How To Track Your Customer Pipeline with Daylite

Closing Deals / April 22, 2020 / Kristie

Need a better overview of your deals? As you’re hustling to get new business, it can be challenging to keep track of all your leads and make sure you’re not leaving business on the table– especially when you may be getting a lot of no’s or not right now’s. Remember, no doesn’t mean no forever, it often just means not right now.

If you’re not being proactive to reach out and make sure each lead is moving to the next stage in the customer journey then you’re at risk of losing that deal. If this sounds like you, keep reading because we’re going to show you how you can easily stay on top of all your potential business deals with Daylite. We’ll show you how to visually track and move each prospect through the customer funnel. We’ll also show you how to get an overview of where your deals are so you can spot if someone is behind in the sales funnel and reach out to nudge them forward.

Every business’s sales process, customer journey, customer funnel (whatever you want to call it) is slightly different, but the basics are the same. At some point, there’s a person or business that expresses potential interest in your service or product. Then you need to go through a series of steps and follow-ups before you actually secure that deal and then provide the service or sell them a product. These workflows will show you how to set up and track your customer/sales process in Daylite and customize it to fit your unique flow.

Track customer pipeline with Daylite CRM

Step 1: Map out your customer journey or funnel

The first step is to map out the journey your lead (or repeat customer) follows from initial contact and interest all the way through closed deal – which for many businesses may be the beginning of working together because that’s where the client project and work begins. For this article, we’re going to focus on the first part – nudging the lead or repeat customer through to closed deal. If you’re also wanting some tips on how to go from confirmed deal or signed contract through to finished project and completed service using Daylite, check out this tutorial on Managing Project Milestones using Daylite.

closing deals - Daylite pipeline

Steps to map out your customer journey or sales funnel:

  • Open Daylite Preferences
  • Select Pipelines
  • Click the + button on the bottom left corner to create a new Pipeline and check off Applies to Opportunity
  • Create however many stages you need in your Pipeline. For most businesses, this will be a 5 stage Pipeline including:
    • 1. Inquiry
    • 2. Qualify
    • 3. Offer
    • 4. Follow up
    • 5. Close
  • For each stage, you can create a template of tasks or checklist that needs to happen before moving to the next stage. For example, your Qualify stage may involve this checklist of tasks:
    • Send questionnaire to identify needs/requirements
    • Review questionnaire
    • Set up a call or meeting to confirm and discuss any details of the requirements/needs

Not sure what your pipeline should look like? Check out our YouTube video 5 Step Sales Process where talk about the 5 stages of the customer pipeline with examples of a checklist for each stage of the funnel.

Keep in mind that Daylite allows you to create as many different Pipelines as you need. You may have one sales process for one type of service you offer, and a different sales process for a product or separate service. You can create multiple Pipelines to fit your needs.

Pro Tip: When creating tasks in your Pipeline, use @@ to pull the name of the Opportunity into the task. For example, “Follow up with @@ to review the proposal.”

Daylite CRM pipeline

When you view this task in your to-do list, it will pull the name of the deal and appear as “Follow up with Max Simmons to review the proposal”. For more help on creating your sales Pipeline, check out this tutorial which includes detailed steps and videos.

Step 2: Track the customer journey for each prospect

After you have your Pipeline mapped out, the next step is to create an Opportunity for each potential business deal that you’ve actively pursuing, and apply your customer Pipeline so you can track which stage each deal is in.

Daylite CRM pipeline checklist

How to create an Opportunity and apply a Pipeline:

  • From the Contact record in Daylite, create a new Opportunity so the person or company is linked. If there are any files, documents, or emails related to this deal that are important to keep track of, you’ll want to link those things to the Opportunity so you can easily find and refer back to them. For more on this, check out How to organize all the moving pieces in a deal.
  • From the Opportunity, select the Tasks & Pipeline tab and apply your Pipeline.
  • As you move the stage forward, the checklist within that stage will automatically be created for you.

Step 3: Setup dashboards to track your funnel

Now that you have a Pipeline set for each potential business deal so you can track where each deal is and what needs to be done next to move it forward, the next step is to create a dashboard. Creating a dashboard of Opportunity Smart Lists will make it easier for you to quickly review which deals are in which stage so you can actively push each one forward.

  • Create a folder in your Daylite sidebar under Objectives for My Opportunities
  • Create a Smart List for the first stage of the pipeline funnel
  • Do this for each stage so you have them saved in the sidebar for easy accessibility
  • Make this part of your routine each week to review so you’re always pushing each deal forward.
  • When you’re ready to reach out, you can send an individual or bulk email using an email template, individual email, or call & link a note to record the conversation. For tips on writing a follow-up email, check out 8 Polite Follow-Up Email Samples.

Pro Tip: Leverage Daylite Opportunites Boards to visually keep track of your opportunities, so nothing slips through the crack.

Keeping track of all your potential deals by memory or spreadsheets can be a nightmare that leaves you at risk of dropping the ball and losing business. By using these steps above, you can relax knowing you have visibility on all your deals and know what needs to be done next to move them forward so you can win more business.

After you’ve won the business deal, this is often where the work just begins. To track the process from signed contract or won deal all the way through to completed service and/or finished project, check out How To Track Project Milestones Using Daylite.

2 Responses to “How To Track Your Customer Pipeline with Daylite”

    Jamie Lingwood
  1. Love this explanation. Even though I’m already using pipelines, it’s inspired me to make more and/or better use of them!

    Jamie Lingwood
    wordsmith.nl

  2. Kristie Holden
  3. That’s great Jamie! 🙂

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