How to Create a Custom Pipeline That Actually Matches Your Sales 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 If your team is still stuck with outdated stages or bloated CRM fields, deals will leak out—quietly, but consistently.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 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Sales teams lose up to 27% of potential revenue due to misaligned or outdated pipelines.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 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.

What Makes a Pipeline “Custom”?

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

• 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.

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 team will actually use.

2. Define pipeline stages

Each stage should represent a clear, actionable milestone.

Example for a SaaS team:

Keep it simple: 5–7 stages is the sweet spot. Too many? You’ll overwhelm your 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.

4. Automate repetitive actions

Automations reduce admin time and improve consistency.

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.

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

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. 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.

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.

7. Track everything with tags and timelines

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

👉 Try folk CRM for free

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.
• Use tools like folk CRM to simplify the process, automate key actions, and improve team alignment.
• 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.