A Lead is an unqualified prospect. Leads live at Sales > Leads and move through a fixed status lifecycle. Converting a lead is the moment the shared graph gets richer: it produces a Contact, a Company and a Deal that all link back to the originating lead, so nothing is retyped.
Lead statuses and types
- NEW: just captured (form, import, API, manual). Nobody has touched it.
- WORKING: an SDR is actively contacting it, usually via a cadence.
- QUALIFIED: meets your criteria and is ready to convert.
- DISQUALIFIED: not a fit. Keep the record so it is not re-imported and re-worked.
- CONVERTED: became a Contact/Company/Deal. Read-only history from here.
- Lead type is MQL (marketing qualified) or SQL (sales qualified); SQL is what typically gets converted.
Working a lead
- 1Open Sales > Leads and filter by status NEW and your ownership.
- 2Open a lead and review source, company, title and any enrichment before reaching out.
- 3Log the first call or email; move the status to WORKING so managers see real activity.
- 4Optionally enroll the lead in a cadence from the lead screen (see Cadences & sequences).
- 5When the buyer confirms need, budget and timing, set the status to QUALIFIED (and type SQL).
- 6Use Convert to create the Contact, Company and Deal in one action.
What conversion creates
- A Contact (person) and a Company (account), matched to existing records where possible to avoid duplicates.
- A Deal in your default pipeline at its first stage, owned by the converting rep.
- Activity and notes stay attached and remain visible from the new Deal and Contact.
Do-Not-Contact: before any outreach, leads are checked against the suppression list (Sales > Suppression). A suppressed email or domain cannot be enrolled in cadences or emailed in bulk.
Visibility follows your role and field-level security. Some fields (for example owner or value-related fields) may be hidden or read-only depending on Settings > Field access.