Prospects / leads

What it does

Behaviours, not fields. Choosing between two modules is choosing between these.

The board shape is the diagnosis: twelve cards in first contact and none in proposal means the problem is not lead generation.

Keeps closed-lost visible rather than archiving it, because next quarter it is a warm lead.

Records the next step per lead, so the board answers what to do rather than only where things are.

A lead that goes quiet surfaces by age, which is the thing that silently kills a pipeline.

How it works

1
A lead is created the first time somebody might buy, with whatever is known.
2
The stage changes when a conversation says it changed, not when somebody remembers to drag a card.
3
The next step is required, because the board should answer what to do rather than only where things are.
4
Closed lost stays visible — next quarter it is a warm lead.

Best for

Anything that moves through stages: leads, orders, applications.

Not the right choice for

Data with no natural stages — you get one very long column.

What a row holds

Every field, and what the agent listens for to fill it — which is the difference between a page you type into and one that fills itself.

Field	Type	Filled from
Leadrequired	text	Who might buy, usually a company rather than a person.
Stagerequired	choice	How far along. First contact, Negotiating, Proposal, Closed won, Closed lost.
Value	text	What it is worth if it lands. A question mark is an honest answer here.
Next steprequired	text	What happens next, and by when. A lead with no next step is not in a pipeline.

What it does not do

A module chosen for something it cannot do costs more than one that was never offered.

Stages are yours, and choosing them badly is the usual way a pipeline stops reflecting reality.
Value is text, so nothing sums the pipeline. That is deliberate; a summed pipeline of guesses is a fiction.
No probability weighting or forecast.
One lead per opportunity, so a customer buying twice is two leads.

Before it works

What you have to provide, if anything.

Define the stages from how you actually sell, not from a template.
Pair with Quotes, so a proposal has a document behind it rather than a stage name.

In practice

A studio with a pipeline that felt busy and closed nothing.

“Where is everything actually stuck?”

What was said to the agent

What the agent built

Four leads placed by stage with values and next steps.

What changed

Everything was in first contact. The bottleneck was writing proposals, not finding work, and the fix was a proposal template rather than more marketing.

Better with

These do a different job on the same data. An agent can have all of them.

QuotesLive

Work is won by quoting, and revenue depends on following up the ones that went unanswered rather than writing more.

CompaniesLive

You sell to organisations, several people at each, and the relationship belongs to the company not the person.

ContactsLive

Almost any agent that talks to more than one person and needs to remember who they were. The default people module when nothing more specific fits.

Who uses this page

Venue manager

Answers availability and capacity questions instantly, and turns them into real bookings.

Estate agent

Qualifies buyers, answers property questions, and books viewings while you are at one.

Artisan or maker

Answers commission questions and captures the brief, while you stay at the bench.

Freelance developer

Filters the enquiries worth your time and scopes them before the first call.

Questions

What data does the Prospects / leads page use?

It reads lead records the agent has collected. Pipeline by stage. Nothing has to be imported first — the page appears once there is something to show.

Do I have to build or configure it?

No. You describe what you need in a sentence and the agent chooses the view and fills it. Custom pages exist for the cases no built-in view covers, and those are reviewed before they go live.

When is a kanban board the wrong choice?

Data with no natural stages — you get one very long column. It is best for: anything that moves through stages: leads, orders, applications.

Does it stay up to date?

Yes. The page is a view over the data rather than a copy of it, so anything the agent learns afterwards shows up without a rebuild or a re-import.