The pipeline is the heart of any CRM. Set it up correctly and your sales reps stay on track, managers have full visibility, and reports generate themselves. Get it wrong and the CRM becomes just another Excel sheet in a browser. We'll show you how to build a working pipeline for B2B services (applicable to 80% of businesses).
Step 1. Define your sales stages
No more than 5-7 stages. Each stage = a concrete action that a sales rep can take and log.
Example pipeline for B2B
- New lead - the request has come in, no call yet.
- Qualification - call completed, need identified, budget assessed.
- Meeting/demo - presentation scheduled and delivered.
- Proposal sent - the commercial proposal has gone out.
- Negotiation - discussions, bargaining, and legal review underway.
- Contract/payment - awaiting signature or payment.
- Closed (won) or Closed (lost) - the final outcome.
Step 2. Create the pipeline in Bitrix24
CRM -> Deals -> the gear icon in the top right -> "Pipelines and stages settings". Create a new pipeline ("B2B services") and add the stages in the correct order.
You can assign a color to each stage: green for progress, yellow for awaiting the client, red for risk.
Step 3. Configure required fields by stage
At the "Qualification" stage, the rep must fill in the budget and the need. At the "Proposal sent" stage, they must attach the proposal file and record the amount. Without these fields, the deal cannot advance.
You enable this in the stage settings: "Required fields for transition". Bitrix24 won't let a rep move a deal forward until the fields are filled in. This keeps junk out of your pipeline.
Step 4. Set up automation rules and triggers
- New lead -> Qualification: the automation rule assigns the rep a task to "Call back within 30 minutes".
- Qualification -> Meeting/demo: the automation rule sends the client a WhatsApp message: "Thank you for the conversation, we look forward to seeing you at [time]".
- Proposal sent: the automation rule assigns the rep a task to "Follow up in 3 days for feedback on the proposal".
- Negotiation stalled for 7 days: a notification to the manager about the overdue deal.
- Closed (won): the automation rule creates a deal in the "Post-sale support" pipeline and sends the client onboarding instructions.
Step 5. Access permissions
A sales rep sees only their own deals. A department head sees their department's deals. Top management sees everything. This is critical for large teams: otherwise one rep "accidentally" picks up a colleague's deals.
CRM -> gear icon -> "Access permissions" -> configure the "Sales rep", "Head of sales", and "Director" roles with different permission levels.
Step 6. Dashboard for management
- Lead-to-sale conversion - overall and per sales rep.
- Average deal cycle in days.
- Average deal size.
- Share of overdue tasks for each sales rep.
- Monthly revenue forecast based on the value of deals in progress x conversion rate by stage.
Step 7. Train your sales reps
The most common reason rollouts fail is that reps don't understand what the CRM does for them. Show them: "here are your tasks for the day", "here's a reminder about a client in 3 days - the system will prompt you automatically", "here's your bonus calculated automatically". Once a rep sees that the CRM saves them time rather than adding to their workload, they'll start using it.
