This template applies the four-block method — THE THINGS, THE LINKS, THE STATES, THE NUMBERS — to a small business's sales tracking. It's filled in for a carpenter: the example shows that a useful CRM can be described without "opportunities", "pipeline" or "scoring" — in your words: site visit, quote, follow-up.
To adapt it, describe your cycle the way you practise it: how people contact you, what you send, when you follow up, how a deal closes. The STATES block of a quote is the backbone — list your real stages, including the painful one ("no reply").
Filled with your own words, this text briefs a developer — or is submitted as-is to Blueprint Maker, which turns it into an application plan you validate, then a generated CRM: database, records and lists, dashboard and demo data.
The template to copy
My business: independent carpenter, custom fabrication and installation, about thirty quote requests a year. THINGS tracked: - Contacts (name, phone, e-mail, address, source word of mouth, website or trade show) - Requests (date received, project description, budget mentioned) - Quotes (amount, sent date, planned follow-up date, reply date) - Site visits (date, notes taken on site) LINKS: - A request comes from a contact. - A site visit is attached to a request. - A quote answers a request. STATES of a quote: to prepare, sent, followed up, accepted, declined, no reply. NUMBERS to see every morning: - Quotes awaiting reply - Follow-ups due (follow-up date passed) - Quote acceptance rate this year - Amount signed this month
Adapting this template to the way you sell
- No prior visit: if you price from a description or photos, remove the Site visits entity — the template stays complete with three entities.
- Long-running deals: if an accepted project then runs over weeks, add a "Project" entity (start date, planned end date) linked to the accepted quote, with its own states (to start, in progress, delivered).
- Multi-step follow-ups: if you follow up two or three times, replace the single follow-up date with a "Follow-up" entity (date, channel, reply obtained) attached to the quote.
- Request sources: the example records the source on the contact. If you want to steer your prospecting, add an indicator "requests by source" in the NUMBERS block.
- The quote here is an amount and dates, not a compliant billing document: formal quotes and regulated invoices stay in your invoicing tool.