Auditing a Two-Stage Pipeline Before 300 Leads Get Imported
Objective: Given a founder's draft CRM pipeline, compare it against the lesson's Pipeline Management framework and identify which real buying-journey moments have no stage to sit in.
You're advising the solopreneur founder of a subscription wine startup modeled on Winc's early days as they set up their first CRM pipeline in HubSpot Free.
Compare their draft pipeline against the lesson's Three Core Jobs framework and flag every missing stage before they import 300 real contacts.
Before you start
What you'll need
Free path (everything below is enough to finish)
Free forever plan, unlimited contacts and users
Free, quick to share with the founder
The process
1 step
Step 01 of 01
The lesson's Pipeline Management section defines a pipeline as the series of steps a lead goes through before becoming a customer (Lead -> Demo Scheduled -> Proposal Sent -> Deal Won), and the Common Beginner Mistakes callout warns that skipping this setup turns a CRM into 'just an expensive address book.'
The founder's draft pipeline has only two stages: 'New' and 'Customer'. What's missing before 300 leads get imported into it?
Procedure
- List the founder's current 2-stage pipeline: New, Customer
- Compare against the lesson's example stage sequence: Lead, Demo Scheduled, Proposal Sent, Deal Won
- Identify which real buying-journey steps have no stage to sit in
- Propose a corrected stage list matching how a wine-subscription trial actually converts (Lead, Trial Box Sent, Subscription Started, Churned)
CURRENT PIPELINE (2 stages): New -> Customer GAP: no stage for 'sent a trial box but hasn't subscribed yet' -- this is where most leads actually sit CORRECTED PIPELINE (4 stages): 1. Lead 2. Trial Box Sent 3. Subscription Started 4. Churned (separate from never-converted) With only 2 stages, every lead who received a trial box but hasn't decided yet is invisible.
Healthy
Corrected pipeline has 4+ stages that map to real, distinguishable moments in the buying journey.
Unhealthy
Leaving a 2-stage 'New / Customer' pipeline where most leads are invisible until they either convert or silently vanish.
What this means
A pipeline this thin can't show which deals need attention, which is the entire point of Pipeline Management per the lesson; the CRM becomes address-book-only exactly as the lesson's mistake warning predicts.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Sales team can't tell who needs a follow-up call | Add the missing mid-journey stage before importing any contacts | 30 min |
Final deliverable
A corrected pipeline stage list (4+ stages) replacing the founder's 2-stage draft, with each new stage tied to a real moment in the buying journey.
See a reference example
FRAMEBRIDGE, custom-order pipeline redesign (excerpt) BEFORE (2 stages): New -> Ordered AFTER (5 stages): Lead -> Quote Sent -> Artwork Received -> Order Placed -> Delivered Gap found: no stage existed for 'sent a quote, hasn't sent artwork yet' -- 40% of leads were sitting there invisibly.
Success criteria
You're done when you can:
- Identifies the missing mid-journey stage(s) in the draft pipeline
- Proposes 4+ stages that map to real buying-journey moments
- Ties the fix back to the lesson's 'address book vs pipeline' distinction