Lead stages in Salesforce should reflect a clear, linear qualification journey — not a sprawling list of overlapping statuses. The goal is to enforce process discipline: every prospect starts as a lead, moves through defined qualification gates, and only converts to an opportunity once it has earned that status.
This pattern was developed and validated during Quarra Stone's Salesforce implementation, where the existing stage set (new, working, nurturing, converted) was found to be ambiguous and insufficiently enforced.
| Stage | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Unqualified | Lead exists; qualification work has not yet begun or is incomplete |
| Qualified | BANT criteria sufficiently met; lead is a confirmed worthy pursuit |
| Working | Actively engaged with the lead; conversion in progress |
| Converted | Lead has been converted to an opportunity |
"Nurturing" and "Working" describe the same underlying state from different emotional angles — one implies passive follow-up, the other active pursuit. In practice, reps use whichever feels right in the moment, which erodes reporting consistency. Collapsing them into a single Working stage eliminates ambiguity without losing meaningful information.
"I don't even understand the difference between working and nurturing." — Lincoln Durham, Quarra Stone
Automations should enforce forward movement through stages based on objective criteria, not manual rep judgment alone.
A key process decision is to require all prospects to begin as leads — disabling the ability to create a standalone opportunity without a prior lead record. This prevents reps from bypassing the qualification process.
"If we allow people to just go straight to an opportunity, we're going to find that more and more that's all they do." — Lincoln Durham
The primary objection to mandatory leads had historically been the lack of a prospect number at the lead stage. Once prospect number automation is in place (see [2]), this objection is resolved and the enforcement becomes practical.
BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline) fields live on the lead record only. They serve as the qualification instrument that determines when a lead is ready to advance to "Qualified" status.
See [1] for field definitions and scoring rubrics.