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Lead Management7 min read

Lead Management

You have 47 leads in your pipeline. Some came from your website form last week. Some are business cards from a trade show three months ago. Some are referrals that your sales rep "will get to soon." The average response time? 42 hours. By then, the prospect has already spoken to two competitors. The problem isn't that you don't have leads — it's that you have no system to prioritise, track, and convert them before they go cold.

Leads and contacts are different things

This is a distinction most small businesses skip — and it costs them. A lead is someone who has shown interest but hasn't been qualified yet. A contact is someone you've decided is worth pursuing — they've been vetted, they have a real need, and they're in your sales process.

When you dump leads and contacts into the same bucket, your sales team wastes time on unqualified prospects while qualified ones slip through the cracks. TatvaCRM keeps them separate by design — leads live in their own module with their own workflow, and they graduate to contacts only when they're ready.

  • Just expressed interest — not yet qualified
  • Source known (website, referral, event) but needs unclear
  • No deal attached — too early for pipeline
  • Needs scoring and initial outreach
  • May never convert — and that’s fine

Four statuses, one clear workflow

TatvaCRM uses four simple statuses for leads. No complex lifecycle charts, no 10-stage funnels — just four clear states that tell you exactly where every lead stands.

New
Just arrived. No one has reached out yet. This is your inbox — every lead starts here. The goal is to move leads out of "New" within 24 hours. Anything sitting here longer than that is a missed opportunity.
Contacted
You've made the first outreach — email, call, or WhatsApp. Now you're waiting for a response or scheduling a deeper conversation. The activity log tracks every touchpoint so nothing gets lost.
Qualified
This lead has a real need, a real budget, and a real timeline. They're worth pursuing. Qualified leads are your conversion-ready pool — these are the ones that should become contacts and deals.
Converted
Done. This lead has been converted into a contact (and optionally a deal and company). The lead record stays in your history for reporting, but the real action moves to your pipeline.

Simple doesn't mean limited. You can filter leads by status, sort by score, and see at a glance how many leads are stuck in each stage. If 80% of your leads are sitting in "Contacted" for weeks, you know your qualification process needs attention.

Lead scoring

It's Thursday afternoon. You have 20 minutes before your next meeting and 12 leads that need attention. Which ones do you call first? Without scoring, you either go top-to-bottom (random) or pick the ones you remember (biased). Neither is a strategy.

TatvaCRM lets you assign a numeric score to every lead. The scoring is manual and intentional — your team decides what makes a lead hot based on your business context:

  • Budget confirmed — the prospect has mentioned a specific budget or range
  • Decision-maker engaged — you're talking to the person who signs the cheque, not a gatekeeper
  • Timeline exists — they need a solution within weeks or months, not "someday"
  • Inbound source — they came to you (website, referral) rather than a cold list
  • Company size fit — they match your ideal customer profile in terms of team size or revenue

Sort your leads by score and work top-down. Your 20 minutes are now spent on the three leads most likely to convert — not the three that happened to be at the top of the list.

One-click conversion

When a lead is qualified and ready to enter your sales pipeline, you don't need to manually create a contact, then a company, then a deal, then link them together. TatvaCRM does it all in one click. Hit "Convert" and three things happen simultaneously:

A contact is created — all the lead's information (name, email, phone, source, notes) transfers automatically. No re-typing, no copy-pasting.
A deal is created — linked to the new contact, placed in the first stage of your pipeline, ready to be worked. The deal value and title carry over from the lead if set.
A company is created (if the lead had a company name) — the contact is linked to the company, giving you the full organisational picture from day one.

The lead's status changes to "Converted" and the record stays in your lead history for reporting. You can see exactly which sources produce the most conversions, how long the average lead takes to convert, and where leads drop off.

Lead → Contact + Deal + Company
One click. Zero data loss. Instant pipeline entry.

Frequently asked questions

Can I import leads from a spreadsheet?

Yes. TatvaCRM supports CSV import for leads. Map your spreadsheet columns to lead fields, preview the import, and bring in hundreds of leads in one go. Available on paid plans.

What happens to the lead after conversion?

The lead's status changes to "Converted" and the record stays in your lead list for historical reporting. The actual work moves to the newly created contact and deal in your pipeline. You can always trace a deal back to its original lead.

Is lead scoring automatic?

Currently, lead scoring in TatvaCRM is manual — your team assigns scores based on their conversations and qualification criteria. This is intentional: manual scoring forces your reps to actually think about each lead rather than blindly trusting an algorithm.

How many leads can I have on the free plan?

The free plan includes up to 250 total records (contacts, leads, companies, and deals combined). For most small businesses starting out, that's plenty to validate the system before upgrading.

Ready to stop losing leads?

Start free. No credit card. 2,000 records included.