Leads

A lead is someone who has asked about working with you and is not a client yet. Leads, under Studio, keeps them in one place, from first enquiry to a yes or a no.

Where leads come from

• Your enquiry form. Everyone has one at forge.page/your-link/intake.
• A routing form. See Routing forms.
• Added by you. Choose New lead on the board.
• A file. More ways to add → Import from CSV, or Move in from another tool. See Moving in from another tool.

Your enquiry form

Your enquiry form asks one question a screen. Until you change it, it asks five things: what they would like to book, about the project, a rough budget, when they are hoping to do it, and how they found you. It finishes by asking for their name and email.

To change it:

1. Open Forms, then Your enquiry form.
2. Add, remove or reorder questions. You can add standard questions or your own: Short answer, Long answer or Choice (pick one). A form can have up to 12.
3. Choose Save form. Changes go live when you save.

Copy link gives you the address to share, and Preview shows it as a visitor sees it.

If someone with an open enquiry sends the form again from the same email, Forge updates their existing lead instead of making a second one.

The Leads board

Leads live on a board, grouped by stage. There are three ready-made views:

• Table, a row per lead.
• Pipeline, cards in a column per stage. Drag a card to move it.
• Follow-ups, a calendar of the dates you have set for the next action.

Open a lead to see the enquiry, post updates, see activity and add files.

Stage and status

Every lead has both, and they mean different things.

Stage is where you have put the lead: Enquiry, Qualified, Proposal sent, Won or Lost. You move it. Two moves happen for you: sending a proposal moves a lead to Proposal sent, and a lead that becomes a client moves to Won.

Status is set by Forge from what has happened: New, Replied, Going stale, Client or Archived. A lead with no activity for 5 days is marked Going stale. A reply moves it back to Replied.

So a lead can be Proposal sent and Going stale at the same time: you quoted, and it has gone quiet.

Next action and value

• Next action and Next action due are a note to yourself and a date. The date shows on your calendar and in the Follow-ups view.
• Value is what the work is worth. Type your own figure, or leave it and Forge shows the linked proposal's total, or the budget band they gave.

Reply to a lead

1. Open the lead and find Write a reply.
2. Write your message and choose Send.

Their reply comes to your own inbox. Your booking link is added underneath automatically. The lead's status becomes Replied.

If you have switched on AI lead replies, Forge drafts a reply when an enquiry arrives through your enquiry form. It waits for you. Nothing is sent until you read it and choose Send. See AI drafts.

Turn a lead into a client

Choose Convert to client on the lead. Forge creates the client, or links the lead to an existing client with the same email, and moves the lead to Won.

Accepting a proposal does this for you. See Proposals.

Remove a lead

Deleting a lead on the board archives it, and you can undo that straight away. Switch on Show archived to see archived leads.