What this is
This is a lead management system — a single place where every enquiry your business receives is recorded, given an owner, worked through to a decision, and measured.
Before a system like this, enquiries live in scattered places: a form inbox, a WhatsApp thread, an ad platform, someone’s spreadsheet, someone else’s memory. Leads get worked twice or not at all, and nobody can answer “how many enquiries did we get last month, and what happened to them?” without a manual count.
This system replaces that with one record per person. Every enquiry — however it arrived — becomes a lead with a history: who owns it, what stage it has reached, what was said, what happens next, and if it went nowhere, exactly why.
Who it is for
- Counsellors and sales staff — work a personal queue of leads and follow-ups.
- Managers and admins — assign work, watch the funnel, spot what is stalling.
- Business owners — see conversion, source performance and team output without asking anyone.
The one idea worth understanding
How a lead is described
A lead carries three separate labels. They are easy to confuse, so it is worth ten seconds each — nearly every report in the system is built on them.
Dimension one
Stage
How far through the funnel the lead has travelled. Always moves forward. Raw Data → Lead → Hot Lead → Unpaid Application → Paid Application → Admission Done.
Dimension two
Status
The current state of the conversation, independent of stage. Follow-up, Callback, No Response, Not Interested, Invalid, International Lead, Replace.
Dimension three
Sub-Status
The specific reason behind the status, chosen from a list that changes depending on the status above it. Not Interested → High Fee.
Why three and not one? Because “where they are” and “why they are stuck” are different facts. A lead can be a Hot Lead and currently Not Interested because the fee is too high. One label cannot hold both, and collapsing them is what makes most CRM reporting useless.
The payoff is real answers. “How many Hot Leads did we lose specifically to fee objections last quarter?” is a filter, not a research project.
Nobody types these in
Status and Sub-Status are always picked from a list — never typed. That is deliberate. The moment people type reasons freehand you get four separate answers to one question, and the report becomes noise.
Sub-Status also depends on Status: choose Callback and you are offered Busy, Driving, Meeting, Student Not Available, Disconnected Call, Language Barrier — and nothing else. Mismatched pairs are rejected by the system, not just discouraged.
Values are retired, never deleted
Getting leads in
Eight routes, all landing in the same place. Whichever way a lead arrives, it appears in the same list with its origin recorded — so source performance is measurable rather than anecdotal.
| Route | How it works | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Website forms | Build a form here, publish it at its own link, embed or share it | Course enquiry pages, landing pages |
| Meta Lead Ads | Facebook and Instagram lead forms deliver straight in, no download step | Paid social campaigns |
| Inbound messages to your business number create or match a lead | Click-to-WhatsApp ads, direct enquiries | |
| Bulk upload | Import a spreadsheet of existing contacts | Purchased lists, event scans, migrations |
| Referral links | Each staff member gets a personal link; leads auto-credit to them | Counsellor and partner referrals |
| Public API | Your own site or app posts leads in using a key | Custom integrations |
| Webhooks | Other tools push leads in as events happen | Third-party platforms |
| Manual entry | Add a lead directly | Walk-ins, phone calls, events |
Campaign tracking tags are captured automatically wherever they are present, so you can tell which advert produced which admission.
Who can see what
Four roles. A person’s role decides both which screens they can open and which leads they can see at all — the second part matters more.
| Area | Super Admin | Admin | Sales | Viewer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dashboard | ● | ● | ◐ | ◐ |
| Leads | ● | ● | ◐ | — |
| Pipeline board | ● | ● | ◐ | — |
| Follow-ups | ● | ● | ◐ | — |
| Communication | ● | ● | ◐ | — |
| My Referrals | ● | ● | ● | — |
| Reports | ● | ● | — | ● |
| Settings | ● | ● | — | — |
| Users | ● | — | — | — |
| Forms | ● | — | — | — |
| Webhooks | ● | — | — | — |
● Full access · ◐ Own leads only · — No access
Two things people trip over
Sales staff see only their own leads. Not a filter they can clear — the restriction is applied before any data is fetched, and it applies identically to the list, the counts, the charts and the export. A counsellor’s dashboard total is their total.
Viewer is a reporting role, not a junior one. A Viewer can open Reports and the Dashboard but cannot open the Leads list at all. It suits an accountant, a consultant or an investor who needs the numbers without access to personal contact details.
Blocking takes effect within five minutes
What it does
Working leads
| Feature | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Leads list | Every lead with search, filters, sorting and paging. Choose 10 to 200 rows, or load all. Drag down the rows to multi-select. |
| Card / table view | On phones, switch between a compact table and readable cards. |
| Lead detail | One screen per lead: contact details, source, score, stage, status, notes, follow-ups and full history. |
| Pipeline board | Columns per stage. Drag a card across to move the lead; totals update instantly. |
| Assignment | Give a lead an owner, or reassign hundreds at once from the list. |
| Notes & timeline | Every status change, assignment and note recorded with who did it and when. |
| Filters | Form, stage, status, sub-status, owner, assigned/unassigned, date range, state, city, stream and course — combinable, each removable as a chip. |
Making sure nothing is forgotten
| Feature | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Follow-ups | Schedule a task against a lead with a due date and priority. |
| Overdue / Today / Upcoming | Your work sorted by urgency automatically. |
| Reschedule | Push a task by a day, three days or a week in one click. |
| Row badges | Leads with something overdue or due today are flagged in the list itself. |
| Live notifications | Assignment, status change, conversion and follow-up alerts arrive instantly with a chime — no refresh. |
| Sidebar counter | An always-visible count of what is waiting for you. |
Understanding performance
| Feature | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | Totals, conversion rate, recent activity and stage breakdown at a glance. |
| Reports | Funnel, source performance, team output and trends over time. |
| Stage cards | A live count per stage across the top of the Leads list. |
| Excel export | Any filtered view downloads as a spreadsheet carrying those exact filters. |
| Per-user statistics | Leads held, converted, conversion rate and open follow-ups for each team member. |
Administration
| Feature | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Users | Invite staff, set roles, block or unblock, jump to anyone’s leads. |
| Settings | Define your own stages, statuses and sub-statuses, with colours. |
| Form builder | Create public enquiry forms with custom fields, no developer needed. |
| Webhooks & API keys | Connect Meta, WhatsApp and your own systems. |
| Search anywhere | Press ⌘K or Ctrl+K to jump to any page or find any lead by name. |
Why the export always matches the screen
A day in the system
This is the loop a counsellor repeats. Order matters here, so it is numbered — the rest of this document is a reference you can read in any order.
- 01
Open Follow-ups first, not Leads
Overdue at the top, then today. This is the day’s work, already prioritised. Starting in the Leads list means starting with whatever is newest rather than whatever is most urgent.
- 02
Work each lead from its own page
Open the lead, read the timeline to see what happened last, then make the call or send the message.
- 03
Record the outcome honestly
Set the Status and Sub-Status to what actually happened — including No Response → Switched Off. An honest dead end is worth more than an optimistic blank, because the reporting depends on it.
- 04
Move the Stage only if it really moved
Stage is the funnel position. A good conversation that changed nothing concrete does not advance the stage — the Status carries that news instead.
- 05
Book the next action before you close the lead
The single most important habit. A lead with no scheduled follow-up is a lead nobody is coming back to. If it is genuinely finished, mark it Not Interested with a reason and let it go.
- 06
Add a note if the next person would need it
Not a transcript — the one thing a colleague would want to know before calling. “Father handles the fees, call after 7pm.”
And for a manager
- Morning: Dashboard for last night’s intake; assign anything unassigned.
- Midday: Pipeline board — look for columns that are not moving.
- Weekly: Reports for source performance and per-counsellor output; filter Not Interested by sub-status to see what is really costing you deals.
Use cases
Concrete situations the system was built for, and how each one is handled.
A campaign launches and 600 leads arrive overnight
They land automatically from Meta — no downloading, no importing. In the morning the manager filters to Unassigned, selects them by dragging down the rows, and bulk-assigns them across the team. Every counsellor is notified instantly and the leads are in their queue before the first call.
A counsellor leaves
Open Users, block the account — they are signed out within five minutes. Their leads are untouched. Click through to view their leads, select all, and reassign to whoever is taking over. The full history of every lead moves with it.
The owner asks why conversion dropped last month
Filter Not Interested by sub-status. If High Fee has doubled, that is a pricing conversation. If Looking for Other College has doubled, that is a competitor. If Ringing No Response has doubled, that is a lead-quality or call-timing problem. Three very different answers that a single “Lost” label could never separate.
Two counsellors call the same person
Every lead has exactly one owner, shown on the row and on the lead page. Sales staff only see their own leads, so the situation mostly cannot arise — and if a lead is reassigned, the change is recorded with who did it and when.
A new counsellor starts on Monday
Invite them from Users with the Sales role. They receive an email with a temporary password and a link. They see only leads assigned to them, so there is nothing to explain about what they should or should not open. Their first day’s training is one screen: Follow-ups.
You want to know which advert produced an admission
Source and campaign tags are captured at the moment the lead arrives and stay on the record through to admission. Reports break conversion down by source, so spend can be judged on admissions rather than on clicks.
Someone enquires again six months later
Search their phone number or email. The original lead comes up with its full history — what they asked about, who spoke to them, and why it did not proceed last time. The follow-up conversation starts informed rather than from zero.
Setting it up
A one-time sequence, best done in this order because each step depends on the one before it.
- 01
Define your stages
Settings → Pipeline Stages. Name them as your business actually talks, not as a textbook does. These become your board columns, your filters and your funnel report.
- 02
Define statuses and sub-statuses
Settings → Status & Sub-Status. A standard set is supplied — add your own reasons and remove any that do not apply. Get this right early: it is the vocabulary your whole team will use for years.
- 03
Add your people
Users → Add user. Give each person the narrowest role that lets them do their job. Sales for counsellors; Admin only for people who genuinely manage others.
- 04
Build your enquiry forms
Forms → Create. Add the fields you need, publish, and share or embed the link.
- 05
Connect your channels
Webhooks. Link Meta Lead Ads and WhatsApp so leads flow in without anyone downloading a file.
- 06
Import what you already have
Bulk-upload your existing contacts last, once stages and statuses exist — so the imported leads land somewhere meaningful instead of needing a second pass.