Build a Custom Sales Pipeline Aligned with Your Process

Building a sales pipeline is easy. Building the right one is what drives growth.

A generic setup won't cut it anymore.

If your sales team of 20–50 people is still stuck with outdated stages or bloated CRM fields, deals will leak out—quietly, but consistently.

A custom pipeline helps structure your entire sales process, eliminate guesswork, and give reps clarity. It turns your CRM from a passive database into an active revenue engine.

Here's what top-performing mid-size sales teams do differently—and how to create a pipeline that actually matches the way you sell.

Why Creating a Custom Pipeline Matters

Sales teams lose up to 27% of potential revenue due to misaligned or outdated pipelines. Yet most mid-size businesses still run generic pipelines that don't reflect how their team actually sells.

A custom pipeline isn't a "nice-to-have." It's the backbone of a high-performing CRM setup. It lets you:

• Track deals with precision
• Spot bottlenecks before they kill revenue
• Assign the right tasks to the right people
• Shorten the sales cycle

A custom pipeline can increase win rates by improving stage clarity and accountability across your sales organization.

What Makes a Pipeline "Custom"?

A custom pipeline is tailored to your sales process—not someone else's. That means:e

• Unique deal stages (not just "Contacted > Qualified > Demo > Closed")
• Field data that matters to your team
• Automation that reflects your workflows
• Visibility and reporting that tracks what matters

It adapts to your business model, whether you sell services, products, or high-ticket deals across multiple team members.

5 Steps to Build a Custom Pipeline in Any CRM

1. Map your actual sales process

Start offline. Ask your sales team:

• What happens from first contact to closed-won?
• Where do deals typically drop off?
• What actions happen at each stage?

This step ensures you don't just recreate another "pipeline template"—you build a tool your entire sales organization will actually use.

2. Define pipeline stages

Each stage should represent a clear, actionable milestone.

Example for a mid-size SaaS team:

Keep it simple: 5–7 stages is the sweet spot. Too many? You'll overwhelm your sales team. Too few? You'll lose visibility.

3. Choose the right fields

The best pipelines don't track everything—they track the right things.

Examples of custom fields:

• Deal source (LinkedIn, cold email, partner)
• Expected contract value
• Sales playbook used
• Competitors involved

Avoid overloading the pipeline with irrelevant info. Each field should answer a question that helps close deals faster for your sales organization.

4. Automate repetitive actions

Automations reduce admin time and improve consistency across your sales team.

Examples:

• Move a deal to "Proposal" when a doc is sent
• Notify the AE if a deal stays 10+ days in a stage
• Auto-tag deals with high potential

This saves time—and ensures deals don't fall through the cracks when managing 20-50 sales professionals.

5. Report on what matters

Use your CRM's dashboard to track metrics like:

• Win rate by stage
• Average deal size
• Time spent in each stage
• Sales velocity
• Pipeline value

These KPIs guide decisions and drive improvement. 74% of sales leaders say better reporting improved their forecast accuracy.

How to Create a Custom Pipeline Using folk CRM

folk CRM was designed for flexibility and is particularly effective for sales teams of 20-50 people who need customization without complexity. Creating a custom pipeline takes minutes—and transforms how your team operates.

Step-by-step:

1. Go to your pipeline view

Click on the "Pipeline" tab from your folk dashboard. If you haven't created one yet, you'll see a prompt to get started.

2. Click "New a new view"

Name your pipeline based on your use case—e.g. "Agency Clients," "Inbound Leads," or "Demo Requests."

3. Define your stages

You can add, delete, rename, or reorder stages to match your exact process. Each stage can include custom display logic (Kanban or list view).

4. Use Magic Fields

This is where folk stands out. Magic Fields auto-populate key deal data—like last interaction date, stage duration, or team owner—without manual input.

👉🏼 Try folk now to auto-populate stage durations and owner fields so your pipeline stays accurate without manual work

5. Add filters & shared views

Segment pipelines by owner, source, industry, or any custom field. Then, create shared views for managers, SDRs, or external partners.

6. Automate your follow-up

folk integrates seamlessly with templates and sequences, letting you automate follow-ups based on pipeline stage.

For example: move to "Proposal Sent" → auto-send a follow-up in 3 days if no reply.

👉🏼 Try folk now to automate stage-based follow-ups and never miss the next action on a deal

7. Track everything with tags and timelines

Every deal card includes interaction history, notes, and attachments, all centralized in a timeline view.

Conclusion: What to Remember

• Custom pipelines give you control over your sales process, visibility, and outcomes.
• Don't copy-paste templates—map your real flow and build from there.
• For sales teams of 20-50 people, folk CRM offers the perfect balance of customization and simplicity to streamline pipeline management without overwhelming your team.
• Keep your pipeline alive. Review, iterate, and optimize based on performance and feedback.

A good CRM adapts to your team—not the other way around. That's how you win more, faster.

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