thread and a call, text or meeting you logged on it. Automated emails don't count, so an acknowledgement or a reminder going out never makes a quiet lead look worked.
• Badges for the lead's status where it adds something (two cards in one column can be on different tabs of the Leads list), Awaiting reply when the client is waiting on you, the follow-up date when one is set, and the lead's category.

The top of each column shows how many leads are in it and what the bookings in it are worth together. Money on the pipeline is in whole units of your account currency, with no cents.

Which leads need chasing

A card that has sat in its column too long is marked, so the leads going cold stand out from the ones that are fine. The age line turns amber and a coloured strip runs down the left edge of the card. At twice the time it turns red.

Quote opened has the shortest wait on purpose. A client who has read the quote and gone quiet is usually the lead most worth a phone call today.

A column heading also shows how many of the cards in it need chasing, for example "2 need chasing".

A follow-up date stops the warning. Once you have set a day to chase a lead, the card stops counting as overdue until that day, because you have a plan for it. From that day on, until you change or remove the follow-up, the card shows red. Following up on leads covers follow-ups in full.

Dismissing a follow-up stops it too. A lead you dismiss on the Follow-ups tab, or whose follow-up you remove, stops counting as overdue on the pipeline as well: you have said you are not chasing it, so the card goes quiet. It starts counting again if the lead takes a new step, a quote going out or being opened, accepted, signed or paid, and then sits too long on that one.

A lead held by hand, with no accepted quote behind it, shows no age line under Tentative, because 1pm has no date for when the hold was placed. It is never marked as needing a chase.

The actions on a card

Along the bottom of every card are three controls. They brighten when you hover the card, and they are always there on a phone or tablet:

• Open lead. Opens the lead on the Leads list with its thread expanded, where you can reply, quote and edit it.
• Follow up. Sets the day you will chase this lead, with the same shortcuts as the Leads list (Today, Tomorrow, 3 days, 1 week), a box to type a date such as "next thu" or "15 May", and a line for what the chase is for. On a card that already has one, the button reads Change chase and the box has Remove follow-up.
• The ⋯ menu, with the moves you can make from the pipeline:
  • Hold the date, whenever the board is showing the Tentative column. Sets the booking to Tentative and moves the card to that column. It runs the same double-booking check as the booking form, so if the Space is already taken at that time, 1pm refuses and says what it clashes with. A lead needs a booking before its date can be held: if it has none, accept the quote or create the booking from the lead first.
  • Open the booking, on a lead that has one.
  • Mark as lost. Takes the lead off the pipeline. You can reopen it from the Lost tab.
  • Mark as spam. Takes the lead off the pipeline. You can restore it from the Spam tab.

A lead that is already a booking can't be marked lost or spam from the pipeline. Cancel the booking instead, and the card leaves the pipeline.

Nothing else on the board moves a card by hand, because every other column follows something the client does or a payment being recorded. If a move can't be made, for example because the lead is already past that step, a message says why and offers to open the lead.

Long columns

A column shows its 25 newest leads first. When it holds more, a Show 25 more button at the bottom loads the next ones, with a line saying how many are left. Acting on a card further down doesn't send the column back to its first 25.

Searching the pipeline

The search box at the top matches the same things as on the Leads list: name, email, phone, company, event type, and the name of the booking a lead became. Press Apply and every column narrows to the leads that match.

The pipeline only has search and Show past events. To filter by lead type, Space or a date range, use the Leads list, or save those filters as a view (below) and open the view on the pipeline.

The Stage filter on the Leads list

The same stages appear on the Leads list. Each lead row carries a small stage badge, and hovering it describes the stage. It is left off where it would only repeat the tab you are on, such as a New lead on the New tab. When the quote has run past its valid-until date, the badge adds "lapsed", because the client can no longer accept it.

The filter bar on the Leads list has a Stage dropdown. Pick a stage and the list narrows to leads at that stage, on whichever tab you are on.

Saved views

Most people ask the same few questions every morning. Who owes me a deposit? Whose agreement is still out? What is held for the ballroom? A saved view keeps one of those questions under a name you choose, so it is one click away.

To save a view:

1. On the Leads list, pick a stage in the Stage filter. Set a lead type and Spaces too if the question is narrower, for example only weddings, or only the Ballroom.
2. Open the Views menu at the end of the tab row and choose Save these filters as a view.
3. Give it a name, such as "Deposit due" or "Tentative, Ballroom". The box lists exactly what the view will show before you save.

A view saves the stage, the lead type and the Spaces. It doesn't save a date range or a search, so a view saved in March still means the same thing in April. Add a date range or a search on top of an open view when you need one.

A view looks across the New, Qualified and Converted tabs at once. A lead awaiting signature can be Qualified or Converted depending on how you work, and a view limited to one tab would miss half of them.

Opening a view. Choose it from the Views menu on the Leads list or on the pipeline. On the Leads list, a line above the list names the view and what it asks, and the filters the view sets are hidden while it is open. Leave view takes you back. On the pipeline, the board shows only the columns for the view's stages, so a "Deposit due" view is one column of the leads awaiting payment, narrowed to the view's lead type and Spaces. All stages in the same menu brings the full board back.

Renaming or deleting a view. Open the Views menu on the Leads list and choose Rename or delete a view. Deleting a view removes it from the menu and changes nothing on any lead. To change what a view asks, open it, set the filters you want, and save it as a new view.

An account can keep up to 24 views.

Naming the stages in your own words

Every venue and event business has its own words for these steps. A venue might call a held date a pencil, or the agreement a contract. You can rename the stages so the pipeline and the Leads list use your words.

There are two places to do it, and they change the same setting:

• On the pipeline. Click a column heading (a pencil appears when you hover it), type the new name and press Enter. Press Escape to cancel.
• On your profile. Go to Account, then Profile, then the Wording tab. The Lead stage wording card lists every stage you can rename, with a description under each. Leave a box empty to keep the built-in name.

A new name changes the column heading, the stage badge on each lead row, the Stage filter and the Views menu, for everyone in your account. It changes the word and nothing else: 1pm still decides the stage from what has happened to the lead.

Seven stages can be renamed: Qualified, Quote sent, Quote opened, Tentative, Awaiting signature, Awaiting payment and Booked. New, Lost and Spam can't, because each one matches a tab on the Leads list and takes its name from that tab. The To quote column can't be renamed either, because it holds both New and Qualified leads.

To rename the word "Event" itself, or the words for crew and Spaces, see Renaming events, crew and Spaces.

Related articles

• Working the leads inbox covers the Leads list, its tabs and the actions on each lead.
• Following up on leads covers setting a chase date and the Follow-ups tab.
• Quotes and invoices covers sending the quote that moves a lead along.
• Preventing a double-booked Space covers the check that runs when you hold a date.