How do I create and work a deal through the pipeline?

Create a new deal, connect it to the right contact and company, and move it through your pipeline's stages as the opportunity progresses.

A deal is a potential sale moving toward a close. Your pipeline is the set of stages it passes through — your system was set up with stages that match how your business actually sells.

• Create the deal and associate it with the contact and company it's for, so everything stays connected.
• Fill in the key details your team tracks — amount, close date, and any fields that matter for reporting.
• Move it through the stages as things progress. Keeping the stage accurate is what makes your pipeline and forecast trustworthy.
• Be disciplined about your stage gates:
  • Criteria for moving into a stage
  • Criteria for moving out
  • A specific action performed by your team or your prospect
  That's what keeps the pipeline reportable and accurate. 
• Use automatic deal tagging to flag deals that have upcoming close dates or when there hasn't been activity for an extended period of time or the next activity is not scheduled
• Use deal scoring to help your team see which opportunities need attention first. When it’s available in your HubSpot tier, scoring can help surface deals that may be at risk of stalling so you can stay focused on the opportunities most likely to need action.
• Your CRM shouldn't be counting on you to update information manually. It should be watching and listening to you and helping you progress deals.
• Let AI guide your next step: HubSpot now includes an AI note taker that reviews meeting transcripts and suggests deal progression and follow-up actions. That helps your team see what should happen next without relying on manual review, so you can spend more time on the work that actually moves revenue forward.

A pipeline full of stale deals helps no one. If you're unsure which stage something belongs in, your team likely has a definition for each — check your job aids or ask your internal admin.