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Squiggly is the New Linear: Navigating Complex Lead Lifecycles
By Kim Allen
Published on 19 May, 2025
With extensive experience in MOPs and RevOps, I’ve seen firsthand the growing complexity in managing prospects and customers. The once linear lead-to-customer journey has evolved, now featuring multiple touchpoints across various stages. The straightforward, sales-led growth (SLG) model, driven by outbound prospecting, is no longer the norm.’
While SLG remains prevalent, today’s landscape includes product-led growth (PLG), partner-led strategies, and the added challenge of managing large portfolios. Each of these approaches introduces unique selling methods and decision-making hurdles. Though tools like MAPs, CRMs, sales enablement platforms, CDPs, and ABM systems play a role, the true shift lies in the increasing complexity of businesses themselves.
This evolution calls for a shift in how we approach lead management. So, how do we adapt?
Designing Systems to Embrace Complexity
Designing a system to meet these needs is a bit like playing Tetris—you must piece together unique requirements to find the best approach. CRMs and platforms may have roadmaps to address these complexities in the future, and new tools are emerging to help track and predict such movements. In the meantime, traditional MAPs and CRMs require some creativity to make them work for our current needs.
The requirements will vary by business, but typically include one or more of the following:
- Tracking multiple, non-linear customer journeys
- Supporting various go-to-market motions (SLG, PLG, partner-led)
- Managing complex decision-making processes and larger buying committees
- Facilitating upselling and cross-selling opportunities
- Gaining insights into product interests at different lifecycle stages
Potential Solutions:
While the following solutions are based in Salesforce, one of the most commonly used CRMs, the concepts may apply to other CRMs as well.
Custom Lifecycle Object
What is it?
A custom object is built in Salesforce to track a prospect’s or customer’s journey across multiple lifecycle stages.This Object stores time/date stamps at each stage, allowing you to capture detailed funnel history across multiple lifecycles, including prospect and customer lifecycles.
When should we use it?
Use this Object when you want to fully understand the journey of a prospect or customer.
It enables detailed reporting on conversion rates and velocity in Salesforce, helping you analyze each stage of the process.
Weighing this option:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Robust reporting in Salesforce | Complexity of build |
| Ability to see every journey | |
| Does not impact standard objects |
MQL as an Opportunity
What is it?
This approach focuses on using Opportunities earlier in the sales process to support upsell and cross-sell potential. Instead of opening Opportunities after sales qualification, they’d be opened after Marketing Qualification. Some filtering of reports and dashboards is required to avoid inflating the pipeline.
When should we use it?
This option is useful if you have a large portfolio and need to enable sales to open more than one Opportunity at a time for different products, etc.
Weighing this option:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Relatively small upfront lift technically | Limited reporting capabilities |
| Utilizes out-of-the-box Opportunity functionality | Requires report updates to exclude early Opportunity stages |
Inquiries Object
What is it?
An Inquiries Object is a custom object that is created at the top of the funnel when meaningful actions occur (high-value form fills). It has a many-to-one relationship with the Lead/Contact, allowing inquiries to be routed and owned by different sales people.
When should we use it?
If you have different teams/BUs that sell competing products, this is a use case where you may use it.
You’d likely still want more advanced reporting such as the custom lifecycle object to understand the different journeys.
While this approach can offer a temporary solution, the best path is to align on how the business should go to market across products or verticals. Once that alignment is in place, you can develop clear standard operating procedures (SOPs) to enable sellers to work together and drive growth across products or BUs.
Weighing this option:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Keeps pipeline clean | Complex implementation |
| Provides historical reporting | Less scalable as needs grow |
| Ability to see different touch points across BUs | Requires ongoing maintenance/governance |
Common Pitfalls:
Misusing CRM Objects – One common mistake is using Objects in ways they were not intended. Leads, Contacts, Campaigns, and Opportunities have specific purposes within a CRM system. Misusing these Objects leads to data integrity issues, reporting challenges, and overall system inefficiency.
Siloing Teams with Different Lifecycles – Another pitfall is assuming you need different lifecycles per team because you want to silo the way that marketing works from sales. This is not a use case for multiple lifecycles and, in fact, lead management is meant to help define the cross-functional processes to increase revenue and user journey.
Choosing the Right Approach
The right solution depends on your business’s needs, including the variety of customer journeys, go-to-market strategies, and reporting requirements. By carefully evaluating these factors, you can design a lead management system that supports growth and provides valuable insights into your customers’ increasingly non-linear paths.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences with managing complex lifecycles!
Acknowledgements
A special thanks to Rick Craig, John Shelton, Daniel Mulvahill, and Beth Corby for their expert input. Their assistance was invaluable in the development of this article.
