Key takeaways
- Lead and prospect are stages; contact is the record that moves through them.
- A lead becomes a prospect when someone checks it against your ideal customer profile.
- An opportunity belongs to a deal, and one deal can involve several contacts.
- Write down the entry rule for each stage so reports mean the same thing to everyone.
What is a lead
A lead is anyone who might become a customer but has not yet been checked by a person. They may have filled in a form, stopped at your stand at an event or turned up in a search for your target market.
Most leads never buy, and that is normal. The point of the lead stage is to hold people until someone decides whether they deserve a seller's time.
What makes a lead a prospect
A lead becomes a prospect once someone has checked it against your ideal customer profile and decided to reach out properly. The check is usually about fit: the right industry, size, location and role.
Be aware that some teams use the words the other way round, calling an outbound target a prospect and an inbound enquiry a lead. Neither is wrong. What causes trouble is two teams in one company using different meanings and then comparing numbers.
Lead vs contact: are they the same record
No, a contact is the record and lead or prospect is a stage on that record. The same person stays one contact as they move from lead to prospect to customer.
Some CRMs keep leads in a separate table and convert them into contacts later. That works, but it is easy to end up with the same person twice. Holding the stage as a field on one contact record avoids the duplicate.
Prospect vs lead vs opportunity: where does the deal start
The deal starts when a prospect agrees there is a problem worth solving and a next step, and you attach an expected value and close date. That record is the opportunity, and it usually belongs to the company rather than to one person.
Keeping the opportunity separate from the people matters in larger sales. A buyer, a user and someone from finance can all be contacts on one opportunity, each at their own stage of engagement.
How should these stages move in a CRM
Each stage should have one written entry rule, so anyone can tell why a record sits where it does. Without the rules, stages turn into opinions and pipeline reports stop meaning anything.
- Lead: created when a person enters the CRM from a form, an event, an import or a search.
- Prospect: set when the fit check passes and someone owns the outreach.
- Opportunity: opened when a need, a buyer and a next step are confirmed.
- Closed won or closed lost: set with a reason, so the rules can improve.
Lead, prospect, contact and opportunity side by side
A quick reference; adjust the entry rules to your own sales process.
| What it describes | Typical entry rule | |
|---|---|---|
| Lead | A person who might buy | Arrives from any source, unchecked |
| Prospect | A lead chosen for active outreach | Passes the fit check against your ideal customer profile |
| Contact | Any person record in the CRM | Exists at every stage, from lead to customer |
| Opportunity | A possible deal with a value | Need, buyer and next step confirmed |
Where Pebbles Ai fits
- CapabilityProspecting & customer recordsLeads from Find fresh leads land as contacts in a segment, and an admin can add a Choice custom field for the stages your team uses. Deals hold the stage, amount, currency, close date and probability, so the opportunity sits apart from the people on it. The CRM is in Beta.
- FoundationIntegrationsIf your team keeps records in Attio or Pipedrive, the assistants can read them and create or update them through MCP, each write an approval action under your execution mode.
Common questions
Is a prospect always a qualified lead?
A prospect has passed a fit check, which is the first half of qualification. Confirming need, authority and timing usually takes a conversation, so many teams treat that as a later step.
Can a customer be a lead again?
Yes, for a new product or another team in the same company. Most teams open a new opportunity for it rather than changing the contact's stage back.
Who decides when a lead becomes a prospect?
Whoever owns the fit check, often marketing or a sales development representative. Agree the rule in writing so the hand-over is not argued case by case.
About this page. Written by the Pebbles Ai team for people who run sales, marketing and growth. Last updated .
