Prospects: capture, qualify, decline or refer

What it is for

A prospect is a family or representative seeking an estate sale service. Record where the lead came from and what consent you were given to follow up, then qualify it into an estate with a walkthrough, or decline and refer it elsewhere. A shopper asking about a sale is recorded as a shopper inquiry and never becomes an estate.

What you enter

Contact name (required), email or phone, the household's city and state (never the exact address at this stage), the source (referral partner, website, phone, repeat client, walk-in, other) and, for referrals, the partner. Consent is recorded per purpose and channel with a note of how it was given. Qualification needs the family's goal, timing, property access, a likely value band and scope notes; qualifying creates the estate and stores the exact address under its own protection.

What you get

A pipeline from new → qualified → walkthrough → quoted → won, or lost / declined with a reason and an optional referral. Every stage change is recorded with who made it and when.

Example

Jordan records a referral from Marchetti Law for the Ellis household in DeLand, with email follow-up consent from the web form. After a call the likely value is $15k–$40k and the goal is to clear the house by November, so Jordan qualifies it as the Magnolia estate. A second inquiry for a small condo under $5k is declined with the reason 'below minimum viable sale' and referred to a donation pickup service — no quote is forced.

Common problems and how to recover

"Choose the referral partner" when saving.

A referral-sourced lead must name its partner. Add the partner under Referral partners first, or change the source.

"Prospect is declined; it cannot be qualified now."

Won, lost and declined are final. Record a new prospect if the family comes back; the old record stays as history.

"A shopper inquiry is not a prospect."

Shopper questions belong to the public sale pages and the directory. Record a new prospect only for a household seeking the service.

"This record changed since the page loaded."

A colleague saved the same prospect. Reload to see their change, then apply yours again. Nothing was overwritten.

Who can use it

Owners, managers and estimators manage prospects. Crew leads, cashiers and household participants never see the pipeline, consents or referral partners.