Sales Pipeline Stages Explained

Understand the default Opportunity stages in the Sales Pipeline

Updated: May 21, 2025

Where do I manage my New Leads in the Vintory CRM?

The Vintory Sales Pipeline is set up with default stages.

The stages laid out create a streamlined sales process. Too many steps create a cumbersome process with too much room for leads to get cold. Too few and you lack clarity and process.

So let’s break it down.

New Leads - Your New Leads enter the Vintory CRM and are placed here in this stage. These are people that have not been spoken with yet. When someone fills out a form on your landing page or replies to a cold email campaign, an Opportunity Card is created and placed here.  It will then trigger notifications for your designated rep to follow up. The Opportunity Source will be displayed on the card to let you know how they came in (i.e. Form Submission, Cold Email, or Realtor Cold Email). The sooner you follow up, the better.

Responsive Lead - The stage you move the Opportunity Card to once you’ve connected either on the phone, text or email. Hopefully over the phone for a fruitful owner discovery call where lots of details are captured in the CRM notes.

Appointment Booked - Move the Opportunity Card here when you and the lead have an exact time on a calendar to speak on the phone, on zoom or at the property. If you use the calendar feature in the CRM it enrolls to lead in a series of appointment reminders similar to what your dentist office might send.

No Show - Putting an Opportunity Card in this stage can trigger automations that reach out to the lead to get them rescheduled for the missed appointment. 

Negotiation - If you’ve had more that one conversation and/or have done an income projection, you can move the Opportunity Card to this stage without them getting any automated outreach while you continue to discuss your program.

On Hold - No automations are generated in this stage. This stage is a great place for a lead who has given you a verbal that they want to move forward but are unable to. Common reasons: they just bought the place and don’t have the keys yet. They are doing major renovations,. Sometimes they are waiting for their contract to be up with their current manager or have a tenant moving out.

Short Term Nurture - A workflow is attached to the short-term nurture stage to keep you top of mind with the particular opportunity in this stage in the pipeline. The short term nurture stage uses a mix of texts and emails to increase the potential of re-engaging an opportunity that's gone a bit quiet or stagnant. These range from 3-5 days apart between automated touch points. 

Long term Nurture - When the lead is a long shot. They either became unresponsive after speaking with them or said they are not sure if and when they would ever be ready. The automation here will drip an email every 45 days. During those 5 emails, you can give them a quick call if they have not responded yet. After those 5 emails, you can re-enroll them in the workflow - We would hate giving up on any potential leads.

Send Contract - Move the Opportunity Card here when you are ready to send the contract.  If you have the automation set up that sends sign-able docs to the lead when moved into this stage, that will happen. If not, use this to automate follow up to ensure they received the contract with a text asking to confirm. Assuming they got it and are dragging their feet is no good. In my experience contracts can get caught in spam folders. And if you are not following up after a day or two to confirm…the lead assumes you don’t have your act together and start to lose that loving feeling.

Closed Won - Once a lead has signed a contract, move them into this stage.  Here, you can see at a glance how many contracts you’ve won and the total at the top is calculated if you’ve put in a lead value from an income projection.

This is an optional additional stage to add:
Pro Forma Nurture - This stage can be used to keep the lead in your view, and also to manage which of your leads have already been sent the Pro Forma. If after you've sent the Pro Forma, and the lead becomes unresponsive, they will most likely be placed  in the next stage.

We recommend sticking with this flow as much as you can. If you want to customize, be aware that changing the names of these stages can disconnect the automations.