Every lead in Slokoto follows a clear lifecycle. At any point in time, a lead lives in exactly one place — and understanding where a lead is (and why) helps you stay focused on the right work.
Where Can a Lead Be?
| Location | What it means | How leads get here |
|---|---|---|
| Todo | The customer is waiting on your reply or another immediate action | A new inbound message arrives or AI flags immediate work |
| Manual follow-up | A rep-owned follow-up is due because the customer has not replied | A scheduled follow-up reaches its due time |
| Upcoming | Scheduled for later — nothing to do yet | You completed an action and a future follow-up was scheduled |
| Automate | Slokoto is running a follow-up sequence | You started an automated email cadence |
| Pipeline only | Visible in Pipeline view but no active task | Lead is on a paused stage like Invalid |
| Trash | Removed from all active views | You trashed the lead (spam, vendor, duplicate) |
A lead cannot be in more than one of these at a time. If a lead is in Automate, it will not appear in the manual queues. If a lead is in Upcoming, it will not appear in Manual follow-up until its scheduled time arrives. An inbound customer reply always moves actionable work to Todo.
The Pipeline Stages
Every active lead sits on a pipeline stage. Stages tell you where the deal is. Slokoto's AI manages stage transitions automatically based on email and call signals, but you can always move a lead manually.
Active Stages
These are your normal sales workflow stages (e.g. New Inquiry, In Conversation, Proposal Sent, Negotiating, Finalizing Deal). Leads on active stages can appear in Todo, Manual follow-up, Upcoming, or Automate depending on who needs to act and when.
Paused Stages
Invalid — The contact exists but isn't a sales lead right now. Maybe they're an existing customer asking for support, or the inquiry was operational, not sales-related. Leads on Invalid:
- Have no todos (all pending/snoozed todos are automatically dismissed)
- Are excluded from AI processing
- Stay discoverable — if they email back with purchase intent, they can be moved back to an active stage
Terminal Stages
Won — Deal closed successfully. The lead is marked as won, all todos are dismissed, and it appears in your History.
Lost — Deal didn't close. When a lead is marked as Lost, Slokoto records the reason:
- No Budget / Too Expensive
- Chose a Competitor
- Bad Timing / Not Ready Yet
- No Need / Not a Fit
- No Response / Ghosted
- Other
Lost leads with a "no response" reason are your best candidates for future re-engagement. If they reply to an old thread, Slokoto automatically picks it up and brings them back into your pipeline.
How Leads Move Between Locations
Manual follow-up
Manual follow-up is the rep-owned queue for scheduled follow-ups that are now due because the customer has not replied. It is separate from Automate, where Slokoto runs an active email cadence for you.
Todo to Upcoming
When you complete a todo (send an email, log a call, or record another Sales outcome), Slokoto automatically schedules a follow-up based on the deal stage:
- Negotiation: follow up in 2 days
- Proposal: follow up in 3 days
- Demo / Consultation: follow up in 1 day
- Default: follow up in 3 days
The lead moves to Upcoming and enters Manual follow-up when the follow-up becomes due without a customer reply. This happens automatically — you don't need to set reminders.
Upcoming to Manual follow-up
When the scheduled time arrives, the snoozed follow-up activates and the lead appears in Manual follow-up. This check runs every minute, so leads appear within a minute of their due time.
If an inbound message arrives while a lead is in Upcoming, the lead jumps to the top of Todo immediately — inbound always takes priority.
Manual follow-up to Todo
If the customer replies while a lead is in Manual follow-up, the lead moves to Todo with high urgency so the rep can respond. Manual follow-up is only for customer-silent, rep-owned work.
Todo/Manual follow-up/Upcoming to Automate
When you start an automation on a lead, Slokoto takes over follow-up. The lead leaves the manual queues and enters the automation cadence. If the automation exhausts all steps without a reply, the lead is automatically moved to Lost with the reason "no response."
What Happens When a Rep Replies Outside Slokoto
If a rep sends an email directly in Gmail (not through the Slokoto compose screen), or records activity in the authoritative CRM, Slokoto detects the outbound activity through sync and:
- Resolves the pending todo (it's been handled)
- Creates a snoozed follow-up so the lead moves to Upcoming
- The lead appears in Manual follow-up when the follow-up is due without a customer reply
This means your Todo list stays clean even when reps work directly in their email client.
Trash
Trash is for leads that should never have been leads in the first place — spam, vendors selling to you, newsletters, duplicates. Trashing a lead:
- Removes it from Pipeline, Todo, Manual follow-up, and Upcoming
- Dismisses all active todos
- Preserves the record (you can restore from Trash if needed)
Trash is not the same as Lost. Lost means the deal didn't work out. Trash means it was never a real deal.