Academy / Master Outbound Sales / Chapter 2 - How to structure a sales pipeline with CRM ?

Chapter 2 – How to structure a sales pipeline with CRM ?

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Defining your pipeline’s step

Before automation or integration, you need clarity. A CRM pipeline isn’t a formality, it’s the foundation of your sales process. Each step should reflect a real-life milestone in the buyer journey, not just a checkbox. Think in terms of observable events.

  • “Contacted” means the lead entered your sequence.
  • “Engaged” means they replied or clicked.
  • “Qualified” reflects a fit based on your criteria.
  • “Meeting booked” is a tangible commitment.
  • And “Opportunity” marks the point where value is being actively discussed.

 

Avoid vague or overlapping stages. Your pipeline isn’t just for you, it’s for the team to take action quickly and consistently. Start by auditing how your sales conversations unfold after the first reply. From there, map the steps that help you differentiate a curious visitor from a real buyer.

Keep it lean. Every extra stage is a potential bottleneck in your process and source of confusion in your reporting. What matters is that each step triggers a new decision or sales action.

Automating your CRM update with LGM

Once your pipeline stages are defined, it’s time to ensure your CRM reflects what’s happening in your outreach automatically.

Through native integrations with HubSpot and Pipedrive (or with Zapier/Make for others), these signals become automation triggers.

We’re going to take HubSpot as an example as we’re currently using it ourself.

From the moment you activate the sync, LGM will match your leads against existing contacts in HubSpot using either the email address or a combination of full name and company. If a match is found, the existing contact is updated. If not, a new contact is created, no manual work needed.

But that’s only the beginning. Every action LGM performs is logged directly in the contact’s activity timeline in HubSpot. You’ll see:

  • When a lead was added to a campaign
  • When a LinkedIn connection was sent, accepted, or replied to
  • When an email was sent, opened, clicked, or replied to
  • When each step of a sequence was completed

 

This means your CRM becomes a live journal of outbound activity, with full visibility into multichannel touches. It’s particularly useful for your sales team, who can jump into a contact and see exactly what’s happened, without switching tools.

Manage lifecycle & deal creation with LGM

Once your CRM is reliably updated with outbound activity, it’s time to structure your lifecycle stages and pipeline logic around it. The objective is simple: turn real engagement signals into action by qualifying leads, triggering deal creation, or prompting sales to follow up.

Thanks to the activity logs pushed by LGM into HubSpot, you can build dynamic lists based on engagement across all channels. These lists act like smart filters that update in real time as your leads interact with your campaigns.

For example:

  • A list of leads who replied but are still in the “Lead” lifecycle stage → Need to be qualified.
  • A list of leads who clicked a Calendly link → Ready to create a deal or push to a meeting stage.
  • A list of leads who converted but have no associated deal → Potential missed opportunities.


To build these lists, go to the “Lists” section in HubSpot and apply La Growth Machine filters. You can segment contacts based on:

  • The campaign they came from
  • Whether they received or replied to a message
  • What channel was used (Email, LinkedIn)
  • When a specific action occurred
  • Which identity was used


This is where lifecycle automation comes into play. You can define logic like:

  • “If a contact replies to any LGM email or LinkedIn DM → Move to SQL”
  • “If they convert but are still unqualified → Send to sales queue”
  • “If no activity after full sequence → Set lifecycle to ‘Disqualified’”


You can go even further by creating workflows that auto-create deals. For example:

  • “When a contact joins the list ‘Replied + No Deal’ → Create a deal in HubSpot”
  • Or via Zapier, use LGM webhooks to create and enrich deals based on reply data and campaign origin.


Finally, you can implement scoring based on multichannel signals: opens, clicks, replies, LinkedIn actions… Each action adds points, making it easy to sort high-interest leads from cold ones.

By combining LGM’s real-time data with HubSpot’s segmentation and automation features, you create a responsive pipeline: one where your CRM reacts as soon as your prospects do.

That’s it ! Now, let’s move on to chapter 3 : Integrate with anything using Zapier, Make, or our APIs!

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