Most roofing pipelines have too many stages and not enough triggers. A pipeline isn't a graveyard for old leads — it's a forcing function for the next action. Six stages, clear triggers, ruthless cleanup. That's it.
1. New Lead
Lead captured. Auto-text fired. SLA: five minutes to first human contact. If a lead sits here over 24 hours, it's lost — close it, learn from it, move on.
2. Inspection Booked
Date on the calendar. Reminder automation active. Trigger to move out: inspection completed (not just scheduled). A booking that no-shows resets to New Lead with a re-engagement task.
3. Inspection Complete
Photos uploaded, scope drafted. Trigger: estimate sent within 24 hours. Anything sitting here past 48 hours is a process leak — find which rep it is, fix the workflow.
4. Estimate Sent
Proposal delivered, follow-up sequence running. Most jobs die in this stage. Watch the time-in-stage report weekly. Anything over 14 days = call personally or close-lost. No middle ground.
5. Verbal Yes
Homeowner committed verbally but contract not signed. Automation fires DocuSign plus deposit link. SLA: signed within 72 hours or back to estimate-sent stage. Verbal yes is not a sale until paper says so.
6. Closed Won
Contract signed, deposit collected. Hands off to production. Pipeline job done. Trigger automation: post-install review request, 12-month maintenance ping, anniversary thank-you.
What NOT to track as stages
- →'Thinking about it' — it's not a stage, it's a stalled estimate
- →'Insurance pending' — that's a separate parallel pipeline, don't mix flows
- →'Cold' — leads aren't cold, follow-up is. Re-engage or close-lost
- →'Maybe next year' — close-lost with a 6-month re-engagement task
The metrics that matter
- →Conversion rate stage-to-stage
- →Average time-in-stage
- →Estimate-to-close ratio by sales rep
- →Source ROI by closed-won (not lead count)
Pipelines aren't about tracking what happened. They're about forcing what happens next.