Lead stage vs. lead status
Salesforce: Know the difference between Lead Stage and Lead Status.
In Salesforce, Lead Stage and Lead Status represent two distinct ways to track your lead's progression through the buyer's journey.
Many people confuse the two, wasting time and diluting insight. Knowing the exact difference helps you pinpoint exactly where a lead stands and what to do next.
What's the difference between lead stage & lead status?
Lead Stage is used to indicate where a person is in the buyer journey.
If you've integrated HubSpot and Salesforce, you may have noticed that Salesforce Lead Stages are similar to HubSpot Lifecycle Stages.
For reference, the standard HubSpot Lifecycle Stages include:
- Subscriber: A contact who has opted to receive updates from you
- Lead: A contact who has taken a conversion action and demonstrated interest beyond a subscription sign-up
- Marketing qualified lead (MQL): A contact your marketing team has identified as ready to move into the sales funnel
- Opportunity: A contact associated with a deal
- Sales qualified lead (SQL): A contact your sales team has identified as a potential customer
- Customer: A contact who’s made at least one purchase
These stages represent where the lead is in your buyer's journey and help you determine what activity comes next. For example, a Marketing Qualified Lead may be enrolled in an automation that assigns a Sales Owner and creates a task for the Sales team to follow up.
But the Lead Stage alone does not supply all of the information needed to fully assess a prospect. Once the Lead Stage reaches Marketing Qualified Lead, the Lead Status field comes into play.
Lead status indicates a lead’s progression from an MQL to a customer and is directly related to your sales team's interactions with the leads.
Understanding Salesforce lead status
Once a lead reaches the MQL Lead Stage, the Sales team begins their outreach. Lead Status indicates how far that outreach has gone.
Default Salesforce Lead Status options include:
- Open – The lead has been assigned to Sales.
- Contacted – Sales has started outreach.
- Qualified – Sales has connected and confirmed interest.
- Unqualified – The lead doesn’t fit your buyer criteria.
Common reasons for being marked Unqualified include Not Ready, Not a Fit, Not Interested, and Invalid Data.
Pro tip: Add a picklist field for “Unqualified Reason.” Require it with a Validation Rule or Field Dependency. This gives Marketing insight for re-engagement campaigns and improves reporting.
While these defaults work for many, you can customize Lead Status options. Common categories include: New, Contacted, Working, Qualified, and Unqualified.
How to create & edit lead status
Lead Status is managed with a Salesforce Lead Process. This process can differ by Lead Record Type, just like Opportunities and Sales Processes. The options you define will also show in the progress bar at the top of Lead records.
Steps to create a Salesforce Lead Process:
- Navigate to Setup and search for Lead Processes.
- Click New.
- Enter a name and click Save.
- Choose status options to include.
- To add or change values later, go to Object Manager > Lead > Fields & Relationships > Lead Status.
- Create or edit picklist values and save.
Now, your new Lead Status options will appear on Lead records and in the progress bar.
How to create a lead stage field in Salesforce
Once Lead Status is defined, you can create a Lead Stage picklist to track lifecycle progression.
Steps to create a Lead Stage field:
1. Navigate to Setup > Object Manager > Lead > Fields & Relationships > New.
2. Select Picklist.
3. Label the field Lead Stage.
4. Add values:
- Lead
- Marketing qualified lead
- Sales qualified lead
- Opportunity
- Customer
- Click Next, then Save.
The Lead Stage field will now appear on Lead records.
Automating lead stage & lead status
While Sales and Marketing can update these fields manually, the goal should be automation. Here’s a common framework:
When a lead is created
- Set Lead Status to New or Open
- Set Lead Stage to Lead
When a lead is marketing qualified
- Update Lead Stage to Marketing qualified lead
- Do this via automation or sync from your marketing automation platform
When a lead is sales qualified
- Update Lead Stage to Sales qualified lead
- Trigger this when Lead Status is set to Qualified (or vice versa)
When a lead becomes an opportunity
- In most setups, a SQL is converted to a Contact, Opportunity, and Account
- If you only use the Lead Object, automate Lead Stage to Opportunity when an Opportunity is created
When a lead becomes a customer
- Automate Lead Stage to Customer when a lead is tied to an existing customer account
Designing a revenue operations framework
Lead Stage and Lead Status might look simple, but they’re critical to Revenue Operations.
Done poorly, they confuse Sales and Marketing, wreck reporting, and break forecasts.
Done well, they give your entire go-to-market team a shared language for exactly where each lead stands and what should happen next.
