Using the CRM

Your email list tells you who's interested. The CRM is where you turn that interest into revenue — tracking each opportunity as a deal that moves through a pipeline of stages until it's won or lost. This guide walks through everything from your first pipeline to logging a sales call.

You'll find the CRM under Contacts in the left-hand navigation, on the CRM tab. It opens on your pipeline board — a set of columns, one per stage, with a card for every deal. If this is a brand-new workspace, BlueyEmail has already set up a Sales Pipeline with six stages so you have somewhere to start.

What the CRM is made of

Five building blocks work together. Once you know what each one is for, the rest of the CRM clicks into place.

• Pipelines — the path a sale travels, broken into ordered stages (for example, *Lead → Qualified → Proposal → Won*). You can run more than one, say a sales pipeline and an onboarding pipeline.
• Deals — a single opportunity moving through a pipeline. Each deal has a value, an expected close date, an owner, and a linked contact. This is the thing you actually manage day to day.
• Companies — the organizations you sell to. A company groups the individual contacts who work there and the deals tied to it, so you see the whole account in one place.
• Tasks — the to-dos attached to a deal: *call back Thursday*, *send the contract*. Tasks keep follow-ups from slipping.
• Notes & activities — the running history on a deal. Notes are free-form context; activities log the things that happened — a call, a meeting, an email — so anyone can catch up at a glance.

Set up a pipeline and its stages

A pipeline should mirror how you actually sell. Most teams do well with four to six stages — enough to see progress, few enough that every deal clearly belongs in one. You can rename, reorder, add, or remove stages at any time.

1. 1

   Open CRM → Pipelines

   From the CRM board, use the pipeline switcher at the top to manage pipelines, or click New pipeline to start a fresh one.

2. 2

   Name the pipeline

   Give it a clear name like "Sales" or "Partnerships" so teammates know which process it represents.

3. 3

   Define your stages

   Add a stage for each step of your process and put them in the order a deal travels — for example, New, Contacted, Qualified, Proposal, Negotiation, Won.

4. 4

   Reorder as needed

   Drag stages left or right to match your real flow. The board columns follow the stage order.

5. 5

   Save

   Your board redraws with a column for each stage, ready for deals.

Add a deal

A deal is one opportunity. The more accurately you fill it in, the more useful your reports become — value and expected close date are what power your forecast.

1. 1

   Click New deal

   From the board, click New deal (or the + on a stage column to drop it straight into that stage).

2. 2

   Name it

   Use a name you'll recognize at a glance, like "Acme — annual plan".

3. 3

   Link a contact

   Attach the person you're selling to. Start typing to search your existing contacts, so the deal ties back to their history.

4. 4

   Set the value

   Enter the amount the deal is worth if it closes. This feeds your pipeline value and forecast.

5. 5

   Set an expected close date

   Your best estimate of when it'll close. The forecast groups deals by this date, so it's worth keeping honest.

6. 6

   Assign an owner

   Choose the teammate responsible for the deal so it shows up in their view and nothing falls through the cracks.

7. 7

   Save

   The deal appears as a card in its stage, ready to move.

Move a deal through the pipeline

As a conversation progresses, move the deal forward. On the board, drag a deal card from one stage column to the next — the change saves instantly and is logged on the deal's timeline.

• Drag a card right as the deal advances, or left if it slips back a step.
• Open a card to edit its value or close date as the deal firms up — early estimates rarely survive contact with the customer.
• When it closes, drag it to Won or Lost (or open the deal and use the Won / Lost buttons at the top). Winning a deal counts it toward revenue; losing one records why so your reporting stays honest.

Companies: see the whole account

When you sell to a business rather than an individual, a company record pulls everything about that account together — every contact who works there and every deal you have open with them.

1. 1

   Open the Companies tab

   Switch to Companies within the CRM, then click New company.

2. 2

   Add the details

   Enter the company name and any details you have — website, industry, size.

3. 3

   Link contacts

   Attach the people from your audience who work at that company. They now roll up under the account.

4. 4

   View the account's deals

   Open a company to see all of its linked contacts and every deal tied to it in one place — handy before a renewal or a multi-stakeholder sale.

Tasks, notes, and logging activities

Open any deal to find its detail view, where the day-to-day work happens. This is where you keep follow-ups on schedule and leave a trail your whole team can follow.

Tasks keep follow-ups on track

• Add a task like "Send proposal" or "Call back Friday" with a due date, right on the deal.
• Assign it to yourself or a teammate so ownership is clear.
• Check tasks off as you complete them — open tasks surface in your reports so nothing gets forgotten.

Notes capture context

Notes are free-form. Drop in what was said on a call, a link to a contract, or a reminder about the buyer's priorities. Everything you write is timestamped and stays on the deal for good.

Activities record what happened

Log an activity each time something real occurs — a call, a meeting, an email exchange. Choose the activity type, add a short summary, and it lands on the deal's timeline alongside notes, tasks, form submissions, and email history so the full story of the relationship reads top to bottom.

Reports: forecast, win rate, and funnel

The CRM's reports turn your board into numbers you can act on. You don't set anything up — they read from the deals you're already tracking.

• Forecast — the total value of open deals, grouped by their expected close date, so you can see what revenue is on the horizon this month or quarter. Keep close dates honest and the forecast stays trustworthy.
• Win rate — the share of closed deals you won versus lost. A useful pulse on how well opportunities are converting over time.
• Funnel — how many deals sit in each stage and where they drop off. If deals pile up at one stage, that's the bottleneck to work on.

Let deals open themselves

You don't have to create every deal by hand. BlueyEmail can open deals for you the moment a contact shows they're sales-ready, so your pipeline fills without anyone watching the inbox.

• From automations — add a Create a CRM deal step to any automation. When a contact reaches it — say, after they cross a lead-score threshold or reply to a sequence — a new deal appears in the pipeline and stage you choose, already linked to that contact.
• From forms — a high-intent form submission (a demo request or "contact sales") can flow through an automation that opens a deal, so a hand-raise becomes a tracked opportunity instantly.