Sales funnel in a CRM: how to set up the stages

A card has been sitting in the stage called "thinking" for a third week. The sales funnel in the CRM does not show what is wrong: the last message in Direct is ours, and at the morning meeting the manager says the client is still in touch.

The column is there, the deals are there. The name does not say what already happened to the lead. Two managers will drop the same chat into different columns, and both will be right.

When a column is not a stage yet

We used to draw a lot of stages, otherwise the funnel looked unserious. Then you look at the board: seven columns, and the live cards still sit in one of them. Next to that, a team with four names moves deals every day.

A stage is good if you can finish it with one action, and you can say that action out loud in one sentence. We replied and understood what the person needs. We sent the price and we are waiting. There is a date, or there is a payment. If the sentence sounds like "well, he is in progress", do not create the column.

The word "thinking" is its own problem. The client is not thinking inside the card. He is comparing, he forgot, or it is too expensive and he did not write that.

Where the names should come from

On a webinar the funnel is long: qualification, presentation, proposal, negotiation, contract. For a team that spends three months selling a machine and talks to several people in the company, some of those words are alive. For a shop where Direct asks "do you have it in black, size 42?", the column "presentation done" stays empty.

Take yesterday's Direct, not a diagram. At 23:40 someone writes "how much". In the morning the manager asks two things: what size, and pickup or delivery. In the afternoon the price goes out, and the client writes "ok, I'll think". In the evening a Payme screenshot lands in WhatsApp, and the tracking number is requested in Telegram.

"I'll think" wants to go into "thinking". The 23:40 message is not a conversation yet: there is no reply, so the stage is "new". Two questions about size and delivery, that is the conversation. The price is sent, the ball is with the client: the stage is "waiting", and it needs a date for the next question. A feeling that the person is thinking does not count as a date. A payment screenshot is already an agreement if you still have to ship, or a win if you hand the item over now. A chat across three messengers is one card, not three deals.

The skeleton comes from an evening like that. The slide has nothing to do with it.

• New. There is a message, and no reply yet.
• In conversation. You replied and you are finding out what they need.
• Waiting on the client. The price, the invoice, or the time is already with them.
• Agreed. There is a date, a payment, or a shipment.
• Won.
• Lost, and a reason next to it. Without a reason, a month later it is "thinking" again, only in the archive.

For a salon or a clinic this skeleton is short: they sell time, and the stages turn around a booking and a visit. An online shop gets stuck on size and the courier. That is covered separately: a funnel for services and a funnel for a shop.

A long cycle, where several people decide and the deal lives for months, does not fit this skeleton. "Waiting on the client" is too coarse there: split "waiting for a decision" from "the invoice is with them". Direct does not need that split on day one. You add it when the short columns are already moving. On an empty board that you want to look serious, it only gets in the way.

How to set the stages up in shamCRM

When you register, the industry already creates a funnel. If the names are close to yours, do not wipe the board, rename them. A car dealer writes "viewing", a shop writes "shipment". An empty board with columns called "stage 1" only postpones the same conversation by a week.

Then the channels. Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Facebook connect into the funnel you pick, and a new message becomes a card. It is no longer the only copy on the manager's phone. If you do not pick a funnel when you connect the channel, the board stays empty no matter how many stages you draw. The card has one owner. Otherwise "waiting on the client" again means "actually, nobody".

"Waiting on the client" has a trap. Without a deadline it turns into "thinking" with a polite name. If a deal has not moved for a long time, shamCRM reminds you: after that you either move the card or close it as lost.

A second line of business lives in a second funnel. A shop and appointment booking, or two brands. Twenty columns on one board do not replace a second line. Plans below VIP have one funnel, VIP has two, and another one is connected separately. You can mix a doctor's appointment and a spare-parts order in neighbouring columns. Reading that board in the morning is already hard.

Next to the stage, the card needs the conversation and one field you cannot move the deal without: size, property, course, branch. Fifteen fields on day one will not get filled.

How the stages, the card, and stuck deals look on the screen is here: the CRM funnel.

Where to look after a week

Look at the column that has more cards than the others put together. If everything sits "in conversation", the stage is too wide: it holds people you have not answered and people who are waiting for a price. If "won" and "lost" are empty, nobody is closing deals, and the board only grows.

Rename "thinking" this week. The other columns can stay crooked until Friday.