GoHighLevel CRM Rules
Purpose: The rules that make GHL trustworthy. A CRM is only useful if everyone believes what's in it, and everyone only believes what's in it if the stages mean the same thing every time. Rosa enforces these rules; Marcus and the sales reps live by them. If the pipeline and reality disagree, fix the pipeline the same day.
Canonical pipeline stages
The sales pipeline is exactly these seven stages, in this order. No one adds, renames, or reorders stages without Dave's sign-off.
New Lead → Contacted → Estimate Scheduled → Estimate Sent → Follow-Up → Won → Lost
Emergency jobs skip ahead to Estimate Scheduled after triage, since the site visit is effectively already booked by the dispatch.
Stage entry and exit criteria
| Stage | You enter when... | You leave when... |
|---|---|---|
| New Lead | A lead lands from any source (form, call, GBP, answering service, referral). Contact record exists with at least name + one contact method + source. | First real contact attempt is made and logged. Target: within 15 minutes during business hours; next morning for overnight leads. |
| Contacted | A two-way conversation has happened, OR three outreach attempts are logged across two channels. | A site visit is booked (→ Estimate Scheduled) or the lead is disqualified (→ Lost, with reason). |
| Estimate Scheduled | A site visit is on the shared estimate calendar with date, time, address, and assigned estimator (usually Tara). | The estimate is sent (→ Estimate Sent), or the visit no-shows twice (see No-Show Process). |
| Estimate Sent | The written estimate has actually been delivered to the customer. Not drafted. Delivered, within 3 business days of the site visit. | Customer accepts (→ Won), declines (→ Lost), or 5 business days pass without a decision (→ Follow-Up). |
| Follow-Up | An estimate is out and the customer has gone quiet or asked for time. | Signed acceptance (→ Won), a clear no or 60 days of silence after the full follow-up sequence (→ Lost). |
| Won | Signed acceptance and, for remodels, the 30% deposit is received. Not verbal. Signed. | Terminal stage. Job hands off to Pete per Project Handoff SOP. |
| Lost | A clear no, a disqualification, or the follow-up sequence is exhausted. Lost reason is mandatory (price, timing, competitor, out of area, bad fit, unresponsive). | Terminal, but Lost leads with reason price/timing feed Lost Lead Reactivation. |
Tagging rules
Tags answer "what kind of lead is this?" Stages answer "where in the process is it?" Do not use tags to duplicate stage information.
- Service line (required, pick one primary):
roofing,exterior-restoration,remodeling,emergency-repair. - Source (required, set at intake):
google-ads,meta-ads,referral,seo-gbp,partner. The answering service's overnight entries default toseo-gbpuntil Rosa verifies next morning. - Situational (optional):
insurance-claim,property-manager,repeat-customer,storm-event. - Lowercase, hyphenated, from this list only. Rosa deletes invented tags weekly and retrains whoever created them.
Hygiene rules Rosa enforces
- Every opportunity has a next action with a date. No exceptions. An opportunity with no scheduled next step is drifting toward Lost by neglect.
- Log it or it didn't happen. Calls, texts, and emails with leads go through GHL or get logged in GHL the same day. Personal-phone conversations must be summarized in the contact's notes.
- No stage skipping except the documented emergency-jobs path. A lead cannot go New Lead → Estimate Sent; if that appears, the record is missing history.
- Stale-stage sweep every Friday. Rosa reviews anything sitting in Contacted > 7 days, Estimate Scheduled with a past visit date, or Estimate Sent > 5 business days, and chases the owner of each record.
- Duplicates merged weekly. Match on phone first, then email. Keep the older record, merge notes forward.
- Lost requires a reason. A Lost with no reason gets reopened and assigned back to the rep.
- Nobody edits pipeline automation (workflows, triggers) except Rosa, and changes are noted in the CRM changelog doc in Drive.
Who can do what in GHL
- Rosa: admin — stage definitions, workflows, tags, user accounts, merges.
- Marcus + sales reps: move their own opportunities through stages, log activity, send tracked SMS/email.
- Tara: updates estimate details and visit outcomes on her opportunities.
- Pete: read access for jobs in Won; does not move stages.
- Hermes agent: reads everything, drafts messages and note summaries, never sends externally and never changes a stage. Stage moves are human-only, always.
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