Plain English
Before you can do anything with a client in the app, you need to understand what a pipeline is. A pipeline is a visual representation of every potential client you are working with, organized by where they are in the process of becoming a client. Each column in the pipeline represents a stage, and every company card sits in one column at a time. Your job as an Account Manager is to move companies through those stages by completing specific actions at each step.
The pipeline is not a record-keeping system. It is a decision-support tool. When you look at your pipeline, you should be able to answer three questions at a glance: Who needs attention from me today? What is the next action I need to take with each company? How close is each company to closing? If you cannot answer those three questions by looking at your pipeline, your pipeline is not being maintained correctly.
Section 1: The Pipeline Stages
The pipeline at app.thenorth.consulting has six stages. Each stage represents a defined point in the sales process, and each one has specific criteria that must be met before a company should be moved there.
The Stage: New
What it means: You have identified this company as a potential client but have not yet made meaningful contact. You may have found them through outreach, referral, inbound inquiry, or a networking connection. They exist in your pipeline because you believe they could be a good fit, but you have not yet confirmed that belief through a conversation.
What you should be doing at this stage: Your primary task is to make first contact and get a discovery call on the calendar. Before reaching out, do the preparation work described in Module 12. Look at their website. Identify their likely ICP category. Form a hypothesis about their three biggest operational problems. Know who you are reaching out to and read their stakeholder profile in the knowledge center. Contact without preparation is just noise.
What moves a company out of this stage: A scheduled discovery call or a meaningful initial response to your outreach that creates momentum toward a conversation. Do not move a company to Contacted simply because you sent an email. Move them when the contact has been acknowledged and there is a next step.
The Stage: Contacted
What it means: You have made meaningful contact and a discovery conversation has happened or is scheduled. You have begun the diagnostic process and have some initial information about the company's situation. You may have had one call or multiple, but you have not yet confirmed that the company is a qualified fit in terms of budget, need, and readiness.
What you should be doing at this stage: Continue discovery. Every conversation should deepen your understanding of their operational situation. Refer to the discovery framework in Module 12. Your goal is to gather enough information to know with confidence whether this company is a good fit and what the right starting point is. This is also the stage where you should run your first audit if discovery is progressing well.
What moves a company out of this stage: Confirmed fit and confirmed budget. The prospect has articulated a clear problem, you have a strong service recommendation in mind, and you know they have the financial capacity and organizational readiness to engage. Move to Qualified.
What disqualifies a company at this stage: If discovery reveals a clear bad-fit signal, do not string the company along. Refer to the ICP disqualifiers in Module 7 and the bad-fit detection content in the Closing track. Disqualifying early is not failure. It is professional judgment that protects your time for better-fit opportunities.
The Stage: Qualified
What it means: You have confirmed fit and budget through discovery. You understand what the company needs, you have a service recommendation and a sequencing rationale, and you know they are financially and organizationally ready to engage. This is the stage where you run the audit if you have not already, and where you prepare the proposal.
What you should be doing at this stage: Run the appropriate audit type in the app. Complete all sections. Review the score and the generated insights. Use the audit findings to anchor your proposal. A proposal sent without audit findings is weaker than a proposal built directly from the audit report because it lacks the diagnostic evidence that makes your recommendations feel inevitable.
What moves a company out of this stage: A completed proposal sent to the client. When you click send in the proposals section, the company moves to Proposal Sent.
The Stage: Proposal Sent
What it means: The proposal has been delivered and the client is reviewing it. The public proposal link is live and the client can view, run their own numbers, and accept directly from the proposal page.
What you should be doing at this stage: Follow up systematically. Do not send one proposal and wait indefinitely. A proposal sent cold is a proposal that dies. Send the proposal link in a personal email or message with a specific invitation to discuss it. Book a walkthrough call where you walk the client through the proposal live. The walkthrough call is where proposals close. Follow up again 48 to 72 hours after sending if you have not heard back.
What moves a company out of this stage: Either the client accepts the proposal, which moves the company to Won, or the client declines or goes quiet, which moves the company to Lost with a documented reason for why.
The Stage: Won
What it means: The proposal has been accepted. The client has provided their name and email on the proposal page and clicked "Accept and start onboarding." Onboarding begins within 24 hours of acceptance. The company moves to Won and the delivery process begins. From this point forward, the company is an active client.
What you should be doing at this stage: Initiate the onboarding process immediately. Refer to the Client Onboarding process page for the full step-by-step. Your primary job now shifts from sales to delivery management and relationship stewardship. The goal is to ensure the client's experience in the first two weeks matches or exceeds what you promised in the proposal.
The Stage: Lost
What it means: The engagement did not proceed. The client declined, went silent and unresponsive after multiple follow-ups, or was disqualified during the process.
What you should be doing at this stage: Document the reason the deal did not close. The app allows you to log a reason for lost deals. This information is not just for record-keeping. It informs how you approach similar companies in the future and helps leadership identify patterns across the pipeline. Common reasons include: budget not confirmed, timing not right, chose a competitor, no internal champion, bad-fit signals discovered late. Do not mark a deal Lost in the app without a documented reason.
Re-engagement note: Lost does not mean never. Companies that were not ready at the time of first contact often come back when their situation changes. Set a follow-up task for 60 to 90 days and check in with a value-add message rather than a pitch.
Section 2: How to Create a New Lead in the App
Step 1: Navigate to app.thenorth.consulting and sign in with your Account Manager credentials. The dashboard gives you a high-level view of your portfolio.
Step 2: In the top navigation, click "Clients." This opens the sidebar showing Pipeline, Companies, Contacts, Tasks, Audits, Proposals, Notes, and Activity.
Step 3: Click "Pipeline" in the sidebar. You will see the kanban board with all six stages.
Step 4: Click "New Lead" in the top right of the pipeline view. A form will open asking you for the company name, primary contact name, contact email, and phone number. Fill in what you know. You do not need every field to create the record.
Step 5: After creating the record, click the company card to open the company workspace. The company workspace is the single most important screen in the app. It shows you the deal value and probability, the next action and its due date, the credit balance, the latest audit, the latest proposal, the health indicator, the momentum score, and the full activity timeline.
Step 6: Immediately after creating a company record, do three things. First, add the primary contact to the People tab. Second, set a next action with a due date. The next action is the single most important field in the workspace because it tells you and anyone looking at the pipeline exactly what needs to happen next. Third, log any initial notes from your first contact in the Internal Notes tab.
Section 3: Logging Activity
Every interaction with a prospect or client must be logged in the app. This is not bureaucracy. It is how the pipeline stays accurate, how you hand off context when needed, and how leadership can support you effectively.
Log a note: Use this for written summaries of calls, emails, or meetings. The note is attached to the company record and shows in the timeline.
Log a call: Use this when you have completed a phone call with a contact at the company. Enter the date, duration, and a brief summary of what was discussed.
Send SMS: Use this to send a text message directly from the app. Sent messages are logged automatically to the company timeline.
Add a follow-up: This creates a task with a due date that appears in your Tasks view and in "My Day" on the Work page. Always set a follow-up after every meaningful interaction. Never leave a company without a next action defined.
Section 4: The Company Health Indicator
The app calculates a health score for each company using several signals. This score appears in the Companies table and on the company workspace.
Healthy: The company has been contacted recently, the next action is not overdue, and there is active momentum in the account.
Overdue: The next action due date has passed without being completed. This is the most common health signal and it means you need to take action today.
At Risk: Multiple signals indicate this account is losing momentum. The company may not have been contacted in a long time, the follow-up is significantly overdue, or there is a pattern of missed actions.
The warm score (shown as a number out of 100) reflects the current momentum of the account. It considers factors like recent contact, audit completion, proposal drafted, and overdue follow-ups.