Your leads board
A lead is something you are trying to sell — to somebody new, or to a client you already have. The board shows every open one, what it is worth, and how long it has sat still.
Work you have won lives in engagements. Work you are trying to win needs somewhere else, because it has none of the things an engagement has — no checklist, no fee agreed, sometimes not even a firm decision that you want it.
That is what Leads is: Work you are trying to win, and who you are trying to win it from.
A lead is the opportunity, not the person
This is the distinction the whole board rests on. The lead is What you are selling — The opportunity, not the client. "Year-end 2026", "Advisory". Who you are selling it to is a separate field.
And that person is one of two things:
- Somebody new — they become a prospect. They become a prospect — not a client — until they buy something.
- A client you have — an existing client you are selling more work to. The board marks these so you can tell new business from more business.
A prospect is not a client. They have no portal, no engagements and no documents, and they do not appear in your client list until something is actually sold to them.
The columns you start with
A lead moves left to right:
- New — it just arrived.
- Qualifying — you are working out whether it is real.
- Negotiating — you are talking price and scope.
- Awaiting answer — the proposal is out and the client has not replied.
- Closed — won or lost.
That is the board you start with, not the board you are stuck with. Open Lead settings and the early columns are yours — The columns a lead moves through before you send a proposal. Name them however your firm talks about them — drag the arrows to reorder.
Rename them, reorder them, add the step your firm actually has, delete one you never use. Up to twelve.
The last two are the exception, and they look after themselves. A lead sits in Awaiting answer while its proposal is out, and moves to Closed the moment the client accepts or declines. You do not drag a lead into those — the proposal decides, so the board cannot go stale.
Two ways to look at it
Board is the pipeline view — columns, cards, and the value in play at the top. List is the same leads as rows you can sort and filter: Longest quiet, Highest value, by owner, prospects only or existing clients only. Export takes the list to a spreadsheet.
Every card carries how long it has sat still. Longest quiet is usually the honest sort order — the deal you have forgotten is worth more attention than the one you spoke about yesterday.
Adding one by hand
- Open Leads and choose New lead.
- Say who you are selling to — Somebody new with their name and email, or pick a client you already have.
- Name what you are selling. Year-end 2026 reads better in three months than "enquiry".
- Put a value on it if you have quoted one. Leave blank if you have not quoted it yet.
Who is answerable for it
A lead can name an Owner — {name} — answerable for this lead — and you can add other people alongside them. A lead nobody has taken shows Nobody yet, which is a state worth looking for on a Monday morning.
Notes on a lead are internal: Add an internal note — your team only. Nothing there is ever visible to the person you are selling to.
Next: enquiries from your website puts a form on your own site that feeds this board, and chasing a lead covers the follow-ups that happen without you.