Workshop #1: Defining Your Lead Lifecycle
Why Lead Status Matter
Your Lead Status values define how you track interest, qualify prospects, and decide what happens next. When set up correctly, they:
Drive clarity across your sales and marketing teams
Support automations like lead scoring, alerts, and assignment
Improve pipeline hygiene and reduce forgotten leads
Enable meaningful conversion and attribution reporting
If Opportunity Stages tell you how a deal progresses, Lead Status tell you how an interest becomes a deal — or doesn’t.
Best Practice Framework
Most high-performing teams use 4–6 status values, each representing a meaningful change in approach, ownership, or likelihood of conversion.
🔹 Recommended Core Status’s
Status | When to Use It |
|---|---|
New | Just entered CRM. No contact made yet. |
Working | Contacted or researching. Active engagement in progress. |
Nurturing | Not ready now. Future potential, long-term interest. |
Unqualified* | Does not meet criteria. No further action planned. *Note: Depending on your business model, all leads may hold future potential. In this case, consider using a Nurturing status instead and removing Unqualifed. |
Qualified | Meets criteria to convert into an Opportunity. |
Your status should reflect a decision or outcome, not just activity. “Emailed” or “Meeting Booked” is useful for tracking, but not as a status.
Workshop Activity 1: Map Your Current Workflow
Prompt Questions:
How do we currently track lead engagement?
What determines whether a lead is qualified?
Do we regularly mark leads as “nurture” or “unqualified”?
Do different people (e.g. SDRs vs AEs) need different views of this process?
Sketch It Out:
Write down your current or ideal process:
Example:
Lead enters from website → New → SDR makes first contact → Working → No urgency, but valid fit → Nurturing → Positive response + BANT confirmed → Qualified → Converted to Opportunity → Not a fit → Unqualified
Workshop Activity 2: Draft Your Lead Status
List your proposed status below with a short definition for each:
Status | Definition / When to Use |
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Common Mistakes to Avoid
Too many status
Keep it simple. If users can’t remember what to pick, they won’t use it consistently, and inconsistent data kills automation and reporting.
Activity as a status
“Emailed” or “Called” are actions, not lifecycle decisions. Use Activity History or Last Touch fields to track this. Status should reflect where the lead stands, not what’s been done.
No clear exit points
Every lead should move toward a decision point: either convert into an Opportunity, or be exited through a disqualification reason. If a status doesn’t help clarify the next step, it doesn’t belong.
No nurture process
Not every “no” is forever. Marking a lead as Unqualified when they simply aren’t ready now can prematurely end a potential future deal. Use a Nurturing status to safely hold leads that are dormant — but still viable.
Is a Lead Ever Truly Dead?
It’s rare.
Even a cold or unresponsive lead offers data you can learn from — or could re-engage down the line through a change of circumstances, job move, or new offering.
Rather than “Dead”, think in terms of:
Disqualified (Not a Fit) – e.g. wrong industry, duplicate, no budget ever
Nurture – valid but not urgent
Recycled – qualified in the past, lost contact or paused
The key is segmenting thoughtfully. Not all exits are equal — and not all exits are final.
Final Checklist
Each status has a clear entry and exit point
You know what qualifies a lead for conversion
Sales and marketing agree on the lifecycle
The status can drive automation, dashboards, and reporting
Everyone on the team could explain them in 30 seconds
Next Step
Once you’re happy with your Lead Status list:
Add them to your Setup Wizard in the Lead Process section
Need help or want a sanity check?
You can book a review with our team anytime during your onboarding period.