Turning a lead into an event — Help

A lead is only worth capturing if it can become a booking with as little re-typing as possible. When an enquiry is real, 1pm turns it into an event and a contact in a couple of clicks, carrying across everything the enquirer already told you. No copying names into a new event, no re-keying the date or the guest count.

This article covers converting a lead, the contact-matching step, what gets created, and raising a quote first.

Convert a lead

In the Leads inbox, find the lead (on the New or Qualified tab) and click Create event. A short step opens asking you to link the enquiry to a contact. Once you confirm, 1pm creates the booking and takes you straight into it to finish the details.

Linking it to a contact

Every event needs a client contact, so before the event is created, 1pm sorts out who this lead is in your address book:

If their email already matches a contact (or a few), you're asked to pick the right one, or to create a new contact instead. This is how you avoid ending up with the same caterer or repeat client twice. If you do spot duplicates, it's worth consolidating them later.
If no contact has that email, 1pm tells you a new contact will be created, and you just confirm.

Click Create event to finish.

What gets created

Converting does three things in one move:

It creates the event as a tentative booking, with the enquirer's name, event date, and guest count already filled in from their submission. The date comes from the built-in event date field, or, if your form gathers the date through one of your own date fields instead, from that.
It creates or links the contact, and saves any custom-field answers from the form straight onto that contact record. The event type they picked or the detail they typed is now part of their permanent record, not stranded on an old enquiry.
It moves the lead to Converted, where its row keeps a View event button so you can always get back to the booking it became. The conversation thread stays with the lead too, so the email history isn't lost.

You land in the event editor with the basics in place, ready to add the run of show, pricing, spaces, and everything else.

Link to an event you already have

Sometimes the event exists before the enquiry does. You might have blocked out the date on the calendar already, or set the booking up for a repeat client, and then a matching enquiry lands. Rather than create a second event, attach the lead to the one you already have.

On a New or Qualified lead, click Link existing event (it sits next to Create event). A picker opens listing your events; search by name to narrow it, then click Link on the right one. The lead moves to Qualified and points at that event, and its View event button takes you straight there.

A few things worth knowing:

The event keeps its own client contact. Unlike Create event, which sets the contact from the enquirer, linking leaves an existing event's client untouched, because that event already has an owner. Linking is about connecting the enquiry to the booking, not overwriting who it is for.
One lead per event. The picker only offers events that aren't already linked to another lead, so you can't accidentally attach two enquiries to the same booking.
The event inherits the enquiry's form. Once linked, the event counts as having come in on that lead's enquiry form. That matters if you run automations or reports scoped to a particular form: a booking you first created straight on the calendar has no form of its own, but linking a wedding enquiry to it means your wedding-form automations and reporting now include it.

Raise a quote first

Sometimes the right next step isn't a booking, it's a number. From a New or Qualified lead you can click Quote instead of Create event. That raises a quote for the lead, pre-filled with their details, and opens the quote editor. You can send the quote to the enquirer through the same email thread, and when they accept it, the event is created for you with the pricing already seeded. Quotes are covered in Quotes and invoices.

When a lead doesn't proceed

Not every enquiry becomes a booking. Mark a Qualified lead as Lost to take it out of your working pipeline; it stays on the Lost tab and can be reopened if the client comes back. Converting, losing, and reopening are all reversible, so nothing you do here is final.

Working the leads inbox covers the pipeline and the actions on each lead.
Replying to leads covers the email conversation before you convert.
Tracking events from enquiry to done covers the event status pipeline a converted booking then moves through.