How to set up a CRM lead pipeline in Pleelo — define stages, add leads, configure capture forms, move opportunities through the funnel, and convert to customers.
Your Sales Process Needs a System
Most small businesses manage their sales pipeline the same way they manage their invoicing: through memory, email threads, and WhatsApp chats. Someone fills out a form on your website. You respond. A few weeks go by. You forget to follow up. They sign with a competitor.
A lead pipeline doesn't prevent you from losing deals — nothing can guarantee that. But it does ensure you never lose a deal because you forgot someone existed.
Pleelo's CRM module gives you a structured pipeline where every lead has a status, a history, and a next action. This guide shows you how to set it up and put it to work.
Understanding the Lead Lifecycle
Before you build your pipeline, it helps to understand the natural lifecycle of a lead in a typical B2B or service business:
- First contact — Someone reaches out, fills out a form, or is introduced to your business
- Qualification — You determine whether they're a realistic customer (right fit, right budget, right timing)
- Engagement — You pitch, demonstrate, or send a proposal
- Decision — They're evaluating your offer against alternatives
- Closed — Won (they become a customer) or Lost (they went elsewhere)
Your pipeline stages should mirror this lifecycle. They don't need to be complex — five stages is usually plenty for a small business.
Step 1: Understand the Lead Lifecycle in Pleelo
When you open CRM → Leads for the first time, Pleelo gives you a default Kanban board with basic stages. These are a starting point, not a constraint.
The board view shows each lead as a card. Cards have:
- Lead name and company
- Expected value (if configured)
- Assigned team member
- Last activity date
- Stage
The list view shows the same data in rows — useful for filtering and sorting by value, stage, or age.
Before you start adding leads, customize the pipeline to match how your business actually works.
Step 2: Create Your Pipeline Stages
Navigate to CRM → Settings → Pipeline Stages to manage your stages.
Recommended Default Stages for a Service Business
- Prospect — You have their contact info but haven't made first contact yet
- Contacted — You've reached out and are waiting for a response, or you've had an initial conversation
- Qualified — You've confirmed they're a viable customer (right need, realistic budget)
- Proposal Sent — You've submitted a quote or proposal and are waiting for a decision
- Closed Won — Deal signed, customer created
- Closed Lost — They went elsewhere or went quiet
How to Add a Stage
Click Add Stage, enter the name, choose a color (helps with visual scanning), and set the order. Drag stages to reorder them.
For each stage, you can also configure:
- Win probability — Used if you want weighted pipeline value calculations (e.g., Prospect = 10%, Proposal Sent = 50%, Closed Won = 100%)
- Required fields — Force certain information before a lead can move to this stage (e.g., can't enter "Proposal Sent" without a quoted amount)
- Automatic actions — Trigger a notification or task when a lead enters this stage
Keep It Simple to Start
The biggest mistake in CRM setup is creating too many stages. If you have 8 stages for a sales process that takes 2 weeks, you'll never keep it updated. Start with 5–6 stages and add more only when you feel the friction of not having them.
Step 3: Add Your First Leads
With your stages defined, it's time to add leads. Navigate to CRM → Leads → New Lead.
Core fields:
- Lead name — The person you're selling to (first contact)
- Company — The organization (if B2B)
- Email — Primary contact email
- Phone — Optional but useful for follow-up scheduling
- Source — How they found you (website, referral, cold outreach, event, etc.)
- Expected value — Your estimate of the deal value. Even a rough estimate ($50,000?) helps you prioritize which leads deserve more time.
- Pipeline stage — Where in the funnel they currently sit
- Assigned to — Which team member owns this lead
Optional but valuable:
- Expected close date — When you expect this deal to resolve
- Notes — Context from the first conversation: what they need, their main concern, their timeline
- Tags — Categorize leads by industry, service type, or campaign
Click Save. The lead appears in your pipeline board in the assigned stage.
Adding Multiple Leads
If you're migrating from a spreadsheet or another CRM, use CRM → Import Leads to upload a CSV. Download the template, map your columns, and import. Review the import preview carefully before confirming — duplicate detection runs automatically but verify it caught everything.
Step 4: Set Up a Lead Capture Form
Adding leads manually works for outbound prospecting, but for inbound leads — people who fill out your website form — you want them to appear in Pleelo automatically.
Navigate to CRM → Lead Forms → New Form.
Configure the form:
- Form name — Internal identifier (e.g., "Website Contact Form", "Quote Request Form")
- Fields — Choose which fields to collect. At minimum: name, email, phone. Add service interest, budget range, or how they heard about you if your sales process benefits from it.
- Default stage — What stage should new leads from this form start in? (Usually "Prospect" or "Contacted")
- Assigned to — Which team member gets notified when this form is submitted
- Confirmation message — What the person sees after submitting
Pleelo generates an embed code (HTML snippet) and a direct URL for the form.
Embedding the Form
Add the embed code to your website's contact page, service pages, or landing pages. When someone fills it out, Pleelo creates a lead record automatically and notifies the assigned team member.
If you don't have a website or need a standalone form URL, use the direct link — share it on social media, in email campaigns, or in your WhatsApp Business bio.
Step 5: Move Leads Through Stages
A pipeline only works if it stays updated. The rule is simple: after every significant interaction with a lead, update their stage and log the activity.
Moving a Lead
In the Kanban board view, drag the lead card to the new stage. That's it.
In the lead detail view, use the stage selector at the top to change the stage and add a note about why it changed (optional but recommended for team context).
Logging Activities
Every time you call, email, or meet with a lead, log it. Go to the lead record, open the Activity tab, and click Log Activity.
Choose the type:
- Phone call
- Email sent
- Meeting
- Demo
- Proposal sent
- Other
Add a brief note about what was discussed and what happens next. This creates a chronological history you can review at any time.
Setting Follow-Up Tasks
After each interaction, set a follow-up task. Click Add Task on the lead record and enter:
- What needs to happen (e.g., "Send revised quote")
- Who's responsible
- When it's due
Pleelo surfaces overdue tasks in your dashboard so nothing slips through.
Step 6: Convert a Lead to a Customer
When a lead closes and becomes a customer, the final step in Pleelo is conversion.
Open the lead record, change the stage to Closed Won, and click Convert to Customer.
Pleelo creates a customer record automatically, copying over all the contact information from the lead. The lead record remains for history (so you can see how long it took to close, what source it came from, etc.), but the person is now in your customer database and can be invoiced.
From the new customer record, click Create Invoice to start billing immediately.
Closing Lost Leads
When a lead goes cold or chooses a competitor, change the stage to Closed Lost and record a reason:
- Budget too low
- Went with competitor
- Timing not right
- Unresponsive
This data feeds your pipeline analytics and helps you understand which lead sources and stages have the highest drop-off rates — information you can act on.
Reading Your Pipeline Dashboard
With leads flowing through your pipeline, the CRM Dashboard gives you:
- Total pipeline value — Sum of all open lead expected values
- Weighted pipeline value — Adjusted by win probability per stage
- Leads by stage — How many are in each stage
- Average time in stage — Where leads tend to stall
- Win rate — Percentage of closed deals that went Won vs. Lost
- Top sources — Which lead sources produce the most closed deals
Review this dashboard weekly. If you see leads piling up in "Proposal Sent" for 30+ days, that's a signal your follow-up cadence needs work. If a particular lead source consistently converts to customers, invest more there.
Ready to Build Your Pipeline?
Setting up a CRM pipeline in Pleelo is a 10-minute task that pays dividends every week. No more wondering where a lead stands, no more missed follow-ups, no more deals lost to organizational chaos.
Need help designing a pipeline for your specific business model — subscription sales, project-based services, or multi-step B2B cycles? Our team can walk you through the setup.
