Molding Mart · Sales Team

The CRM handbook

Everything you need to work a lead in GoHighLevel: what the menu items do, how to open a card, where to write notes, where your tasks live, how to text or email a customer, and how to find anything in ten seconds. Screens in this guide are our own account, so what you see here is what you will see at work.

01Why we work this way

Right now a request can reach us three ways: the phone rings, someone fills a form on the website, or a call comes in when nobody can pick up. The phone calls get handled because the phone is loud. The rest quietly pile up.

Here is the number that started all of this: our shared inbox in the CRM currently shows 627 unread conversations. Every one of them is a person who wanted molding and did not get an answer from us. They did not stop needing baseboards, they just bought them somewhere else.

What the CRM does for you, not to you It remembers who you promised to call back, it tells you when a quote has been sitting for a day, and it keeps the whole story of a customer in one place, so when someone calls back and asks about the price you gave last week, you can see it in two seconds instead of guessing.

02Three words to learn first

The CRM uses three words for three different things. Once these click, the rest of the app makes sense.

Word	What it really is	Example
Contact	A person. One phone number, one email, one human being. It never disappears.	Mike Sanders, (916) 555-0134
Opportunity	One request from that person. We also call it a deal or a card. The same contact can have several: three projects, three cards.	Mike asking about crown molding for his kitchen
Pipeline and Stage	The board and its columns. The pipeline is called `Leads`. A stage is one column on it, and it answers one question: what is happening with this request right now.	The card sits in the `Quote Sent + Call Today` column

Stage is not the same as Status

Stage is the column your card sits in: New Website Leads, Quote Sent + Call Today, Negotiations and so on. You move it by hand as the conversation moves forward.

Status is the final answer for the whole deal, and there are only three: Won, Lost, or Open while it is still alive. Won you set yourself, once the invoice is paid: put the amount from QuickBooks in Value and mark the deal Won. Lost you do by hand too, and it always needs a reason.

03The menu: your three rooms

The dark strip on the left is the main menu. It has a lot of items, and most of them are not yours. You live in three.

Menu item	What it holds	When you open it
Conversations	Every call, text and email with every customer, newest first.	First thing in the morning, and whenever a message comes in.
Opportunities	The board with all live requests, sorted into columns.	This is your work surface. It should be open all day.
Contacts	People and their whole history, plus the tasks list under the `Tasks` tab.	When you need to look someone up, or to see what is due today.

Everything else in that menu (Marketing, Automation, Sites, Reporting, Settings) belongs to the marketing side. You will not break anything by clicking, but there is nothing there for your job.

04Opportunities: the board

Open Opportunities in the left menu. Every card is one request. Every column is a stage. Work moves left to right: New Website Leads, Pending Our Answer, Quote Sent + Call Today, Follow up 1 (After-Quote), Negotiations, Visit Expected, Pending for a Week, Order Placed. The full path with every turn is on the workflow map. New Calls is for phone calls and is not part of this flow yet: leave those cards alone until you hear otherwise.

The Opportunities board with stage columns and deal cards — The board. The pipeline selector at the top left says `Leads`, and each column header shows how many cards are in it.

What is on the screen

The pipeline selector (top left, says Leads). We have one pipeline, so leave it alone.
The two small icons next to it switch between the board view and a plain list view. The board is easier to work, the list is easier to scan.
Advanced filters and Sort narrow the board down. See section 10.
Search opportunities finds a card by the customer name or phone number inside the board.
Add opportunity creates a card by hand. You rarely need it: calls and web forms create cards on their own.

Moving a card

Drag the card into the next column, or open it and change the Stage field inside. Both do exactly the same thing. Moving a card is not a big deal and it is not permanent: if you put it in the wrong column, drag it back.

The one thing that is not allowed Leaving a card in New Website Leads once the quote is out, or in Pending Our Answer past the morning. Those two columns are an inbox, not a parking lot. Whatever is still in New Website Leads at closing moves to Pending Our Answer by itself, and that column is the first thing you clear the next morning, before any new lead. Those people have been waiting the longest.

05Inside a deal card

Click any card and this window opens. The title bar says Edit and then the name of the deal.

The deal card window with contact details and opportunity details — The deal card. On the left are the tabs, in the middle the fields, at the bottom the `Update` button.

The tabs on the left

Opportunity details: the fields you see above.
Book or update appointment: only if you are scheduling something on a calendar.
Tasks: what has to be done on this deal and when.
Notes: the story of the deal in words. You will use this one the most.
Payments and Associated objects: not part of your job today.

The fields that matter

Field	What it is for
`Primary contact name`	Who this is. If it says a phone number instead of a name, ask for the name on the next call and fix it here.
`Primary phone` and `Primary email`	How to reach them. An empty email is worth filling in: it is how we send quotes.
`Opportunity name`	The name on the card. Make it useful: Mike Sanders, crown molding, kitchen beats New Call.
`Pipeline` and `Stage`	The board and the column. Changing `Stage` here is the same as dragging the card.
`Status`	Open, Won or Lost. See section 2: both Won and Lost you set yourself, Won after the invoice is paid, Lost always with a reason.
`Value`	The order amount in dollars, exactly as invoiced in QuickBooks. You fill it in once the invoice is paid, right before you mark the deal Won. A Won deal without a Value is a sale nobody can count.
`Owner`	Whose deal this is. If it says `Unassigned`, put your own name there when you start working it, otherwise the tasks land on nobody.

Nothing is saved until you press Update Changed a field and closed the window with Cancel or the cross? Nothing happened. The same is true the other way round: press Update and the change is live for everyone.

Getting from the deal to the person

The small icon next to Contact details at the top of the card opens the contact behind this deal, with their full history. To come back, use the browser back button or open the deal again from the board. See section 8 for the trip in the other direction.

06Notes: no note, no move

A note is a short piece of text attached to the deal. It is how the next person, or you in three weeks, knows what happened.

The Notes tab inside a deal with an automatic call transcript — Notes inside a deal. The long one here was written by the system: every phone call is transcribed automatically and dropped in as a note.

The call transcript is already there You do not have to retype what was said on the phone. The system records the call, writes it out and posts it as a note signed Created by: Workflow. Your note adds the part the transcript cannot know: what you decided, what you promised, and by when.

The rule: no note, no move A card does not move to Quote Sent + Call Today, Negotiations, Visit Expected, Order Placed or Lost until the note on it is filled in. A moved card with an empty note tells the next person nothing: not what the customer wanted, not what we said, not what happens next. If it is not in the note, it did not happen.

The note is already started for you

When a website lead comes in, the system opens a note on the deal with four lines. The first one is filled in from the form. You fill in the other three after the call, in the same note:

What the system leaves on the deal

Product: Craftsman MDF baseboard 9/16 x 5-1/4
Qty:
Quoted:
Next:

What it looks like after your call

Product: Craftsman MDF baseboard 9/16 x 5-1/4
Qty: 240 ft (15 pcs), plus matching casing
Quoted: $0.89/ft, $214 total, 180 ft in stock, rest lands Thursday
Next: he checks measurements tonight and calls back tomorrow; if not, I call Wed morning

Qty. From the real conversation, not from the form. People change their mind once they hear a price.

Quoted. The price you gave, per foot and total, plus stock and delivery if you discussed them. No price yet? Write why: waiting on stock check.

Next. What you agreed and when. Then put the same date on the task (section 7).

Not useful

Talked to customer. Will follow up.

Keep the four labels exactly as they are: Product, Qty, Quoted, Next. We read these notes across all deals later to see what people ask for and what we quote, and that only works when every note is built the same way.

Notes also live on the contact, not just the deal. Same idea, same button, and that is where you look when someone calls about a job from four months ago.

The Notes panel on a contact card — Notes on the contact card, opened from the icon strip on the right edge.

07Tasks: what to do today

A task is a reminder with a due date and a name on it. Most of ours are created by the system, you only change the date when the customer gave you a different one:

A website lead comes in: a task Send the quote today appears by itself.
The card moves to Quote Sent + Call Today: a task Call about the quote appears by itself, due 4:00 PM today.
The card moves to Follow up 1 (After-Quote): a task for 8:00 AM tomorrow appears by itself.
In Negotiations and Pending for a Week nothing appears by itself: you set the task, for the day the customer named or the day you plan to try again.

An overdue task is not the end of the world, but it is visible: the task list shows who calls on time and who does not. Call, then tick it off, or move the date if the customer asked for a different day.

No task for the next step means the work is not done Every open deal has a task with a date on it. The note says what you agreed, the task makes sure you act on it. A deal with no task is a customer waiting on nobody.

The Tasks tab inside a deal card — Tasks inside one deal. `+ Add task` creates one, and it belongs to this deal only.

Where all your tasks live

This is the screen most people never find, and it is the one that runs your day. Open Contacts in the left menu, then the Tasks tab at the top.

The tasks list with Due today, Overdue and Upcoming filters — The task list, with filters for `All`, `Due today`, `Overdue` and `Upcoming`, plus filters by assignee and status.

Due today is your work list for the shift.
Overdue is the one that must be empty before you go home. Anything sitting there is a customer waiting on us.
Assignee filters down to your own tasks instead of the whole team.

Closing a task is part of the job Called the customer? Tick the task off. Nobody can tell the difference between a call you made and never marked, and a call that never happened. If you cannot do it today, change the due date instead of leaving it red.

08Contacts: the person and their history

Contacts in the left menu opens the list of every person we have ever spoken with. Ours currently holds 789 of them.

The contacts list with name, phone, email and last activity columns — The contact list. Columns show phone, email, when the contact was created and when we last heard from them.

The contact card

Click a name and the card opens in three columns: details on the left, the conversation in the middle, activity on the right.

A contact card with details, conversation and activity columns — The contact card. On the far right is a strip of icons: activity, associations, opportunities, tasks, notes, appointments and more.

Left column: name, phone, email, tags, owner, and our own fields Last Asked Product, Last Given Price and Last Given amount of lf.
Middle column: every call, text and email with this person, oldest at the top.
Right column: where they came from. Source: Direct traffic plus the page of the website they were looking at when they called. That tells you what they want before you say hello.

From the person to their deals and back

The icon strip on the right edge of the contact card has an Opportunities button. It lists every deal this person has with us, which stage each one sits in, and its status.

The opportunities panel inside a contact card — Deals of one contact: pipeline and stage on top (`Leads > New Calls`), then the deal name, value and status.

The trip in the other direction is the plate inside the conversation that says Opportunity and the deal name, with a Details link on the right. That link opens the deal card from section 5.

09Talking to customers from the CRM

Conversations in the left menu is the shared inbox: calls, texts and emails from everyone, in one stream.

The Conversations screen with the team inbox, a call recording and the message box — Conversations. The inbox is on the left, the thread in the middle, contact details on the right.

The inbox filters

Unread: nobody has opened these yet. This is the pile we are digging out of.
All: everything, read or not.
Recent: the newest activity first.
Starred: threads you marked yourself, using the star icon at the top of a thread.

Call recordings and transcripts

A phone call shows up in the thread as a player with a play button and a length. Under it there is a View Transcript link with the whole conversation in text. Faster than listening, and searchable.

Sending a text or an email

Open the thread with the customer.

Look at the bottom of the middle column: there is a box that says Type a message.

To the left of that box is a small icon that shows the current channel, normally SMS. Click it to switch between SMS and Email.

Type and send. The message goes out from the store number or the store email, not from your personal phone.

Why send from here and not from your own phone Everything you send from the CRM is attached to the customer forever, and any of us can see it. A text from your personal phone exists only on your phone. When you are off that day and the customer calls back, nobody knows what you promised.

Incoming texts

They land in the same inbox as calls, marked with a message icon instead of a phone. Customers do reply to our texts: in August five people wrote to us and got no answer back, because nobody was watching this screen. Now somebody is.

10Search and filters

Finding a person fast

The quickest way is the search box at the very top of the left menu, or the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + K. It searches by name, phone number and email at once. A phone number works with or without dashes.

Searching inside one screen

Where you are	What to use	What it searches
The board	`Search opportunities`	Deal names, which include the customer name or phone
Contact list	`Search Contacts`	Name, phone, email
Inside a deal, Notes tab	`Search notes`	The text of the notes, transcripts included
Task list	`Filters` plus `Assignee`	Tasks by person, status and due date

Filters worth setting once

On the board: Advanced filters to show only your own deals, so the column counts mean something to you.
On the task list: Due today plus your own name in Assignee.
In the inbox: Unread, and work it until it is empty.

11Your day in the CRM

When	What you open	What done looks like
Start of the shift	The board, column `Pending Our Answer`; then `Contacts` → `Tasks` → `Overdue`, then `Due today`	Yesterday's leads have their quote, and you know who you owe a call before the first customer walks in
Through the day	The board, plus `Conversations` when something new lands	Every card you touched has a filled note and a task with a date, and no card is left in the first column
New lead comes in	The card appears by itself, with a task and a started note	The quote went out from the card today, the card is in `Quote Sent + Call Today`, and you called about it by 4:00 PM
End of the shift	`Overdue` one more time	The list is empty, or the leftovers have a new date and a note explaining why

12Quick answers

The customer called me back before I called them

Great. Handle the call, write the note, move the card to the right stage, and tick off the task that told you to call. Do not leave it open: a task with no purpose left is noise for everyone.

The form has no product in it

Nothing to price yet. Call first, ask what they need, then send the quote from the card and move on to Quote Sent + Call Today as usual.

Two calls, no answer, but I think this one is worth it

A contractor, a big order, someone who clearly meant it: move the card to Pending for a Week instead of Lost, write in the note why, and set your own tasks for the calls. Reach them and move the card on. Seven days with no movement and the system closes it as Lost by itself.

I cannot find a deal I know exists

Two usual reasons. Either a filter is on and hiding it (check Advanced filters on the board), or the deal is already closed and dropped off the open view. Search the contact by phone with Ctrl + K, open their card, and look at the Opportunities panel on the right: it shows every deal they ever had, closed ones included.

Two cards for the same person

That is allowed and often correct. One contractor with three jobs is three separate deals. Two cards for the same job is a duplicate: keep the one with the notes, and close the other as Lost with the reason Not a customer.

The lead came in after hours

It sits in New Website Leads overnight and moves to Pending Our Answer at closing like any other. First thing in the morning: quote, then the call.

A contractor is only asking for a price

If there is no project behind it, close the deal as Lost with the reason Question about material. That is not a failure, it is how we learn how much of our phone time goes to price checks.

I moved the card and forgot the note

Open the card, fill in Qty, Quoted and Next in the note that is already there, check the task has the right date. Do it now, while you still remember the call: tomorrow the details are gone.

I moved a card to the wrong stage

Drag it back. Nothing is lost, nothing is reported, no alarm goes off. The only thing that hurts is a card left in the wrong place quietly.

I need to see what was said on a call I did not take

Open the deal or the contact, go to Notes: the transcript is there in text. If you want to hear the tone, the recording is in the conversation thread with a play button.