Reps want to sell, but most don’t get the chance to spend much time doing it. Instead, they’re buried in manual admin work: typing up follow-ups, logging notes, chasing leads, digging through old emails. Less than 30% of their time actually goes to revenue-generating activities. The rest is just busywork.

Let’s look at how the average sales rep’s time gets used:

Source: Industry surveys and internal CRM usage analysis.

This isn’t just frustrating, it’s expensive. Wasted time leads to missed follow-ups, stalled deals, and lost revenue. But with the right sales automation tools, you can plug these productivity leaks.

That’s where Pipeline CRM comes in. From AI-powered email assistance to task automation, deal routing, and document signing, Pipeline CRM helps sales teams automate the repetitive so they can focus on what really matters: closing.

This guide walks you through 10 sales automation ideas you can set up in Pipeline CRM, complete with practical triggers, actions, and real-world use cases to inspire your setup.

TL;DR: 10 Sales Automations You Can Set Up in Pipeline CRM

1. Inbound lead qualification and routing: assign leads to the right rep instantly.
2. New prospect added → to-do template: auto-assign tasks to kickstart engagement.
3. Time-based follow-up tasks: keep leads warm with scheduled reminders.
4. Lead follow-up sequence: respond faster with automated emails and AI assistance.
5. Deal stage triggered actions: automatically move deals forward based on pipeline status.
6. Stalled deal alerts (pipeline velocity): flag deals stuck mid-funnel.
7. Dormant deal re-engagement: reactivate cold leads with timely nudges.
8. Deal won → customer handoff: smooth transition to onboarding.
9. Win/loss follow-up automation: capture insights, request reviews, or nurture lost leads.
10. Electronic signature workflows: auto-send and track contracts directly from Pipeline CRM.

Sales Automation #1: Inbound Lead Qualification and Routing

Good lead qualification ensures the right rep gets the right deal automatically. With Pipeline CRM, you can create routing logic that assigns leads based on criteria like region, industry, product interest, or deal value.

This kind of automation helps managers allocate talent where it’s most effective. High-value prospects? Route them to your closers. Niche requests? Send them to specialists.

Trigger

A new person (lead) is created in Pipeline CRM.

Actions

• Auto-assign to a rep based on pre-set rules (e.g., deal size, territory, product line).
• Tag as “High Priority” if criteria match.
• Create follow-up task: “Qualify lead within 2 business days.”
• Notify the customer success manager if the company is on a named account list.

Pipeline CRM Features Used

• Workflow Automations for routing logic and task creation.
• Custom fields and tags to filter and flag important lead attributes.
• Internal notifications to alert CSMs or sales managers.

Use Case: Inbound Lead Qualification and Routing

A real estate agency receives two new leads:

• A beachfront property listed at $6M: automatically assigned to a luxury property specialist.
• A $57M commercial deal: routed to the commercial real estate team.

This kind of lead routing ensures each rep gets the deals they’re best equipped to close. It also prevents high-value leads from slipping through the cracks, especially if you’re managing a variety of segments like residential, commercial, and industrial.

Sales Automation #2: New Prospect Added → Apply To-Do Template

What happens right after a new prospect is added to your CRM?

Without structure, reps might skip steps, delay outreach, or forget internal handoffs. But with a prebuilt task template, you can ensure every prospect gets the right follow-up, consistently and quickly.

When a new person record is created in Pipeline CRM, a to-do list can automatically kick in: prospect research, intro emails, scheduling, internal notifications, and more. This brings accountability and visibility across your sales process.

Trigger

A new person (prospect) is added to Pipeline CRM manually or via form/import.

Actions

• Apply a standardized to-do template for new prospects.
• Notify relevant internal teams (sales manager, marketing, support).
• Assign deal to appropriate rep based on source or priority.
• Create immediate tasks:
  • Call lead within 15 minutes.
  • Send intro email with company info.
  • Schedule discovery meeting.
  • Tag interest category.

Pipeline CRM Features Used

• Automations for trigger-based task lists.
• Custom templates to standardize rep workflows.
• Internal notifications and deal assignments based on pre-set rules.

Use Case: Set Up Tasks and Notify Internal Teams

After months of informal talks, a sales rep at a wholesale company adds a qualified buyer to Pipeline CRM. The automation kicks in:

• The rep is immediately assigned.
• A discovery call is scheduled.
• Sales managers and the marketing team are notified.
• Tasks are added to ensure follow-up happens fast.

This keeps everyone aligned and prevents warm leads from going cold due to manual gaps or memory lapses.

Sales Automation #3: Time-Based Task Creation for Follow-Up

Leads age like milk or wine—and it all depends on how fast you follow up.

Timely outreach helps build momentum, trust, and stronger relationships. But when follow-ups are left to memory or buried in sticky notes, things fall apart fast. Pipeline CRM lets you set time-based triggers that automatically schedule tasks or messages, so no prospect gets left behind.

Whether it’s a quick “just checking in” or a reminder to escalate a stalled deal, you can automate those crucial touchpoints across your pipeline.

Trigger

A specific amount of time has passed (e.g., 7 days in Proposal stage, 10 days of no contact, etc.).

Actions

• Create follow-up task for deal owner (e.g., “Check on proposal”).
• Send personalized email recapping key proposal points.
• Deliver a relevant case study or testimonial PDF.
• Escalate to manager if the deal remains stalled.

Pipeline CRM Features Used

• Workflow Automations for time-based task creation.
• Deal stage conditions and task templates.
• Email templates for follow-up or escalation sequences.

Use Case: Time-Based Task Sequence

Your consulting firm sells complex $25K–$300K packages. Deals typically require multiple meetings, decision makers, and negotiations. Pipeline CRM keeps the sales cycle moving by triggering automated follow-ups:

• After 7 days in “Proposal”, a task reminds the rep to check in.
• A case study is emailed automatically.
• If no activity follows, the deal is flagged for manager review.

With structured, timely touchpoints, deals don’t fall through the cracks and your sales process stays predictable and proactive.

Sales Automation #4: New Lead Follow-Up Sequence

Have you made this common mistake? A new lead comes in. The prospect is a sales-qualified lead; they’re interested and ready to go. But somehow, some way, they slip through the cracks. Before you know it, a week has gone by, and no one has reached out to your prospect yet.

Maybe your rep meant to follow up. Maybe they were in back-to-back meetings. Whatever the reason, the longer you wait, the colder that lead gets.

With Pipeline CRM, you can automate immediate follow-up the moment a new lead enters your system. Paired with the AI Email Assistant, your team can send thoughtful, on-brand messages faster than ever, whether for one-to-one outreach or scaled sequences.

Trigger(s)

• New contact is added manually.
• A website/landing page form is submitted.
• Lead enters from a paid campaign (e.g., Facebook, Google Ads).
• Lead moves to the first pipeline stage.

Actions

• Instantly assign lead based on source, territory, or round-robin.
• Create follow-up tasks:
  • Call or email the lead within 30 minutes.
  • Schedule a discovery call.
• Send thank-you or confirmation email (automated or AI-generated).
• Kick off a short email drip sequence introducing services.

Pipeline CRM Features Used

• AI Email Assistant to generate replies or sequences.
• Workflow Automations for routing, task creation, and campaign triggers.
• Automated Email Campaigns to deliver drip sequences or follow-ups.

Use Case: Automation Follow-Up Sequence

A prospect fills out a form on your financial services website. Pipeline CRM instantly adds them to a 3-step sequence:

• A thank-you email goes out.
• A task is created for the assigned rep to follow up within 30 minutes.
• A short educational email series introduces your services.

With just a few clicks, you’ve made a great first impression and ensured no warm lead goes to waste.

Sales Automation #5: Deal Stage Triggered Actions

The more deals you juggle, the easier it is to lose track of what’s been done — and what still needs doing.

That’s where stage-based automation comes in. With Pipeline CRM, you can trigger custom actions any time a deal moves forward (or backward). Whether it’s sending a recap, alerting a manager, or kicking off onboarding, each action happens right on time.

Trigger

• A deal moves into a specific stage, such as:
  • ○ Qualification.
  • Demo scheduled.
  • Proposal sent.
  • Negotiation.
  • Closed–won/closed–lost.
  • Contract sent.

Actions

• Automatically assign tasks and sequences for each stage.
• Notify managers or team members.
• Trigger email follow-ups or onboarding checklists.
• Log deal notes and update status.

Pipeline CRM Features Used

• Stage-Based Automations tied to your sales workflow.
• Integrated Notifications (email, Slack, etc.).
• Custom task templates for each deal stage.

Use Case: Closed/Won Follow-Up

An advertising agency lands a two-year client contract. The moment the deal is marked “Closed–Won,” Pipeline CRM:

• Sends a welcome email to the client.
• Launches the onboarding checklist.
• Notifies the customer success and fulfillment teams.

On the flip side, if a deal is marked “Closed–Lost,” the system sends a quick feedback request to learn why and possibly recover the opportunity down the line.

Sales Automation #6. Pipeline Velocity: Deal stuck in mid-funnel stage

“I thought you were watching this deal?”

When deals stall in the middle of your pipeline, during discovery, proposal, or negotiation, momentum dies. With Pipeline CRM, you can set up automations that flag these stuck deals before they go cold.

Instead of relying on memory or gut feel, reps and managers get proactive nudges when a deal has lingered too long. This keeps your sales cycle moving, prevents mid-funnel leaks, and  keeps the spotlight on active deals in your pipeline.

Trigger

A deal has stayed in a mid-funnel stage (e.g., “Negotiation”) for 10+ days,

Actions

• Create a task: “Escalate deal to manager for review,”
• Notify rep and sales manager via Slack or email,
• Tag the deal as “Stalled” for easy filtering/reporting.

Pipeline CRM Features Used

• Workflow Automations for stage-duration triggers.
• Slack or email notifications to alert teams in real time.
• Custom tags and filters to track velocity issues.

Use case: Stalled Deal Notification(s)

A manufacturing client says they’ll sign the contract “in the next day or two.” Ten days later and there’s still silence. Pipeline CRM flags the delay:

• A task is triggered to re-engage.
• The manager is alerted.
• The deal is tagged for visibility in the weekly pipeline review.

Momentum is restored before the deal slips away for good.

Sales Automation #7: Automated Re-Engagement for Dormant Deals

If you do the upfront work to qualify your prospects, they meet two important criteria. Your prospects are:

1. Able to buy.
2. Willing to buy.

But sometimes deals go dark for good reasons—budget delays, shifting priorities, or bad timing. But just because they’re cold doesn’t mean they’re dead.

With Pipeline CRM, you can automatically re-engage dormant leads after a certain period of inactivity. A smart reactivation flow with personalized emails, texts, and task sequences can warm up deals without manual effort.

Trigger(s)

• No activity (emails, calls, notes) for 30/45/60+ days.
• Deal has stalled in a key stage (e.g., “Proposal Sent”).
• Deal was marked “Lost – No Response.”
• Manual tag added (e.g., “Re-engage”).

Actions

• Send re-engagement email: “Still moving forward with [project]?”
• Follow up with an offer or relevant case study.
• If no response, create a task for rep to call within 3 days.
• Add to long-term nurture sequence if still inactive.

Pipeline CRM Features Used

• Email Campaigns for time-triggered reactivation.
• Tags and filters to segment cold deals.
• Workflow automation for task creation and escalation.

Use Case: Re-Engaging Cold Deals

A digital marketing agency sells month-to-month retainers to medium-sized clients. It’s common for clients to reach out for a discovery call. Some of these clients will even request a proposal; unfortunately, many disappear after that.

After 45 days of inactivity, Pipeline CRM:

• Sends a friendly: “Have you given up on your campaign?” email.
• Follows up with an exclusive incentive.
• Creates a call task if there’s no reply after 3 days.

Instead of letting a qualified lead slip away, you now have a structured way to revive it.

Sales Automation #8: Deal Won → Convert to Customer

The deal is done, but the work isn’t. If you don’t handle the post-sale handoff with care, buyer’s remorse can creep in fast.

With Pipeline CRM, you can trigger customer onboarding, team handoffs, and upsell follow-ups the moment a deal is marked “Closed–Won.” That way, the customer’s experience continues smoothly—and your internal teams stay in sync.

Trigger

Deal stage changes to “Closed–Won.”

Actions

• Convert the company to a customer in Pipeline CRM.
• Send thank-you/welcome email.
• Add customer to onboarding or fulfillment sequence.
• Notify CSM, support, and marketing.
• Schedule a 30-day follow-up task to check in or offer an upsell.

Pipeline CRM Features Used

• Workflow Automations for stage-change triggers.
• Customer conversion and Contact Management.
• Email templates and internal team notifications.

Use Case: Deal Won/Upsell Prep

A general contractor just secured a major real estate project. Once marked “Closed–Won,” the system:

• Sends a welcome message.
• Triggers onboarding tasks.
• Notifies project managers and finance.
• Schedules a follow-up task in 30 days for relationship-building or upselling.

The momentum from the win carries into long-term success.

Sales Automation #9: Win/Loss Follow-Up

Every deal teaches you something if you ask the right questions.

By automating win/loss follow-up, you gather insights about your sales performance, competitor positioning, and buyer objections. Pipeline CRM can trigger feedback surveys, review requests, and internal reports based on deal outcome.

This closes the loop and helps you improve win rates over time.

Trigger(s):

• Deal is marked “Closed–Won” or “Closed–Lost.”
• A product or service is purchased.
• A contract is signed.
• Deal is marked “Lost – Chose Competitor.”

Actions

• For wins:
  • Send thank-you email.
  • Add task to request review or referral after 30 days.
• For losses:
  • Send “Where did we go wrong?” email.
  • If lost to a competitor, tag deal and log competitor name.
  • Add to long-term nurture or competitor recovery sequence.

Pipeline CRM Features Used

• Custom Tags and Reporting (e.g., “Lost – Pricing”).
• Email automations for win/loss feedback.
• Referral pipeline setup.

Use Case: Capture Deal Win/Loss Insights

An accounting firm is losing more deals than usual. With win/loss automation, Pipeline CRM:

• Sends a feedback email for lost deals.
• Logs competitor mentions in a report.
• Sets a task to follow up in 60 days.

For wins, a customer review request goes out after 30 days and the client is routed into a referral track.

Sales Automation #10: Electronic Signatures

The contract stage is often where momentum dies, especially if you’re manually sending PDFs and waiting days for signatures.

With Pipeline CRM’s eSignature feature, you can send, track, and store contracts directly in your CRM. Automations kick in when a deal hits “Contract Sent”—speeding up turnaround and reducing drop-off risk.

Trigger(s)

• Deal enters “Contract Sent” stage.
• Contract is viewed or signed.

Actions

• Auto-generate and send contract using Instant Docs.
• Notify sales rep when contract is viewed/signed.
• Automatically store signed document in Pipeline CRM.
• Create follow-up task or notification if contract remains unsigned for X days.

Pipeline CRM Features Used

• eSignature and Document Automation.
• Instant Docs for document generation.
• Workflow triggers for contract milestones.

Use Case: Automating Purchase Agreement Signatures

A real estate brokerage needs to move fast on high-stakes offers. When a deal reaches “Contract Sent,” Pipeline CRM:

• Auto-generates the purchase agreement.
• Sends it with a signature link.
• Notifies the rep as soon as it’s opened or signed.
• Stores it instantly under the deal record.

This eliminates friction, saves time, and keeps the deal moving, even on nights and weekends.

Sales Automations Aren’t Optional Anymore

Most sales reps spend more time updating spreadsheets than closing deals. Between data entry, status updates, internal check-ins, and chasing cold leads, only a fraction of their day is spent actually selling.

And the pressure is only mounting. Buyers expect faster responses, personalized outreach, and seamless handoffs without any added friction.

The solution? Automate the busywork.

With the right sales automations in place, your team can reclaim their time and focus on what actually moves the needle: building relationships and closing deals. Pipeline CRM gives you the tools to make that shift from task-based to revenue-driven.

Boost Sales Revenue by 15 – 50%

Pipeline CRM is built to simplify sales. Every day, over 18,000 companies use it to:

• Automate repetitive tasks.
• Route and qualify leads instantly.
• Move deals through the pipeline faster.
• Increase productivity by 50% or more.

Ready to do more with less effort? Compare plans and pricing—and see how quickly you can streamline your sales process with Pipeline CRM.

Many contractors work on multiple bids and projects at the same time, making it easy to lose track of which bids need to be followed up, who to contact, and when.

Here’s a common scenario:

A prospective customer calls for a quote. You take their information and promise to follow up. But as work piles up, weeks pass before you realize the call was never returned. By then, the customer has moved on, possibly leaving a negative impression that could impact future business.

Many contractors lose potential jobs simply because they lack a system to manage their bids, follow-ups, and client communication. Bids fall through the cracks without proper tracking, leading to missed revenue opportunities.

That’s where a construction CRM comes in. By centralizing bid tracking, automating follow-ups, and providing clear visibility into your sales pipeline, a CRM helps contractors stay organized and improve their win rates. In this article, we’ll explore why a CRM is essential for managing construction bids and how it can streamline your entire sales process.

Why Many Construction Bids Disappear in Sales Pipelines

Ignoring customers is rarely done with bad intentions. Most of the time, the reasons have nothing to do with the customer. When contractors overlook a customer, it usually comes down to one of the following issues:

• You’re too busy with current projects: you have all the customers you can handle right now and can’t take on another project.
• You’re overwhelmed with customer inquiries: you’re becoming well-known for being a dependable contractor and suddenly receive a spike in customer demand.
• A potential project is too small: saying no to a high-effort, low-reward project could lead to a negative review, so it’s easier not to respond.
• You don’t want to work with problem customers: you’re not getting back to this customer as their reputation precedes them.
• Organization is a challenge: you’re a small team, and it’s difficult to keep up with the avalanche of information from customers.

If you’re an experienced contractor, none of this is new. You can probably think of at least one instance where these reasons applied to you.

The bad news is that it’s not good enough anymore. If your construction company is going to survive, you’ll have to track construction bids and consistently follow up using a construction CRM. This ensures no lead falls through the cracks by helping you track, organize, and follow up effectively.

How CRM Bid Management Improves Construction Deal Stage Tracking

At any given time, only 3% of your prospects are ready to buy. This is what’s happening with the rest:

• 7% plan to make a change soon.
• 30% have a need but aren’t ready yet.
• 30% don’t have a need right now.
• 30% will never buy from you.

This means most leads require consistent follow-up to convert. Without a structured approach, you risk wasting time on bad-fit prospects or losing qualified leads due to poor tracking.

A strong bid management process ensures:

• Pre-qualified prospects only: sending bids to the wrong prospects drains time and resources.
• Clearly defined deal stages: knowing where bids succeed or fail helps you improve your sales process.
• A two-way qualification process: prospects should meet set criteria before moving forward.
• Follow-up expectations are set upfront: scheduling follow-ups before submitting a bid keeps the process on track.

Ignoring follow-ups means losing potential revenue, but a CRM ensures no bid falls through the cracks and helps you manage the process efficiently.

To further enhance your bid management process, consider exploring our dedicated Construction CRM solutions. Tailored specifically for the construction industry, these solutions can help streamline your sales pipeline and improve overall efficiency.

How to Use Pipeline CRM to Keep Track and Follow Up on  Construction Leads

Let’s explore how a CRM can help you set up, manage, and track construction bids efficiently, using Pipeline CRM as an example.

Step 1: Customize Deal Stages

Remember the deal stages we mentioned earlier?

We’re going to use those here to set up our examples. Before using them in your business, you’ll want to customize these deal stages. Let’s use the following deal stages:

1. Contact
2. Lead qualification
3. Site visit/needs assessment
4. Proposal/quote
5. Negotiation
6. Contract signing
7. Project start

Deal stages allow you to track a project from beginning to end. With deal stages, you’ll be able to:

• Qualify/disqualify prospects
• Shepherd customers through your pipeline
• Identify problem areas or gaps in your sales process
• Identify areas where sales reps need more training
• Assign data-driven values to each stage

Your customers should earn their way to the next stage. For example, if a contact reaches out to you and requests a quote, you’ll need to qualify the customer or project. You’d want to ask the following questions:

• What’s your budget?
• Is their project in your service area?
• What’s their time frame?
• How will they pay for the project?
• Who will be the project point of contact?

If these prospects give you the needed information, they can move to the needs assessment stage. If you’ve done an assessment and their project is a fit, and they’re willing to agree to your proposal/bid terms, they’ve earned a bid or proposal.

Don’t move customers forward in the process if they haven’t earned it.

Step 2: Record All Bids and Opportunities

Many companies make the mistake of putting all the responsibility in their sales rep.

They expect their sales reps to enter all the bids and opportunities from start to finish. This approach works if your sales reps aren’t overloaded or already juggling a lot.

This is where integrations save the day. If you semi-automate the process and automatically enter contact data, you’ll find getting employees to record all opportunities is much easier.

Here’s a list of the integrations you’ll need.

• Webform integration: if you integrate your CRM and web forms, you can automatically transfer data from your website forms and landing pages to your CRM directly.
• BCC tracking: if your CRM has BCC tracking, your CRM should add prospects to contact lists whenever you send a copy of the email to your CRM. Your sales reps spend zero time on manual data entry, which enables you to set up deals immediately.
• Email integrations: your CRM should integrate with your email tools, especially if you use popular tools like Outlook or Google Workspace. These CRM integrations should help you find, track, and add new contacts. You can also send trackable email messages showing whether your messages were opened or unread.
• Accounting integrations: your CRM should offer two-way integration with popular accounting software and tools. What does this mean? You should be able to sync contacts across both apps (e.g., Pipeline and Quickbooks) and create and view invoices in both apps; you should also be able to send invoices from your CRM (Pipeline in this case) without needing to open Quickbooks.

• Proposal and contract integrations: your CRM should integrate with the tools you’re using to create proposals and contracts. Sales reps should be able to pull these docs into your CRM automatically without switching from one app to another. For example, you should be able to attach a PDF of your proposal or estimate for the appropriate deal to your account. Any activity or change made in one app should be reflected in the other.

Source: PaintScout.com

All the stages in your pipeline that require data entry can be automated or semi-automated. You can pull in all the needed data, consistently recording bids and opportunities. This means sales reps and project managers spend their time working on the portions of deals that actually require their attention.

So, looking at the deal stages in our example:

1. Contact
2. Lead qualification
3. Site visit/needs assessment
4. Proposal/quote
5. Negotiation
6. Contract signing
7. Project start

Automated sales processes can (and should) address the areas in bold.

When you set these integrations up, you automatically import all contact data into your business. This is important because it tells you (a.) that the contact or data exists, so an opportunity should exist for it as well, and (b.) dramatically reduces data entry errors.

Step 3: Create Follow-Up Cadence

When it comes to follow-up, there are two behaviors you should avoid becoming:

• Beggar: this type of salesperson evokes feelings of pity, directly or indirectly. Customers often find begging off-putting, thinking, “Your offer can’t be very good if you have to beg for business.” If they make a purchase, it’s often accompanied by resentment, such as, “I only bought because I felt sorry for you.”
• Pest: while many sales representatives neglect follow-up, some go to the other extreme. They never stop contacting you, bombarding you with incessant, unhelpful messages like, “Got time for a quick call?” or “I’m just checking in to see where things are at.” These salespeople are relentless and never let potential deals fizzle out.

Both of these behaviors become more harmful over time. The problem is that sales reps are easily tempted to engage in these behaviors without a predetermined follow-up system.

How should you follow up on bids? We recommend using a 1:3 email cadence. We’ve provided some email templates in the next section.

You can leverage Pipeline CRM’s email scheduling feature to streamline the lead nurturing process. You can customize the scheduling options based on sales activity triggers (e.g., leads move to SQL stage) or a certain date and time (e.g., one week after sending a proposal). Learn more about how to set up a construction email cadence on Pipeline CRM here.

Need help writing a follow-up email to your construction leads? We provide several email templates that you can steal right away, or use Pipeline CRM’s built-in email writing assistant (powered by OpenAI technology) to help you craft meaningful emails.

Step 4: Monitor Bid Status and Progress

If you’re using a CRM, you should receive a mix of alerts on the status and progress of each project.

• Real-time alerts or notifications: these notifications tell you when activity related to a lead or deal in your pipeline occurs. This includes when tasks are assigned, a call is logged, an email is opened, or a deal stage changes.

• Activity alerts: your CRM should guide your sales team and set meaningful objectives for each of your sales reps. You should be able to track the work your sales reps do every day. Your CRM should provide you with a high-level overview of the historical account of your pipeline, won or lost deals, your active pipeline, deal stage status, and more.

• Deal status updates: you should be able to track the health of each project or deal at a moment’s notice. You should be able to see if the deal is healthy, has slowed, or stopped. This shows you the deals that need immediate attention.

These alerts, trackers, and notifications give you the precious intel you need to track your construction bids. If progress has slowed, stalled, or stopped, you’ll know immediately. These are essential must-haves if you’re shopping for a CRM.

Step 5: Collaborate With Your Sales Team

Using this data, you can have conversations.

If you picked the right CRM and have done the upfront work, you have lots of data to use to make decisions. It’s a straightforward process—the details in these alerts give you the action steps you need to make important changes in your sales process.

If you’ve done this properly, you should know:

• What it takes to pre-qualify your customers
• Which customers are qualified
• Which deals/projects you’re willing to take on (or not)
• How to communicate your decision to customers
• What your sales reps are doing (daily, weekly, monthly)
• How to send fewer proposals but close more deals
• What each project is worth to your construction company
• The steps you need to follow consistently to close deals

These questions come from tracking and monitoring performance and outcomes. If you know the role of a CRM and you’re using it to monitor the performance and outcomes of several groups, you should be looking at:

• Prospects
• Customers
• Sales reps
• Project managers
• Vendors

Each person has a role to play. By tracking performance and outcomes, you can quickly identify the source of any problems in your pipelines.

Step 6: Analyze Performance Reports and Make Changes

There are lots of things you can analyze.

What’s important is focusing your attention on the right reports. When it comes to closing deals, sales managers need to focus their attention on these specific areas:

• Number of SQLs (sales-qualified leads): are we getting enough qualified leads? How many of these prospects lead to revenue?
• Customer engagement: are customers willing to engage with us and provide us with the information and support we need to help them with their projects?
• Deals by stage: which projects have bids out? How many of these projects are moving to negotiation or closing? Which deals have stalled? Why?
• Win/loss ratios: how many of our projects do we win? More than half? Less than half?
• Reasons for win/loss: why did we win, and how can we win more? Why did we lose, and how do we fix the problems or reasons for our loss?
• Bid value: are the projects we win profitable to our construction company? Can we afford to take on more of these projects over time?
• Sales forecasts: are we bringing in more profitable customers/projects or less? Are we on track to meet or exceed our sales quotas?

If we’re focused on these areas, we can drill down to identify the causes of each of our outcomes. What if you’re looking for different categories or types of data?

Your CRM should show you the following:

• Who’s doing what and when (activity tracking)
• How much potential revenue is in your pipeline (deal stages)
• How much revenue you’re on track to close (sales forecasting)
• Which deals are on track
• Which deals need immediate attention (deal insights)

These are simple reports that you can customize. Sure, there is CRM reporting you can analyze, but these are essential if you’re relying on your CRM to help you track, follow up with, and close your construction bids.

Follow-Up Email Templates on Construction Bids (1:3 Email Cadence)

A 1:3 cadence ensures consistent follow-ups without overwhelming prospects. This approach helps qualify leads throughout the follow-up process while keeping communication structured.

How the 1:3 cadence works:

• For every one message or offer sent, follow up at least three
• Space each message appropriately, giving prospects time to respond.
• If a prospect stops responding, send a direct check-in to confirm their interest.
• If they remain unresponsive, move them to a lead nurturing
• If they explicitly decline, remove them from active outreach.

Here’s the 1:3 cadence in action.

Construction Email Template 1: Request for Proposal

Subject: We’ll send you a proposal in 48 hrs. or less.

Hi [Customer],

Appreciate you taking the time to iron out the details of your project. As soon as it’s ready, I’ll send you a link to the proposal. It’ll have all of the details and important next steps. Before I do, when are you free to go over the proposal?

Best,

[Signature]

Construction Email Template 2: Proposal Follow-Up 1

Subject: Who gets to see your proposal?

Hey [Customer],

Who should get a link to your proposal? Is it just you, or are there others who should receive access to this?

Let me know,

[Signature]

Construction Email Template 3: Proposal Follow-Up 2

Subject: Never heard back. What do you want to do?

Hey [Customer],

Haven’t heard from you about a time to go over the proposal. Are you still interested in moving forward with this project?

Let me know,

Construction Email Template 4: Proposal Follow-Up 3

Subject: Have you given up on this project?

Hey [Customer],

Have you given up on this project? If your situation has changed, please let me know so we can update things on our end.

Let me know,

[Signature]

If customers continue to ghost you at this stage, place them on a lead nurturing campaign.

The 1:3 cadence works whether you’re sending out email campaigns, making phone calls, or sending out text messages to your customers. It’s an important point of balance that helps to maintain the quid pro quo nature of selling.

Not sure what to say about each of these deal stages? You can customize these templates for your construction business.

Follow-Up Email Templates for Leads in Various Deal Stages

Construction Email Template for ‘In Contact’ Stage

Hi [Customer],

You mentioned that you’re looking for a team to help you with your [project]. We can help you with that. Can you tell me more about what you’re looking for?

[signature]

Construction Email Template for ‘Lead Qualification’ Stage

Hi [Customer],

Thanks for the details on your [project]. We’ve worked with several other [customers] in the past on a similar project in your area. Before we continue further, we typically [expectation] before we can get started on your project.

Is that okay?

[signature]

Construction Email Template for ‘Site Visit or Needs Assessment’ Deal Stage

Hi [Customer],

We’ll need to come to your location to finish our assessment. Here’s a link to our calendar—please choose a date and time that works well for you.

Talk soon!

[signature]

Construction Email Template for ‘Proposal or Quote’ Stage

Hi [Customer],

I appreciate you taking the time to iron out the details of your project. As soon as it’s ready, I’ll send you a link to the proposal. It’ll have all of the details and important next steps. Before I do, when are you free to go over the proposal?

Best,

[Signature]

Construction Email Template for ‘Negotiation’ Stage

Hi [Customer],

Do the terms laid out in our proposal or agreement work for you? Please let me know if I can clear up any questions or concerns before we move forward.

Best,

[Signature]

Construction Email Template for ‘Contract Signing’ Stage

Hi [Customer],

Thanks for trusting us to take care of your upcoming project! It’s been a genuine pleasure working with you so far, and I look forward to doing great things together. Take a look at the agreement and sign it when you’re ready.

We’ll be all set from there!

Best,

[Signature]

Construction Email Template for ‘Project Start’ Stage

Hi [Customer],

Welcome aboard! We’re excited to show you what we can do. Our crews will be set to start work on [date/time]. Please make sure that you have someone on hand to provide our crews with the access they need.

Let’s get to work! 🙂

[Signature]

You can add three follow-up messages to each of the deal stages messages above. If you want your sales reps to be seen as equals during the sales process, you’ll need to maintain a healthy balance between giving and receiving.

With a CRM, these emails can be automated so no lead is forgotten, automatically triggering follow-ups at the right intervals. This approach keeps prospects engaged and increases the chances of closing the deal.

Contractors Using Pipeline CRM Never Overlook Their Customers

A prospective customer calls, texts, or emails to request a quote. Your CRM automatically imports their information and assigns tasks to the right sales reps. Customers are immediately greeted and acknowledged. Your sales team has coordinated around your CRM—two weeks later, you’re working on negotiating terms and moving to close the deal.

Now, this deal is yours forever. 

Tracking bids and following up consistently is the key to winning more construction projects. The right CRM ensures every lead is captured, every follow-up is timely, and no opportunity is lost due to disorganization. With Pipeline CRM, you can automate follow-ups, manage bids efficiently, and keep your sales pipeline moving.

Don’t let potential deals slip away—try Pipeline CRM today.

Without a dedicated CRM, many construction teams struggle—relying on outdated or inefficient systems that drive up costs and slow down operations.

That’s why choosing a CRM tailored to your trade is critical. Whether you’re in roofing, plumbing, or expanding into new services like gutters or commercial projects, having adaptable software ensures smooth transitions and prevents costly disruptions.

To help you find the right fit, here are 10 key use cases where a construction CRM can streamline sales and improve your team’s productivity.

1. Lead Tracking

Contractors are often known for ghosting potential clients—someone requests an estimate, but they never hear back. From a client’s perspective, it may seem like you don’t want their business.

However, there are many reasons why construction teams fail to follow up:

• Overbooked schedules: teams are too busy to respond promptly.
• Insufficient staff: there aren’t enough people to handle all inquiries.
• Poor lead management: no system in place to track follow-ups.
• Disorganization: leads get lost in emails, spreadsheets, or sticky notes.

While these are all valid reasons, neglecting prospects can harm your business. As the business development leader, following up with leads is crucial, even if you’re short on time.

Solution: Automate and prioritize lead tracking with a CRM.

A construction CRM automatically captures, tracks, and nurtures leads in your sales pipeline. This means more bids are sent, and more deals are closed.

With CRM-powered priority lists, you can quickly identify:

• Leads that haven’t been contacted in 7 days.
• Deals that are expected to close this week.
• Deals closing soon but missing a next step.

Even better, you can track and share these lists so everyone is on the same page. With the right construction CRM software, you can create custom statuses that share where every lead is in the sales process, ensuring no one slips through the cracks.

2. Centralizing Customer and Project Data

Does this scenario sound familiar?

Your construction company manages multiple clients, bids, and ongoing projects, but critical information is scattered across emails, spreadsheets, and paper documents. You spend valuable time searching for past conversations, contract details, and project updates—slowing down decision-making and leading to missed opportunities.

Solution: Use a construction CRM like Pipeline CRM.

Pipeline CRM provides a centralized database for all information, ensuring that every interaction, document, and status update is stored in one place. It also gathers useful data to help you make better sales decisions.

For example, your CRM might reveal that 73% of prospects who review your bid with you choose your company. This number jumps to 84% when they find you through Google local search.

Using this information, you can decide to optimize your bidding process and invest more in local SEO.

With a CRM like Pipeline CRM, teams can easily track each stage of a sale, prioritize follow-ups, and ensure projects stay on track—reducing delays and maximizing revenue.

3. Manage Bids and Proposals

What’s the worst part about sending out bids? You invest time pricing the materials and labor, crafting detailed estimates, and sending a professional proposal—only for them to disappear!

Why does this happen?

• Some clients use your bid to negotiate with a preferred contractor.
• Others are just “kicking the tires” and aren’t ready to buy.
• Sometimes, they’re simply dissatisfied with your bid but don’t provide feedback.

Solution: Use a CRM to gain visibility and improve close rates.

By integrating your CRM with your bid and proposal tools, you gain deeper insights into client behavior and expectations. Instead of sending a bid and hoping for the best, you can:

• Track when and how clients engage with your proposals.
• Follow up strategically to address concerns before they walk away.
• Organize all prospect interactions and project-specific documents (e.g., estimates, permits, contracts) in one place.

Your chances of closing the deal increase even more when you follow up with a quick call or video meeting to go over the proposal. With a CRM, you can seamlessly manage deals from lead to bid to final contract so that no opportunity is lost.

4. Contact Management

A good construction CRM stores your contacts.

A great CRM acts as a central hub, storing, syncing, and updating your contacts in a single location. The best tools eliminate manual data entry by automatically importing contact details.

What does this look like?

With a good CRM, you manually enter each prospect’s contact details—a time-consuming but necessary step. However, the process can be streamlined.

Solution: Use a construction CRM that handles administrative tasks in the background.

With Pipeline CRM, for example, simply BCC cc@app.pipelinecrm.com when emailing a prospect. The CRM will:

• Create a new contact profile.
• Log the email as an activity.
• Notify you that the contact is now in your system.

As your sales reps and project managers focus on winning business, your CRM keeps everything organized without extra effort.

5. Project Management

Project managers are responsible for keeping everyone aligned while handling a mountain of administrative tasks. The problem is that your project managers are overworked.

Sales reps and PMs alike juggle high expectations, constant communication demands, and multiple stakeholders. They battle scope creep, manage multiple projects at once, and struggle to keep things moving.

Solution: Use a CRM that automates project administration.

Great construction CRMs move deals forward by handling the administrative tasks sales reps and project managers typically have to perform.

Instead of firing off an email or sending a report, intelligent CRMs like Pipeline CRM automate alerts, create, send, and update critical tasks, and automatically send reports and updates to stakeholders. They also handle many administrative tasks that project managers are typically expected to perform.

By automating these processes, your team can focus on what they do best:

• Sales reps can focus on pitching construction projects to clients.
• Project managers can manage and optimize projects in their pipeline.
• Leadership gets real-time reporting for better decision-making.

Everybody wins.

6. Follow-Up Automation

Only 3% of your leads are ready to buy at any given time.

This means the majority of your leads will require nurturing and consistent follow-up. Most sales reps spend significant time writing emails, calling, texting, and reaching out to prospects on social media, which can be exhausting.

Sales reps also need to:

• Consistently follow up without pestering the prospect.
• Add value to each conversation.
• Uncover objections and pre-sale frustrations.
• Provide pricing data via quotes, bids, and proposals.
• Disqualify poor-quality prospects.

Solution: A CRM that lets you set up email templates and automation to follow up consistently.

You can still send one-off emails and broadcast messages, and with Pipeline CRM, you even have an AI email writing assistant.

But these follow-up automation tools enable you to do the one thing most sales reps avoid: following up with prospects consistently.

7. Sales Reporting

Executives want a clear picture of business performance without sifting through lengthy reports. They prefer one-page summaries and dashboards that provide a quick, actionable overview.

Your construction company’s owners expect reports that cover the following:

• Project milestones achieved
• Completed work & deliverables
• Scope creep issues & change orders
• Project schedule updates
• Punch list summaries
• Budget reports

For sales managers, executives want insights into:

• Total revenue & sales breakdowns (by project, salesperson, and region)
• Gross & net profit margins
• Work-in-progress reports

The challenge for sales and project managers is to provide project status reports without taking forever to compile them.

Solution: Use CRM-generated reports to save time and improve accuracy.

A construction CRM like Pipeline CRM automates these reports, ensuring executives get real-time updates on a schedule without requiring extra manual effort from your team.

With automated sales and project reporting, stakeholders can make faster, data-driven decisions while managers stay focused on winning projects and driving growth.

8. Integrations With Estimation Tools

Estimation tools are a construction team’s most critical sales asset, directly impacting revenue, invoicing, and closing speed. However, many sales reps waste time manually creating quotes and invoices, slowing down deal flow.

Without automation, reps must manually handle:

• Sales documents and quotes.
• Invoices and payment reminders.
• Tax calculations and bid management.

Solution: Integrate estimation tools into your CRM.

Your CRM should be the central data hub, automatically pulling in accounting and estimation data to uncover new sales opportunities.

Example: Your sales reps must contact several existing customers to pitch them for more work. One of your reps pulls accounting data into your CRM and discovers the following:

• Customer A spends six figures per quarter on project rework.
• Over four years, they’ve spent eight figures fixing the same issue.
• A one-time seven-figure investment could permanently solve the problem.

With this information, your sales team crafts this winning pitch:

• An irresistible offer.
• Warranties for the work that needs to be done.
• A complete solution to the problem.
• Urgency triggers to drive immediate action.

Once the client is ready, your CRM automates the estimate or bid process, reducing manual work and improving your time-to-close.

9. Data Centralization

A construction CRM should serve as a single source of truth, consolidating:

• Sales activities
• Contact details
• Communication history

Having all this information in one place prevents your team from bouncing around from one app to another to get the needed data. The right CRM integrates seamlessly with other tools, ensuring all essential data is easily accessible.

Use case:

If you use CallRail for call tracking, Google Workspace for emails, and accounting software for sales data, your CRM should automatically pull in:

• Call logs and web form submissions.
• Email communications.
• Key financial insights (e.g., sales per customer).

This eliminates manual data entry, streamlines workflows, and keeps sales reps and project managers aligned.

10. Mobile Access for Field Sales Teams

Members of your construction crew need to head to multiple job sites.

Your sales reps, foremen, and supervisors must all make multiple stops, and specialists on your crews may also need to do this.

As they start their shift, many employees call into the office to find out where they’re supposed to go. Supervisors and foremen mentioned it several days before, but they have several stops they need to make, and a few employees are working on multiple projects.

Solution: Lay out their route in your CRM.

You can make things easier for your employees by mapping out their routes in your CRM instead of relying on them to get it right via Google Maps.

What’s the benefit here?

Your sales reps should be able to get work done from their mobile device. All of the functions you’d expect on the web or desktop versions of your CRM should be present on the mobile versions of your CRM.

With Pipeline CRM, you can:

• Easily manage contacts
• Access customer and deal information
• Get real-time data to close deals efficiently

Your mobile app should provide a consistent experience for users everywhere.

CRMs for Contractors: The Key to Long-Term Sales Success

Construction companies face a long list of challenges—labor shortages, miscommunication, project delays, and inefficient sales processes. But these problems are fixable with the right tools and strategies.

A great construction CRM doesn’t just store data. It streamlines operations, automates workflows, and empowers your team to close more deals with less effort. The difference between struggling contractors and thriving businesses often comes down to how well they manage their sales pipeline, bids, and customer relationships.

Don’t let inefficiencies hold your business back. Invest in a CRM designed for contractors and take control of your sales process.

Get started with Pipeline CRM today! Schedule a demo now.

FAQs About The Benefits of CRM for Construction Sales Teams

1. What Happens if My Team Doesn’t Use a CRM?

Implementing a CRM is only effective if your team actively uses it. If they don’t, common issues like lost leads, disorganized workflows, teams working in silos, and delayed projects will persist.

However, when teams consistently use a CRM, one of four things happens:

• The work gets done efficiently.
• The work doesn’t get done, but it’s clear who’s responsible.
• Bottlenecks are identified and fixed.
• You discover which projects aren’t a good fit.

Investing in the most customizable CRM and enforcing its use is the key to solving common industry challenges and driving long-term business success.

2. How Does Pipeline CRM Help Construction Businesses?

Pipeline CRM is designed specifically for construction sales teams, providing tools to improve lead management and project oversight. It helps teams:

• Automate lead tracking so no potential deal is lost.
• Centralize customer and project data for better collaboration.
• Integrate with bid management and estimation tools for smoother sales processes.
• Provide mobile access, allowing sales reps to manage deals from the field.

By using Pipeline CRM, construction businesses can increase sales efficiency, reduce administrative burdens, and close more deals faster.

The root cause? Often, it comes down to the quality of your AI email prompts. Poorly constructed prompts can lead to undesirable output, no matter how advanced the AI tool is. In other words, AI is an amazing tool, but it requires on-target AI email prompts for it to deliver its best results.

In this AI email guide, we’ll show you a few best practices on how to write great sales emails using AI, maximizing the impact of AI in your email marketing strategies.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using AI for Email Marketing Creation

While AI is a helpful resource, there are important upsides and downsides you’ll want to be aware of when using it to craft sales emails. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Pros of Using AI Email Assistants

• Content generation: no more wondering what you should say. Your assistant will give you a never-ending supply of ideas you can use for introductions, follow-up, and nurturing. You can even create multiple sales email templates for various sales and marketing purposes, ready to be used whenever you need them.
• 24/7 availability: an AI email assistant can craft responses to customers whenever you need them.
• Huge time savings: writing an email may take time, but that’s nothing compared to the time you lose in aggregate. Calculate your before and after. The amount of time you’ve spent trying to write emails over the last year and the amount you’ve saved afterward.
• Tone matching: with this AI sales automation tool, you can automatically create a personalized sales email by matching the tone on your sales emails on a case-by-case basis. Formal tones are used for new clients who are sticklers for professionalism, semi-casual for well-known clients, and casual for long-term clients and friends.
• Automated error correction: with your AI email assistant, you will catch and correct errors automatically. Poor grammar will be a thing of the past; your assistant catches all the major errors, leaving you free to clean things up with a once-over.
• Better email administration: forgotten emails will be a thing of the past. Your AI email assistant will flag all messages that need your attention and encourage you to reply within the predetermined time constraints you’ve set.

Cons of Using AI Email Assistants

• An over-reliance on AI: as you depend on your AI email assistant, you’ll become increasingly dependent on it for all things administrative (and why wouldn’t you be). However, this outcome could be a bad thing if it means your skills begin to atrophy.
• Can lead to impersonal communication: an overreliance on AI email assistants means your messages are much more likely to become impersonal. That’s bad if your email messages begin to lose your personal touch or a general sense of warmth.
• Requires regular adjustments: the data your AI email assistant is trained on is constantly evolving. As a result, regular updates, adjustments, and improvements are needed to maintain effectiveness. Without this constant maintenance, model drift will become a problem, and AI performance will begin to decline.
• Heavily dependent on infrastructure: your AI email assistant is pretty limited without internet access. It may not perform as expected if there are technical issues, downtime, or outages.

Now, is having an AI assistant useful or worthwhile? If you’re looking for a set-and-forget option that doesn’t require effort, it’s not worth it. The outcome will be a disaster.

On the other hand, AI works beautifully if you want to use the thoughtful AI-generated email strategies I’m about to share. This could be a fit if you want to use AI to help you manage a growing workload.

Let’s look at some example prompts you can use to write sales emails.

How to Write Converting Sales Emails with AI Prompts

Imagine having a friend who desperately needs our help. “Quick, get me the thing”—their mind goes blank. “What thing?!” we yell back in a panic. Frustrated, they yell, “Oh come on, you know, the thing leaning on the other side of the other thing.” They shake their hands in frustration, “THE THING!”

The problem isn’t AI; it’s us.

We’ve always had issues with generic, impersonal, and spammy sales messages. We’re asking an AI that’s not as smart as us to do the impossible and read our intent. Bad AI prompts do that. Great AI prompts tell our AI email assistant exactly what it needs to know, ensuring that we get what we need.

• Bad AI prompts are generic. They fail to provide the AI with any sort of meaningful data that can be used to create a compelling message. Of course the results are bad!
• The Best AI prompts follow a formula. These prompts are specific, offer context, set constraints, and outline requirements. They are guardrails that keep the AI assistant on track and help you refine your requests. These requests produce fantastic results you can work with!

Let’s look at several example prompts you can reference to get great sales email templates from your AI email assistant.

Cold Outreach Sales Email Template

Most sales reps are using AI email assistants for cold outreach in some form. That’s not a bad idea—what is a bad idea is approaching this with a volume mindset. Cold outreach isn’t a numbers game. It seems like it is, but sending the same generic message to thousands isn’t as effective as crafting a personalized, highly relevant message for 150 people.

Here are the results from our bad example.

Source: ChatGPT

See how wordy this bad example is? It’s heavy on content but light on value. Most people spam their prospects’ inboxes with this, and it’s no good.

Here are the results from our best example.

Source: ChatGPT

We can make some improvements here, but there’s a lot of good happening:

• We’re showing prospects that we understand their business
• We’re aware of some costly changes on the horizon
• We have a solution to address the problems they’re currently facing.

We could adapt this email to match our customers’ tone and voice if we want to improve. We can also focus on more personal details (e.g., referencing company posts on X, mining their reviews for customer complaints, etc.).

There’s always a way to add value.

Want to improve your cold-calling outreach skills? Our extensive guide to cold calling can help.

Welcome Messages Sales Email Template

In this particular AI sales email example, we’re selling financial services. We want to address our client’s concerns but do it in a way that addresses the nuance of their situation.

Our first prompt was generic; the second was specific. What about the best option? It was specific, gave context, set constraints, and outlined requirements. Most of the time, you’ll want to customize the ai-generated email to strike the right tone.

Here are the results from our bad prompt.

Source: ChatGPT

Now, let’s take a look at our best prompt.

Source: ChatGPT

Can you see the difference?

Suppose you know specifics about your client’s situation. For example, in our last call, you mentioned that you had a limited timetable and wanted to set this up in the next six weeks.

I mentioned that you should always be prepared to do a little house cleaning. Although this is a welcome email, there’s no welcome present. We’re missing some of the words, phrases, and figures of speech that convey warmth. It’s not completely cold, but it is very machine-like.

As always, make the necessary changes and customizations before sending your message.

Need more welcome email templates? Steal our best sales introduction email templates.

Follow-up Sales Email Template

This detail is one of the hardest parts of selling. It’s not mentally difficult; it’s emotionally difficult.

We’re trying to follow up with prospects because we know it leads to more sales. That said, we—experienced salespeople—know how to read leads’ reactions. We have a pretty good sense of when prospects are interested and when they’re not. Unfortunately, that’s not good enough for our manager, though.

We know our manager will ask if we got an explicit yes or no from our prospects. We also know that customers aren’t always as direct or upfront as they should be. It’s a challenge; we need to follow up with leads, but we don’t always know what to say or how to start the conversation. Sometimes, it’s easier to say nothing.

Let’s take a look at our options.

First, the bad AI prompt

Source: ChatGPT

Now, let’s look at our best prompt.

Source: ChatGPT

Can you feel the sense of urgency?

John, our prospect, is going to feel the pressure. He needs to do something. This problem isn’t imaginary. We’re not pushing him to do this so we can make a quick buck (include a link in your message for third-party validation). It’s a problem that he has to face and fast.

What if I can’t find these problems? No problem! Let Google tell you.

1. Head over to Google News and enter a topic or keyword (i.e., oil prices).
2. Make a list of all of the relevant keywords that apply.
3. Copy and paste the relevant keywords into your document or text file.
4. Head over to Google Alerts and enter the keywords from your list.

It’s that easy!

Set your alert volume to the amount you can handle (I’d recommend once a day). I’d also recommend creating a Gmail account specifically for this purpose. Check your inbox once a day, then use the formula I mentioned above to create an AI prompt that is ultra-relevant, personalized, and specific to your client’s circumstances.

Want to make it better? Use the data from your CRM. If you’re using a CRM with AI features—like Pipeline CRM—you can use their in-app sales automation tools to create your prompts.

Looking for more ways to write compelling follow-up emails? Our comprehensive follow-up email guide has you covered, complete with some free email templates!

Re-engagement Sales Email Template

It seems like your prospects want to break up with you.

You’ve sent your leads several messages, but they haven’t responded consistently. Some have decided to ghost you, ignoring your messages completely. What do you do?

You put them into a re-engagement sequence. A re-engagement sequence is the final step for prospects.

• If you send them a series of messages and they ignore them all, you can mark them as inactive.
• If they respond sporadically, you can assign them to a sales rep for re-activation.
• If they regain interest, you move towards closing the sale.

Let’s take a look at a few AI prompts you can use.

First, the bad AI prompt.

Source: ChatGPT

Let’s look at the best prompt.

Source: ChatGPT

Did you catch the specific prompt that made our re-engagement series the best option? Our prompt followed our formula—it was specific, gave context, set constraints, and outlined requirements. Then we added the extras:

• In our first email, we asked prospects a pointed question: have you given up? [Is it you?]
• Our next email asked if we were bothering them. [Is it us?]
• Our final email asked about their interest level and offered an incentive to see if this attracted more attention. [No longer interested?]

These messages help us to identify the specifics behind our prospect’s disengagement.

Do you not like the email templates above? We have some more! Find more creative re-engagement sales email templates here.

Effective Sales Emailing Relies on the Right AI Prompts

AI-generated email strategies begin and end with you. You’ll need a formula if you’re using AI for email marketing. Here are the steps I’ve outlined in my formula:

1. Use specificity
2. Give AI context
3. Set AI constraints
4. Outline requirements

So, the next time you ask an AI email assistant to craft an email, and it comes back with bad emails, don’t get frustrated and blame this smart sales automation tool. Ask yourself: How was the quality of my email prompts?

AI is an amazing tool that requires clear direction and a precise formula to be great. The more data you can feed your AI email assistant, the better your AI prompts and sales emails will be.

Are you still juggling between your CRM and ChatGPT to create compelling sales emails? Simplify the process with Pipeline CRM’s AI email writing assistant. Our AI-powered solution is seamlessly integrated into the CRM, enabling you to craft personalized emails directly within the platform. Use the prompt button to refine your message—whether it’s to “rephrase,” “shorten,” or adjust the tone. Once you’re satisfied, set them up as email sequences. These emails will automatically be sent to your selected prospects when a specific trigger is activated, saving you time and effort while maximizing efficiency.

Sign up now to test our advanced AI email solution!

As a sales leader, your priority should be eliminating inefficiencies and maximizing revenue potential. Regular diagnostic checks and agile fixes are essential to maintaining a healthy pipeline and ensuring smooth lead progression.

This comprehensive guide will help you evaluate and optimize your sales pipeline for sustained growth, efficiency, and long-term success.

Identifying and Overcoming Sales Pipeline Inefficiencies

Before optimizing your sales pipeline, it’s essential to understand the typical pitfalls and blockers that make pipelines inefficient.

1. Ineffective Lead Qualification

Sometimes, background checks and initial verification of leads can result in unqualified leads. These leads get stuck in the sales funnel longer than necessary, wasting valuable resources and time. This situation also hinders all types of leads, particularly high-potential ones, from progressing efficiently, leading to unexpected bottlenecks.

2. Prolonged Sales Cycles

Prospects can get stuck at any stage throughout their process, which delays deal closing. Long sales cycles usually indicate issues in the negotiation process or follow-up inefficiencies.

You can read this article to discover how to build a sales pipeline and shorten sales cycles effectively.

3. Overwhelmed Sales Teams

When team members juggle multiple tasks to manage too many leads, they are likely to feel tired and stressed. This often results in improper follow-ups or lead tracking, creating bottlenecks. Additionally, mistakes may happen when resources are stretched too thin across various sales pipelines.

4. Disjointed Team Communication

Different teams participate at different stages of a lead’s sales journey. It is essential for these teams to maintain a single line of communication and have a unified understanding of all discussions with clients. When internal communication breaks down, it slows down conversions and creates bottlenecks in the process.

5. Inconsistent Lead Scoring

A well-defined Ideal Client Profile (ICP) ensures accurate lead scoring based on key factors such as budget, client type, and business size. Misalignment in ICP creation can lead to incorrect scoring, misclassified leads, and missed opportunities.

Now that we’ve identified common sales pipeline inefficiencies let’s explore how to transform your pipeline for success.

7-Step Guide to Promoting Pipeline Success

To ensure your sales pipeline operates at peak efficiency, you must monitor key factors, conduct regular assessments, and implement strategic improvements. Let’s explore the essential elements of a successful pipeline and how to optimize it for growth.

1. Know What a Healthy Sales Pipeline Looks Like

A poorly maintained pipeline can lead to blocked opportunities, stalled sales cycles, and unpredictable revenue. However, these issues can be mitigated by consistently refreshing your pipeline with new leads and segmenting them effectively.

A healthy pipeline should:

• Maintain a steady flow of high-quality leads.
• Distribute leads evenly across early, middle, and late funnel stages.
• Provide accurate revenue forecasts to guide decision-making.

Accurate revenue forecasts serve as the foundation for sustained growth, helping to allocate resources, set goals and realistic targets, and make informed decisions regarding hiring, marketing, and other operational matters.

2. Optimize Lead Qualification and Scoring

To improve efficiency, it’s crucial to clean and prioritize leads effectively. Ensure you:

• Define clear criteria for high-quality leads and eliminate unqualified ones early.
• Develop an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) to categorize and score leads accurately.
• Implement a lead scoring system within your CRM to focus on high-potential prospects.
• Automate lead qualification to minimize manual efforts and allow your team to focus on nurturing leads.

3. Track Important Pipeline Metrics and Indicators

Tracking pipeline metrics can be challenging, as constant monitoring requires a lot of time, effort, and resources. Additionally, there are so many cogs that work together that it can be hard to track every single one.

A healthy sales pipeline is the backbone of a successful team, ensuring that your pipeline setup has fewer stagnant leads and bottlenecks. A sales pipeline audit should assess:

• Conversion rate: identify where prospects drop off and optimize those stages.
• Lead velocity: detect stagnation and intervene before leads go cold.
• Lead quality: prioritize high-potential leads that align with your ICP.
• Data-driven decision-making: use key metrics like win rates and sales cycle length to refine strategies.

4. Identify and Address Bottlenecks

Once you understand what a healthy sales pipeline looks like and actively track indicators and metrics, you will better understand your blockers. Here is how you can address some common bottlenecks:

• Slow sales cycles: flag this bottleneck in real time using process maps to identify causes of prolonged cycles.
• Sales reps management: overwhelmed team members can’t work at full capacity. A CRM with AI-assisted answers enhances client retention and service speed.
• Inefficient lead qualification: targeting the wrong prospects creates bottlenecks. Define an ICP and implement a lead scoring system to improve this.
• Knowledge gap: sales teams waste time searching for information. A centralized knowledge management system provides instant access to collective knowledge.

5. Maintain Open Lines of Communication

A seamless sales process depends on collaboration across teams. A CRM for sales should:

• Integrate client data to ensure smooth lead transfers.
• Automate lead handoffs to client success teams for seamless onboarding.
• Reduce churn by enhancing post-sale follow-ups and upselling opportunities.

6. Leverage CRM and Automation for Efficiency

Using a sales CRM with automation and AI tools can significantly improve sales pipeline management by reducing manual workload and increasing efficiency.

• Automate lead qualification: CRM software can score, and segment leads, ensuring only high-quality prospects reach the sales team.
• AI-powered email assistants: sales teams are uniquely positioned to leverage AI capabilities via email assistants and smart conversational bots.
• Automate repetitive tasks: tasks such as follow-up reminders and data entry can be automated, allowing sales teams to focus on core sales activities.

75% of professionals already use AI at work. By integrating AI into your sales pipeline management, your team can work smarter, reduce inefficiencies, and focus on revenue-driving activities

7. Enhance Data-Driven Decision Making with Reporting and Integrations

A well-integrated CRM system provides real-time reporting and seamless third-party app integrations, enabling sales teams to work more effectively.

• Custom reporting: generate real-time reports that monitor pipeline health and key sales metrics to drive strategic decision-making.
• Integrated third-party applications: connecting emails, calendars, and document-sharing tools within your CRM reduces admin work and boosts efficiency.
• Predictive analytics: use AI-driven insights to refine sales tactics, improve forecasting, and optimize resource allocation.

By incorporating these strategies and leveraging automation, you can build a high-performing sales pipeline that drives sustained growth and efficiency.

Continuous Sales Pipeline Optimization, Review, and Refinement

A successful sales pipeline management strategy requires ongoing optimization. By performing regular sales pipeline audits, sales teams can identify inefficiencies, refine lead qualification processes, and leverage automation to enhance workflow efficiency.

A sales CRM automates time-consuming tasks like follow-ups and client data entry and improves visibility across multiple sales pipelines. This lets you focus on high-value activities such as engaging leads, closing deals, and building long-term customer relationships.

By continuously optimizing your sales process, you can eliminate bottlenecks, improve conversion rates, and ensure your pipeline remains a powerful engine for business success.

Ready to optimize your sales pipeline? Check out Pipeline CRM’s flexible pricing plans to find the best fit for your team!

Today, we’ll take a look at the emerging CRM trends and technologies you’ll want to adopt in your business this year. This includes a higher demand for omnichannel customer experience, more AI-powered CRM solutions, and the increasing need for social CRM. Let’s dive into some of the best CRM features for 2025.

CRM Trend 1: AI-Powered CRMs for Smarter Sales Processes

Some people are pro-AI, while some oppose it. Those who oppose AI applications in sales processes think that artificial intelligence cannot deliver high-quality products like humans can; therefore, why bother adopting AI to their CRM ecosystem? In reality, the evidence we’re seeing shows the direct opposite.

We’re seeing AI rapidly becoming one of the best innovative CRM technologies. How do we know?

1. The world’s data doubles every 12 hours. Not too long ago, it took years for that to happen.
2. The number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every two years, thanks to Moore’s law.
3. As a result, AI computational power doubles every 6 mo.

So what does this mean?

AI gets a new, more powerful brain every two years, and the data they have to learn from doubles every 12 hours. If you’re not using AI and AI-powered CRM to grow your business, you should be. AI continues to change things for the better. Here’s how it will improve your CRM campaigns:

1. Smarter predictive analytics: As AI learning models improve, CRMs will be better at predicting customer behavior, managing workflows, and anticipating customer needs.
2. Advanced customer personalization: CRM and sales software will better personalize content for prospects, customers, and vendors throughout their respective journeys. This will naturally improve the user and customer experience and the sales reps.
3. Low-code/no-code platforms enable employees to create AI sales workflows, processes, and systems, improving collaboration. Your employees will be much more productive and efficient, doing more with much less.
4. Tight personalization: Personalization is easy when you have advanced AI support. Your emails, texts, phone calls, and updates are closely personalized for each prospect. This is especially beneficial if you have a large number of customers/prospects to deal with.
5. Better data-driven decision-making: Research shows that 73% of the data collected and stored by companies goes unused, and what is actually utilized is often misused. Smart AI can pull hidden insights and missed opportunities from your data.
6. Augmented support options: As AI models improve, the line between chatbots, virtual assistants, and human agents will begin to blur. Yes, this sets customer expectations of 24/7 availability. However, it’s a promise, thanks to AI, companies everywhere will be able to deliver on. With smarter AI CRM, you’ll get a more profitable product, providing all the benefits of CRM systems discussed above.

The smarter AI becomes, the more capable we will be. Smarter AI means better AI assistants. You’ll find that your CRM helps you close more deals and win more customers.

Take Pipeline CRM’s AI email writing assistant, for instance. This AI-powered email solution is backed by OpenAI technologies, allowing you to write or edit emails by clicking prompt buttons. Make it more personalized by asking the AI to ‘rephrase’ the messaging or make it ‘more engaging.’ no more switching between ChatGPT and your email CRM solution to craft highly successful email campaigns.

CRM Trend 2: Omnichannel Customer Experience CRM

What is an omnichannel customer experience (CX)?

Omnichannel CX is a seamless experience across multiple communication channels (e.g., email, phone, text, social, etc.). In layman’s terms, when you speak with a customer, it’s one conversation on any channel at any time.

How does an omnichannel CRM work?

Picture this: You email one of your clients with your proposal to upgrade their service. They text you to discuss the proposal and set up a time to discuss it via Zoom. After your meeting, you pull up the phone logs and support tickets with this client.

You see they’re worried about on-time delivery.

Your point-of-contact desperately needs you to work with third-party vendors, and they need final deliverables within the delivery window you’ve promised. Heads will roll if your point-of-contact fails to deliver.

Your client signs on the dotted line.

Project management updates appear in your CRM so you can shepherd your client’s project through the pipeline. Thanks to your efforts, the project is delivered three weeks early. Your point-of-contact is happy.

Here’s one of the major benefits of having an omnichannel CRM: the customer experience is seamless. Think of it as an ongoing conversation that picks up where you left off, regardless of the channel, vs. lots of fragmented conversations across multiple channels (e.g., social, web, text, phone, email, etc.).

In fact, according to Invespcro, companies with omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain, on average, 89% of their customers, compared to 33% for companies with weak omnichannel customer engagement.

CRM Trend 3: Social Media to Social CRM

People are spending more and more time on social media. According to Statista, people are spending approximately 1.5 to 3.5 hours per day on social media.

This means that if you’re looking for customers, social media is where you need to be. However, here’s the problem: most companies are still taking the industrial-age approach, tackling these social networks one at a time. Social CRM aims to change all of that.

With social CRM, companies can pull communications/data from their social media profiles, incorporating that with their CRM and application data. Combining web, social, CRM and sales software, as well as application data gives companies a clear view of the customer journey.

Why does that matter? With social CRM, companies…

1. Gain a deeper understanding of customers
2. Can better manage prospect/customer inquiries
3. Earn a direct line to their audience
4. Can provide customers with faster, more direct responses to their support requests
5. Have better segmentation for their customer and audience lists
6. Offer more personalized communication
7. Can monitor customer reviews, testimonials, and feedback
8. Make data-driven decisions with more customer data

Social CRM will continue to become more prominent, especially as AI grows and evolves. As this trend evolves, customer expectations will continue to change.

CRM Trend 4: CRMs with Rich Integration Options

CRM integration is the foundation of everything we’ve discussed here. There are three types of integrations for CRM:

1. Cloud-based integrations are app-to-app integrations. You connect your favorite apps to your CRM and sales software. This can include various tools like Quickbooks, Mailchimp, Asana, and Zapier—all of which can be seamlessly integrated if you use Pipeline CRM.
2. IoT integrations are app-to-device integrations. You connect your CRM and sales software to your IoT devices, such as inventory management systems, smart devices, fleet management systems, and supply chain management.
3. API integrations are code-to-code integrations. Your organization creates custom code designed to interact with, for example, Pipeline CRM’s Application Programming Interface, exchanging data and performing actions.

Items one and three are straightforward, but what about item two? Here’s a short list of IoT integration examples you can use based on your business niche:

• Retail/ecommerce: CRM + smart selves = tracking in-store inventory and prompting sales reps to follow up with customers.
• Manufacturing: CRM + IoT = monitoring inventory levels, automated restocking, tracking machine performance, predictive maintenance, etc.
• Real estate: CRM + smart home systems & security devices = automated property management, tenant/buyer interactions with home and automation systems.

We’re beginning to see an influx of integration-ready IoT devices. As more of these devices hit the market, we’ll see a race towards integration. CRM and IoT can be the future of CRM software and the start of a technology arms race.

CRM Trend 5: Low to No-code CRM Software

There’s a trend towards self-service CRM. Large, complex platforms like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics are declining. As the market rapidly changes, more companies will begin to rely on self-service and low-code options.

But why? Aren’t companies interested in ownership? Or control over “mission critical” tools like their CRM?

In the past, the answer to that question would have been “yes.” Today, circumstances have changed; more companies are opting out of the traditional on-premise, big-ticket model and simplifying their stack. They’re moving towards simple, cloud-based SaaS tools.

Here are some reasons that drove the switch:

• Citizen developers: More companies are relying on “citizen developers.” These are non-technical users who can manage CRM applications and integrations. They use these low/no-code platforms to create workflows, set up automation, simplify processes, and create dashboards. Thanks to low/no-code platforms, these citizen developers can increasingly manage their company’s tech stack. Companies can save a significant amount of money.
• Native integrations with other tools: In the good ‘ol days, companies tried to be all things to all people. Feature lists were big, bloated, and in demand. When you purchased software, you owned it. It was a major investment. You needed consultants to provide your team with comprehensive training and support. Those days are gone. Today, most cloud-based tools are tightly integrated with the tool stack that their customers already use. Integration platforms like Zapier and Integrately connect thousands of apps in seconds. Expect these trends to accelerate.
• Data analysis and visualization: Today, the emphasis is focused on speed of decision-making. Real-time data analysis and data visualization mean companies can move towards revenue/profit in a much shorter period of time.
• Fast MVP and rapid iteration: Low/no-code platforms enable companies to create Minimum Viable Products quickly, test, interact, and grow. Is the product a failure? Shut it down quickly and try again with another MVP or proof of concept.

With low/no-code CRMs, your sales team can be up and running in minutes. Compare that with Microsoft Dynamics 365 where implementation takes 3-5 months for a straightforward setup. Running a mid-sized company with custom requirements? You’re looking at a 6 to 12+ month deployment with extensive custom work.

The Best CRM Features for 2025 Circle Back to Connecting with Customers

While the CRM trends of 2025 seem to head in various directions, they were still created to address one foundational aspect of sales: building trustworthy relationships with customers.

• Omnichannel experiences keep you connected to customers
• Product integrations keep your customers connected to the tools and resources they already use
• Low/no-code options give companies a faster path to revenue
• Social CRM keeps a direct line to your customers open

Each of these emerging trends and technologies connects your team to customers, products, revenue, or access. From AI-driven personalization to advanced integration capabilities and more, the nature of CRM is changing. It’s all about streamlining workflows, enhancing customer experiences, and driving data-driven decision-making. Look for ways to maintain connection, and you’ll find you’re ahead of emerging trends and technologies.

Get a sales CRM that supports you in closing deals more productively and effectively, like Pipeline CRM. We offer seamless integration with many popular sales and marketing tools, such as QuickBooks, CallRail, and Mailchimp. Our powerful email solutions enable you to easily create engaging emails (thanks to our AI email writing assistant) and send them out automatically using our email drip campaign feature.

Interested in giving Pipeline CRM a try? Sign up here for a 14-day free trial.

Check out other blogs on the best CRM tools for your business:

• Best CRM for Distributors and Wholesalers
• Best CRM Software For Construction Companies
• Best CRM for Real Estate Agents

In fact, AI email assistants aren’t ready for prime time. Anytime I try to use AI to write sales emails, I end up with the same kind of unusable results, such as this (source).

Hey @kalendarai, you should reconsider spamming people with AI generated marketing emails that contain embarrassing errors…besides the obvious hallucination, I don’t work for @MACcosmetics and never have.

Certainly doesn’t instill confidence that your “AI” actually works. Oh… pic.twitter.com/ZH5UeSkyP8

— Jimmy Grewal (@jimmyg) March 24, 2024

Have you experienced something similar?

Someone creates a sales email (in this case, the AI company itself) and uses its AI to sell its company, and it backfires publicly, creating a really embarrassing misstep for their company.

Does that mean AI sucks? Not at all. AI is an amazing tool, but it requires clear direction from you to be great. It’s not the set-and-forget resource we want it to be.

Sure, if we write sales emails like these, we’ll be left unread. With that in mind, Here’s how you can create amazing sales emails using AI.

The Pros and Cons of Using AI for Email Marketing

There are so many situations where email marketing can help. For example, when sales reps know they’re supposed to follow up but are out of ideas or unsure about what to say.

With Generative AI, sales reps get an idea-generation machine. With the right model, sales reps can use AI to create sales messages that resonate with prospects in a fraction of the time.

Related: learn how to get the most out of generative AI to support your sales operations.

While AI is a helpful resource, there are important upsides and downsides you’ll want to be aware of. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Advantages of Using AI Email Assistants

• Content generation: no more wondering what you should say. Your assistant will give you a never-ending supply of ideas you can use for introductions, follow-up, and nurturing. You’ll be better prepared and dialed into each customer as if they’re the only one you have.
• 24/7 availability: AI email assistants can craft responses to customers whenever you need them.
• Huge time savings: writing an email may take time, but that’s nothing compared to the time you lose in aggregate.
• Tone matching: you can automatically match the tone on a case-by-case basis. For instance, formal tones are used for new clients who are sticklers for professionalism, semi-casual for well-known clients, and casual for long-term clients and friends.
• Automated error correction: with AI email assistant, you will catch and correct errors automatically. Poor grammar will be a thing of the past; the AI email tool catches all the major errors, leaving you free to clean things up with a once-over.
• Better email administration: forgotten emails will be a thing of the past. Your assistant will flag all messages that need your attention and encourage you to reply within the predetermined time constraints you’ve set.

Disadvantages of Using AI Email Assistants

• An over-reliance on AI: as you depend on your AI email assistant, you’ll become increasingly dependent on it for all things administrative. However, this outcome could be a bad thing if it means your skills begin to atrophy.
• Can lead to impersonal communication: an overreliance on AI email tools means your messages are much more likely to become impersonal. That’s bad if your email messages begin to lose your personal touch or a general sense of warmth.
• Requires regular adjustments: the data your AI assistant is trained on is constantly evolving. As a result, regular updates, adjustments, and improvements are needed to maintain effectiveness. Without this constant maintenance, model drift will become a problem, and AI performance will begin to decline.
• Heavily dependent on infrastructure: your AI assistant is pretty limited without internet access. It may not perform as expected if there are technical issues, downtime, or outages.

Now, is having an AI assistant useful or worthwhile? If you’re looking for a set-and-forget option that doesn’t require effort, it’s not worth it. The outcome will be a disaster.

On the other hand, AI works beautifully if you want to use the thoughtful AI-generated email strategies I’m about to share. This could be a fit if you want to use AI to help you manage a growing sales outreach workload.

Let’s look at some examples of AI email prompts you can use to write sales emails.

The Dos and Don’ts of Writing Sales Emails With AI Prompts and AI Email Generator

We’ve always had issues with generic, impersonal, and spammy sales messages. Yet, we often ask AI that’s not as smart as humans to do the impossible and read our intent.

Bad AI prompts do that. In contrast, great AI prompts tell our AI email assistant exactly what it needs to know, ensuring that we get what we need.

• Bad AI prompts are generic. They fail to provide the AI with meaningful data that can be used to create a compelling message. Of course, the results are bad!
• The best AI prompts follow a formula. These prompts are specific, offer context, set constraints, and outline requirements. They are guardrails that keep the AI email assistant on track and help you refine your requests. These requests produce fantastic results you can work with!

Let’s look at several example prompts you can reference to get great sales email templates from your AI email assistant.

Examples of Optimized AI Sales Email Templates

AI Sales Email Template 1: Cold Outreach

Most sales reps are using AI email assistants for cold outreach in some form. That’s not a bad idea—what is a bad idea is approaching this with a volume mindset. Cold outreach isn’t a numbers game. It seems like it is, but sending the same generic message to thousands of prospects isn’t as effective as crafting a personalized, highly relevant message for 150 people.

Here are the results from our bad example.

Source: ChatGPT

See how wordy this email is? It’s heavy on content but light on value. Most people spam their prospects’ inboxes with this, and it’s no good.

Here are the results from our best AI email example.

Source: ChatGPT

We can make some improvements here, but there’s a lot of good happening. (a.) we’re showing prospects that we understand their business, (b.) we’re aware of some costly changes on the horizon, and (c.) we have a solution to address the problems they’re currently facing.

We could further adapt this email to match our customers’ tone and voice. We can also focus on more personal details, such as referencing company posts on X, mining their reviews for customer complaints, etc. There’s always a way to add value.

Related: cold calling isn’t easy. If you’ve been struggling to achieve positive results, our guide to cold calling may help.

AI Sales Email Template 2: Welcome Messages

In this particular generative AI email example, we’re selling financial services. We want to address our client’s concerns but do it in a way that addresses the nuance of their situation.

Our first prompt was generic; the second was specific. What about the best option? It was specific, gave context, set constraints, and outlined requirements. Most of the time, you’ll want to customize the ai-generated email to strike the right tone.

Here are the results from our bad AI email prompt.

Source: ChatGPT

Now, let’s take a look at our best AI email prompt.

Source: ChatGPT

Suppose you know specifics about your client’s situation. For example, in our last call, you mentioned that you had a limited timetable and wanted to set this up in the next six weeks.

I mentioned that you should always be prepared to do a little house cleaning. Although this is a welcome email, there’s no welcome present. We’re missing some of the words, phrases, and figures of speech that convey warmth. It’s not completely cold, but it is very machine-like.

As always, make the necessary changes and customizations before sending your message.

AI Sales Email Template 3: Follow-up Emails

We’re trying to follow up with prospects because we know it leads to more sales. However, sales follow-up is sometimes challenging. We need to follow up with them, but we don’t always know what to say or how to start the conversation. Sometimes, it’s easier to say nothing.

Let’s take a look at our options.

First, the bad AI email prompt.

Source: ChatGPT

Now, let’s look at our best AI sales email prompt.

Source: ChatGPT

Can you feel the sense of urgency?

John, our prospect, is going to feel the pressure. He needs to do something. This problem isn’t imaginary. We’re not pushing him to do this so we can make a quick buck (include a link in your message for third-party validation). It’s a problem that he has to face and fast.

What if I can’t find these problems? No problem! Let Google tell you.

1. Head over to Google News and enter a topic or keyword (i.e., oil prices).
2. Make a list of all of the relevant keywords that apply.
3. Copy and paste the relevant keywords into your document or text file.
4. Head over to Google Alerts and enter the keywords from your list.

Set your Google Alert notification to the amount you can handle (I’d recommend once a day). I’d also recommend creating a Gmail account specifically for this purpose. Check your inbox daily, then use the formula I mentioned above to create an AI prompt that is ultra-relevant, personalized, and specific to your client’s circumstances.

Want to make it better? Use the data from your CRM. If you’re using a CRM with AI features, like Pipeline CRM,, you can use their in-app sales automation tools to create your prompts.

AI Sales Email Template 4: Re-engage Cold Prospects

You’ve sent your prospect several messages, but they haven’t responded consistently. Some have decided to ghost you, ignoring your messages completely. What do you do?

You put them into a re-engagement sequence! A re-engagement sequence is the final step for prospects.

• If you send them a series of messages and they ignore them all, you can mark them as inactive.
• If they respond sporadically, you can assign them to a sales rep for re-activation.
• If they regain interest, you move towards closing the sale.

Let’s take a look at a few AI sales email prompts you can use to speed up the process.

First, the bad AI email prompt.

Source: ChatGPT

Let’s look at the result from the best AI email prompt.

Source: ChatGPT

The best email prompt followed our formula—it was specific, gave context, set constraints, and outlined requirements. Then we added the extras; in our first email, we asked prospects a pointed question—have you given up? Our next email asked if we were bothering them. Our final email asked about their interest level and offered an incentive to see if this attracted more attention.

Why does this matter?

• Our first message—is it you?
• The second message—is it us?
• Final message—No longer interested?

These messages help us to identify the specifics behind our prospect’s disengagement.

Related: This sales email guide will provide more ideas on crafting email templates to re-engage cold prospects.

Get the Best Results From Your AI Email Writing Assistant

AI-generated email strategies begin and end with you. You’ll need a formula if you’re using AI for email marketing. Here are the steps I’ve outlined in my formula.

1. Use specificity
2. Give AI context
3. Set AI constraints
4. Outline requirements

What about personalization?

Personalization isn’t the end goal, it’s the minimum requirement.  A set-and-forget strategy won’t work. People are quick to complain about AI. Anytime I try to use AI to write sales emails, I end up with the same kind of unusable emails.

Well, the problem is probably not with the AI email generator but with the prompts you give. AI is an amazing tool that requires clear direction and a precise formula to be effective. The more data you can feed your AI email assistant, the better your AI prompts and sales emails will be.

That said, one common challenge with AI-powered email generation is the need for constant prompt refinement, even for minor adjustments.

To address this, our ChatGPT-powered email writing assistant incorporates shortcuts. With a simple click, you can easily instruct the AI to enhance the email’s engagement, shorten it, or rephrase it. Watch this clip to see how it works.

Sign up to Pipeline CRM today to start enjoying this AI email solution!

Workplaces are becoming increasingly decentralized. Employees around the world favor remote work or a hybrid model that combines working from home and working from the office.

Although hybrid working has many benefits, it has its challenges. A Microsoft research report reveals that 85% of leaders find it difficult to ensure employee productivity in a hybrid work environment.

The shift also poses challenges for companies with sales teams that depend on close collaboration and communication to meet their objectives. These businesses require a sales management tool to oversee a distributed sales force effectively. This tool must facilitate communication, track performance, and ensure alignment among various teams.

To let your sales team thrive, here are five top sales team management software solutions with powerful reporting features designed to optimize sales performance and boost productivity.

Why Do Remote Teams Need Sales Team Management Software?

Traditional sales management strategies often falter in remote settings. Face-to-face meetings, impromptu brainstorming sessions, and readily available support from colleagues are no longer the default.

If this sounds familiar, sales management software or a CRM can bridge the gap here for your business.

The following features make CRMs crucial for remote teams:

• Optimized Connectivity: teams operating from different locations need clear and consistent communication.

The right software can provide a channel for instant messaging and facilitate video conferencing, file sharing, and even status updates when required via an intuitive interface for team members.

• Seamless Collaboration: being aware of updates and work tasks is paramount for remote teams.

A versatile sales management software will offer collaborative tools for team members to work together on deals, share insights, and record sales history from any location.

• Streamlined Workflows: automation frees up time for team members to engage in core sales and sales-related tasks, resulting in improved team performance.

A good sales CRM can automate redundant tasks like data entry, daily record maintenance, and lead management.

• KPI Tracking: if managers have access to real-time performance records at any given time and place, they can track, monitor, and remedy individual and team performance. This assists managers in identifying areas of improvement, making data-driven decisions, and measuring the success of their team strategies.

Sales management software presents real-time sales dashboards, detailed reports, and daily records.

• Positive Workplace Culture: recent Harvard research found that WFH modalities can make employees see each other as authentic, human, and trustworthy — all qualities that lead to stronger personal and professional bonds.

Sales team management software reinforces a sense of community and belonging that provides a centralized platform for interaction and collaboration.

5 Best Sales Team Management Software Tools

The undeniable benefits of good sales team management software make it a must-have for businesses to perform and be connected even from different corners of the world.

Here are five sales team management software tools for remote workers, along with features and ratings to help you make an informed decision.

1.   Pipeline CRM: A Powerful Sales Team Management Tool

Pipeline CRM is a sales management tool designed to streamline your sales process, boost team productivity, and drive revenue growth.

By providing a centralized platform for setting goals, tracking progress, and encouraging collaboration, Pipeline CRM empowers sales teams to achieve their full potential.

Key Features

The following are Pipeline CRM’s most valuable features.

• Sales Pipeline Management: helps visualize and manage your entire sales pipeline, track deals, and identify bottlenecks.
• Contact Management: allows centralization of all client interactions and their experiences which makes managing and organizing this data easy.
• Sales Prospect Management: captures, qualifies, and nurtures all leads efficiently.
• Reports and Dashboards: gain insights into real-time sales performance and reports with Pipeline CRM’s customizable dashboards that highlight key metrics, identify trends, and help you make data-driven updates and decisions.
• Mobile App: Pipeline CRM is accessible on the go with an updated mobile app, which means users can manage their sales pipeline, track activities, and stay connected with their team from anywhere around the world.
• Integrations: easily integrate with essential external business tools like email marketing platforms, accounting software, and your inbox so users can access all tools without opening multiple apps.

Pipeline CRM Benefits

• Secure, massive storage availability
• Powerful reporting and analytics
• Interactive interface with instant notification versatile mobile app capabilities
• Seamless integration
• Efficient client support
• Enhanced team management

Pricing Plans

Pipeline CRM’s pricing plans are structured as follows: the Start plan is available for $25 per user per month, while the Develop plan costs $33 per user per month. For those looking for more extensive features, the Growth plan is offered at $49 per user per month.

Customer Review Ratings

• 4/5 rating on G2
• 3/5 rating on Capterra
• 3/10 rating on TrustRadius

2.   Hubspot: A Scalable Sales Team Management Software

Big names like Reddit, TripAdvisor, and eBay use HubSpot. With an empowered and seamless interface, the platform helps drive performance and team management among remote teams.

HubSpot is a comprehensive sales management solution designed to drive revenue growth. It offers a range of features to help remote teams streamline sales processes, improve team collaboration, and boost productivity.

Key Features

These are HubSpot’s best features for managing sales team performance.

• Deal pipeline management
• Sales forecasting and coaching
• Sales automation and forecasting
• Sales playbook
• Real-time sales team analytics and reporting

HubSpot’s Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Robust feature set
• Scalability
• Affordable pricing
• Excellent customer support
• Integration capabilities
• Data-driven insights

Cons:

• Steep learning curve
• Limited customization option
• Complexity for small teams
• Unnecessary features

Pricing Plans

Sales Hub Professional is available starting at $90 per user per month, while Sales Hub Enterprise is priced at $150 per user per month.

Customer Review Ratings

• 4/5 rating on G2
• 5/5 rating on Capterra
• 5/10 rating on TrustRadius

3.   Salesforce: An Established Platform With Many Integrations

Salesforce is synonymous with CRM – it’s an all-in-one sales toolkit. This remote sales software assists your team in streamlining processes, boosting productivity, and accelerating revenue growth.

Salesforce automates sales management and helps prevent disjointed communication when team members work from different locations. The platform lets businesses plan, develop, and execute customizable workflows and set trackable sales targets.

Key Features

Salesforce offers a wide range of features, which include the following:

• Slack integration
• AI insights and workflows, along with sales process templates
• Real-time sales dashboard
• Deals notifications
• Mobile access and activity tracking
• Incentive compensation management

Salesforce’s Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Enhanced sales productivity
• Efficient sales team management
• Advanced sales forecasting
• Mobile accessibility
• Customization and tool integration

Cons:

• Expensive
• Dependency on Salesforce’s interface
• Complex workflows and configuration
• Vendor lock-in
• Complex to learn

Pricing Plans

The pricing structure for the software includes several editions to cater to different user needs. The Starter edition is available at $25 per user per month, while the Professional edition is priced at $80 per user per month. For those seeking more advanced features, the Enterprise edition comes in at $165 per user per month. Finally, the Unlimited edition offers all available features for $330 per user per month.

Customer Review Ratings

• 4/5 rating on G2
• 4/5 rating on Capterra
• 6 /10 rating on TrustRadius

4.   Zoho: An Intuitive CRM for Remote Teams

Zoho CRM is a user-friendly CRM solution designed to assist individuals and small business owners manage their team relationships and productivity. It seamlessly integrates with popular business tools like Gmail, Outlook, and LinkedIn, providing a centralized hub for contact information, social media interactions, and sales activities.

Zoho also has good reviews for its customer support team and issue resolution measures, making it a good option for companies that don’t have their own in-house tech teams.

Key Features

The following are Zoho CRM’s best features.

• Integrated communication
• Workflows and automation
• Sales force automation
• Mobile access

Zoho’s Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Ease of use
• Lead management
• Data-driven insights
• Scalability
• Seamless integrations

Cons:

• Limited customization
• Lacking some features

Pricing Plans

The service offers a tiered pricing structure: the Standard plan is approximately $14 per user per month, the Professional plan is around $24 per user per month, and the Enterprise plan costs about $40 per user per month, catering to different needs and capabilities.

Customer Review Ratings

• 1/ 5 rating on G2
• 3/5 rating on Capterra
• 4/10 rating on TrustRadius

5.   Zendesk: A Smart Sales Team Management Tool

Zendesk is an all-in-one CRM platform designed to help businesses manage sales, marketing, and customer support. It combines a centralized CRM, sales management, marketing tools, and helpdesk support into one easy-to-use and affordable solution.

Key Features

Zendesk’s top features include the following:

• Existing email integration
• Sales engagement tools
• Smart lists and templates
• Subscriptions

Zendesk’s Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Easy to use once set up is done
• Automation options
• Customer support

Cons:

• Complex set up
• Limited reporting
• Integration limitation

Pricing Plans

Their Sell offerings feature a tiered pricing structure to meet diverse needs. The Sell Team plan is priced at $19 per user per month, while the Sell Growth plan costs $55 per user per month for enhanced capabilities. For organizations needing comprehensive features, the Sell Professional plan is available at $115 per user per month.

Customer Review Ratings

• 3/5 rating on Capterra
• 2/5 rating on G2
• 4/10 rating on TrustRadius

Choose Pipelince CRM for Managing Your Remote Sales Team’s Performance

A solid sales team management software tool can bridge geographical gaps, streamline communication, and optimize sales processes.

Now that you’ve researched the best sales pipeline management tools available, you can start making your final decision. For a remote sales team, you’ll likely need a CRM with features like sales pipeline management, contact management, and real-time reporting.

During the decision-making phase, remember to consider your team size, budget, and specific needs. Choosing the right sales CRM for your business will empower your remote sales teams to achieve peak performance and drive sustainable, long-lasting growth regardless of their location.

Pipeline CRM offers all these features and more at an affordable price, making it a reliable solution for remote sales teams. Are you looking for unmatched features in remote team management and sales CRM? Try Pipeline today!

This is where sales key performance indicators (KPIs) play a vital part. They are what thriving sales teams use to keep a pulse on the efficacy of their sales process. Sales KPIs do more than just track numbers; they provide invaluable insights into your sales process, team performance, and overall business health.

Here are some of the most commonly used ratios and metrics to measure sales cycles.

1. Average Sales Cycle Length

This is the average amount of time it takes for a lead to progress through the entire sales process and become a customer. It’s calculated by summing the lengths of all sales cycles within a period and dividing by the number of sales.

2. Lead Conversion Ratio

This ratio measures the percentage of leads that convert into actual sales. It is calculated by dividing the number of sales by the number of leads and multiplying by 100 to get a percentage.

3. Win Rate

The win rate is the ratio of the number of deals won to the number of deals in the final stage of the sales pipeline. This ratio helps businesses understand how effective their sales team is at closing deals.

4. Sales Velocity

Sales velocity measures how quickly leads move through the sales pipeline and generate revenue. It is calculated by multiplying the number of opportunities by the average deal size and the win rate, then dividing by the average sales cycle length.

5. Opportunity-to-Win Ratio

This measures the efficiency of the sales process by calculating the ratio of the number of won opportunities to the total number of opportunities created.

6. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Payback Period

This metric calculates the time it takes for a customer to generate enough revenue to cover the cost of acquiring them. It’s an important metric for understanding the efficiency and sustainability of the sales process.

7. Lead Response Time

This is the average time it takes for the sales team to follow up on leads. A quicker response time can lead to a shorter sales cycle and higher conversion rates.

8. Funnel Drop-off Rate

This ratio measures the percentage of leads that exit the sales funnel at each stage without converting. It helps identify areas for improvement in the sales process.

Track Your Sales KPIs with Pipeline CRM’s Reporting Feature

Tracking and measuring sales KPIs are critical for any business looking to boost revenue, streamline operations, and stay ahead of the competition. These sales metrics can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of a company’s sales strategy and areas where the sales process may be optimized for better performance.

So, what does your data say? Use Pipeline CRM’s robust Reports and Views to track your sales metrics to make better decisions or optimize your process. In the latest update from our Reports and Views features, you can see and update all your reports at once! Get the most up-to-date information at your fingertips with access to real-time data in Pipeline CRM Reports. See the video below to see it in action.

See Unlimited Reports in a Single View

Not a Pipeline CRM customer? Get a free 14-day trial to see for yourself!

Check out other sales KPIs and measurement guides:

• 10 Sales Metrics Every SDR Should Be Tracking
• Top Sales KPIs Per Industry (Including Calculations)
• How to Measure Lead Quality

So, how do you build a positive name and credibility in the construction industry? By offering quality service and building trustworthy customer relationships. Achieving these is much easier if you use a custom sales CRM for construction, like Pipeline CRM.

As one of the best CRMs for construction companies, Pipeline CRM has proven to improve the sales performance of three construction businesses. Who are they and how exactly does Pipeline CRM’s sales solution grow their businesses exponentially? Read on to find out. 

1. Reno Renovations

Founded in 2011, Reno Renovations specializes in preservation, restoration, and general construction. In just 13 years, it has already established itself as a trusted construction company in Chicago.

Challenges They Faced

As their operations scaled, Reno Renovations had to handle large amounts of sales data, multiple project timelines, and complex construction projects. Tackling these challenges requires efficient communication between all the stakeholders to ensure no important data slips through the cracks. 

Reno Renovations first went the traditional way. They tried to maintain one massive Excel spreadsheet for their sales pipeline, organized by Open, Pending Payment, and Paid deals. However, as the business grew, the system kept getting increasingly chaotic. 

Office Manager Jillian Shuttleworth recalled, “It was really crazy. Sometimes we’d accidentally delete things or put them in the wrong field. We couldn’t run reports.” 

They desperately needed a scalable construction lead management solution to organize project data and offer ample collaboration tools.

Features They Used

Reno Renovations loves Pipeline CRM’s customization: data fields, deal stages, and even dashboard colors can all be tailored to their business. Shuttleworth finds the single data source in the lead management system invaluable, allowing her to provide on-site crews with instant information.

“When our guys in the field call me, I can give them answers instantly. What’s the access code for this lockbox? What’s the number for that plumber we worked with last year? When is the carpet going to be delivered? There it is!”

Furthermore, Pipeline CRM goes beyond deal management for Reno Renovations. It empowers them to stay on top of their entire business. Every morning, as Shuttleworth describes, she starts her day by reviewing the Pipeline CRM dashboard, gaining a clear view of where each deal stands. The sales team management feature allows her to create custom to-do lists and follow up with team members to ensure timely completion of tasks.

This comprehensive system doesn’t stop there. Pipeline CRM’s robust sales pipeline tracker lets them visualize every deal, organize timelines, and track the progress of each bid. This empowers Reno Renovations to handle day-to-day operations efficiently while maintaining strong, long-term client relationships.

The Results

Reno Renovations trusted Pipeline’s custom CRM solution, and it paid off. Made by salespeople for salespeople, Pipeline CRM drove 10% growth for the construction company each year for the last two years. 

Shuttleworth also mentioned how they effectively improved client relationships, particularly thanks to our sales pipeline tracker, “Pipeline CRM has made my life so much easier. Clients feel like we’re really on top of things, and we feel confident that we’re on top of all our deals.”

2. Bay Area Underpinning

Bay Area Underpinning is a construction company that provides foundational settlement and repair solutions to North Carolina homeowners. For the last 19 years, the organization has delivered excellent building repair services and gained their community’s trust. 

Challenges They Faced 

Bay Area Underpinning needed something more than a client database, They wanted a solution that helped them maintain seamless exchange of information between the crew and the client. For that, they had to find a CRM that integrates with Excel and other Microsoft Office tools and offers quick access to the relevant client data. 

Features They Used

In their quest for the perfect custom sales CRM for construction, the company stumbled upon Pipeline CRM and gave it a go. 

One of the features Bay Area Underpinning loves most is our sales pipeline management. It acts as a centralized repository for all past client interactions, notes, and documents related to each construction project. With everything readily accessible from any device, the team has all the necessary information at their fingertips. This empowers them to effortlessly guide on-site crews and ensure services perfectly align with each customer’s specific expectations.

Pipeline CRM also boosts team collaboration with smart task management. The office manager can schedule Estimator appointments and share key customer notes. This seamless flow lets Estimators adjust schedules, create references, and update customer details. Easy-to-view reports further empower Bay Area Underpinning to generate forecasts and manage pipelines efficiently.

Additionally, Pipeline CRM also fosters healthy competition with sales goal leaderboards, motivating individual sales rep performance. Automated email follow-ups ensure timely communication and eliminate guesswork about estimate delivery. This frees Bay Area Underpinning to focus on its expertise: exceptional construction services.

The Results

Thanks to our custom sales CRM for construction, Bay Area Underpinning saw a sales growth of 15 to 20%. Pipeline has also helped them strengthen their team, demonstrate top-notch work quality, and build meaningful client relationships.

3. A David Creation

Three generations of painting contractors run deep in David Chism’s family. This rich legacy fuels his marketing and consultancy firm, “A David Creation,” which specializes in helping painting contractors thrive.

Challenges They Faced

David’s mission was clear: streamline both in-office and on-site services for his construction clients, minimizing manual data entry and simplifying their lives. He knew one thing for sure – contractors craved a custom CRM built for construction. It had to be simple, easy to learn, and cater to the specific needs of painting contractors.

Features They Used

Keeping all his requirements in view, Pipeline CRM was David’s “first choice from the start.” He explained how painting contractors need only the simple and necessary features and Pipeline CRM offered them exactly that with affordable plans. 

A David Creation uses the lead management feature to create custom deal stages and follow the lead from start to finish. The company also improved productivity with Pipeline’s automated email campaigns CRM and project management tools. 

Additionally, David especially appreciates the ease of report generation on Pipeline CRM. Compared to the “super challenging” process he experienced with Salesforce, creating reports on our platform is a breeze. “I use Pipeline CRM a lot for my customers. I get in there as much as they do to run reports myself. It takes no time at all!” 

The Results

Integrating Pipeline’s custom CRM solution in its operations lets A David Creation expand its clientele and build positive customer relationships. Since 2009, Chism built a diverse client base that includes small companies with $500,000 in annual revenue as well as big names generating $20 million in revenue. In fact, 75% of David’s clients now use Pipeline CRM for their own operations. 

An Overview of Pipeline’s Custom CRM for Construction

The three construction company success stories above prove what makes Pipeline CRM the best CRM for construction companies. Here are details of our uniquely designed CRM features for construction businesses. 

Pipeline CRM Features

• A CRM that integrates with Excel, phone dialers, and popular productivity tools
• Sales performance tracking with multiple sales pipeline capabilities
• Automated sales task allocation and real-time status update
• Automated email drip campaigns
• Task prioritization and next-step suggestions
• Unlimited storage to save notes and documents
• Smart mobile CRM app with geolocation and talk-to-text recording features 

Pipeline CRM Pricing

• Start plan: $25 per user per month
• Develop plan: $33 per user per month
• Grow plan: $49 per user per month

Pipeline CRM Ratings

• 4.4/5 star rating on G2 (928 reviews) 
• 4.4/5 star rating on Capterra (623 reviews)
• 8.6/10 score on TrustRadius (18 reviews and ratings)
• 4.2 star rating on Gartner (40 ratings)

Unleash Your Full Potential  With Pipeline’s Custom Sales CRM for Construction

Follow the lead of these three construction companies and opt for Pipeline CRM’s construction lead management solution to: 

• Automate sales workflow 
• Stay on top of every client deal and customize workflow as required
• Track individual performance and ensure everyone is on the same page
• Improve customer relationships and grow revenue

From Excel spreadsheet integration to custom deal stages, Pipeline CRM is everything a construction company needs to become a trusted name in the industry. 

Become the best in the construction business with Pipeline CRM. Sign up for free today!