How do I build a sales pipeline in TactStack?
Short answer
Name the stages after things the customer does, not things you feel. Create one pipeline per sales motion, add an opportunity for every real request, automate the movement you can prove, and require a next step with a date on every open card. Then run a five-minute weekly review off the board.
Before you start
- The real path a request takes from first contact to won.
- Your average job value, so forecasting means something.
- Who owns a deal at each stage.
- The point where you consider a deal genuinely lost.
Step by step
- 1
Map the stages to customer actions
New request, contacted, appointment set, estimate sent, decision pending, won, lost. Each stage should be provable by something the customer did.
Stages based on feelings turn the board into fiction within a week.
- 2
Use one pipeline per motion
Residential service calls and commercial bids do not move the same way. Give each its own board rather than forcing one set of stages on both.
A shared pipeline hides where each kind of work actually stalls.
- 3
Create an opportunity for every real request
Automate it from the intake form, the missed-call text, and the booking, so nothing depends on somebody remembering to add a card.
The deals that never made the board are the ones you lose without noticing.
- 4
Put a value and an expected date on every card
Even a rough estimate makes the board forecastable. Use your average job value as the default and refine after the estimate goes out.
Without values, a pipeline is a to-do list, not a forecast.
- 5
Automate the movement you can prove
Booked appointment moves the card. Estimate sent moves the card. Payment received moves it to won. Manual dragging should be the exception.
Boards that update themselves stay accurate on the busy weeks.
- 6
Require a next step with a date
Every open card carries one task with an owner and a due date. No next step means the deal is quietly dying.
This single rule recovers more revenue than any new lead source.
- 7
Alert on stale deals
Set a limit per stage, such as four days in estimate sent, and have the system nudge the owner and notify a manager when a card sits too long.
Silence is the most common reason a warm deal goes cold.
- 8
Run a five-minute review off the board
Same time each week, top down by value. Two questions only: what is the next step, and when. Close out anything dead so the number stays honest.
The board is only as good as the habit attached to it.
What good looks like
- Every request is visible, owned, and dated.
- You can see this month's likely revenue without a spreadsheet.
- Estimates stop dying in silence.
- Lost reasons accumulate into something you can act on.
Common mistakes
The ways this goes wrong in sales, and what to do instead.
Twelve stages›
Five to seven is the range people maintain. More than that and the board gets abandoned.
Do this instead: Cut to the five stages that change what you would actually do next.
Stages that mean nothing›
Warm and thinking about it are not stages. Name the action.
Do this instead: Name each stage after the next action owed, not after a vague feeling like warm.
Never closing lost›
A board full of two-year-old deals makes the forecast useless and demoralizes everyone reading it.
Do this instead: Close lost with a reason, then let a long-tail follow-up reopen it later.
Manual entry only›
If a human has to create the card, the busiest weeks will have the emptiest pipeline.
Do this instead: Let every form, call, and chat create the record automatically so nothing depends on memory.
Frequently asked
6 questions about build a sales pipelineRelated guides
Pick the next thing to set up, or back up a step if something here assumed work you have not done yet.
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More in Sales
Nearby tasks that share the same setup and vocabulary.
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