# Lead Flow and Deal Creation **URL:** \ **Category:** Tips, Tricks & Best Practices\ **Tags:** best-practices\ **Created:** [August 25, 2025, 7:13pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/lead-flow-and-deal-creation/138544 "2025-08-25T19:13:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Stacks42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Stacks42](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Stacks42)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 7:13pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/lead-flow-and-deal-creation/138544/1 "2025-08-25T19:13:23Z")
I’m having a problem managing my lead pipeline. It currently is as Follows: -Not Started Section- New Stale (reverts back to here after 3 weeks attempting with no reply) -In Progress- Attempting Connected Sales Qualified (must be selected manually) -Qualified- Open Deal --Disqualified-- I want to sure up my funnel reporting and be able to measure how many leads are converting to open deal. Is it ok to revert back to Stale as an earlier stage? I am also noticing I am having problems because reps are creating deals manually and not associating them back to the original lead. I currently am prompting a deal to be created via a new deal pop up form when “Open Deal” is selected. How can I prevent them from skipping this step? Should I restrict deal creation by reps and automate the new deal to create in the background when “Open Deal” is chosen?? Thanks for the advice on how to best manage this. :-0 Matthew ---
**Author:** ![karstenkoehler](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/karstenkoehler/32/68554_2.png) [@karstenkoehler](https://community.hubspot.com/u/karstenkoehler)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 7:22pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/lead-flow-and-deal-creation/138544/2 "2025-08-25T19:22:28Z")
Hi @Stacks42, There are different opinions on this but I’m strongly convinced that there should never be stages like “stale” or “on hold”. They offer an easy way out for users who do not want to actually maintain their leads and deals, when they should instead either mark them as closed lost, set up a follow-up or overall update them. It’s also going to result in a pile that no one ever really wants to go through again. Lastly, as you already mentioned, it can result in messy conversion rate reporting. Ideally, leads and deals know exactly one way: forward, without skipping stages. If you want to measure how many leads convert into a deal, this could be done with a lead funnel report. [Create custom funnel reports](https://knowledge.hubspot.com/reports/create-new-custom-funnel-reports) I’m not aware of options that would require a sales rep to create deals from leads only – this is something you’re mainly going to have to solve through training and reminders. One way to check (and potentially notify sales reps via workflow) would be to look for contacts who are associated to an open lead AND an open deal. While there might be cases where such coexistence is valid, in the majority of cases that should happen. You can use these criteria in a contact list or a contact based workflow (or both company based) to check if deal creation via leads was bypassed. Best regards! ---
**Author:** ![Stacks42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Stacks42](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Stacks42)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 9:01pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/lead-flow-and-deal-creation/138544/3 "2025-08-25T21:01:45Z")
Excellent summary man! I’m wondering if I can do away with the Stale stage. Probably should be doing more disqualifications. We have a disqualification reason for No Response - Unverified Qualification. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to keep trying after a certain amount of time and give up on the lead until they resurface? Matthew ---
**Author:** ![karstenkoehler](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/karstenkoehler/32/68554_2.png) [@karstenkoehler](https://community.hubspot.com/u/karstenkoehler)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2025, 4:10am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/lead-flow-and-deal-creation/138544/4 "2025-08-26T04:10:05Z")
@Stacks42 if it’s not possible to reach a lead after multiple tries, I would disqualify them as “Can’t be reached” or “Unresponsive”, yes! It’s a matter of you defining with the sales team how many tries they should make. ---
**Author:** ![Stacks42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Stacks42](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Stacks42)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2025, 1:25pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/lead-flow-and-deal-creation/138544/5 "2025-08-26T13:25:00Z")
Would it be possible to have stale come after attempting so it wouldn’t ever get set back? Would that maintain the pipeline flow?? ---
**Author:** ![Victor\_Becerra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@Victor\_Becerra](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Victor_Becerra)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2025, 3:57pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/lead-flow-and-deal-creation/138544/6 "2025-09-08T15:57:51Z")
Hey @Stacks42 , Just checking in — any luck with that issue? Let me know if I can help out. Best, Victor