The stages are pretty self-explanatory, they indicate where the Account or Contact is in our outreach or sales cycle. The account and contact stages are identical but don’t always relate to each other in the exact same way. For example, if someone emails me back and tells me they are not interested, I would mark the contact “not interested”. Now, would I also mark the entire account as “not interested”, indicating to everyone on Apollo not to go after this account? Absolutely not. This is why stages are critical, and always important to mark contacts and accounts in the correct stage. Let's go through them.
New, Open, Attempted to Contact: We don’t use these stages but you will come across them frequently. As long as the account falls under the rules of engagement you can reach out to this account but change the stage to attempted to contact.
Connected: Contacts that we’ve connected with, this is a stage auto-triggered by Apollo when someone responds to an email you sent through a sequence.
No Response: The contact or account has run through a sequence and never responded.
No Interest: Responded unsubscribe or was blatant about not contacting them again.
Bad Timing: Prospect or account mentioned they were busy, the timing was poor, or they were not interested at this time. Reps should always follow up with this. Figure out why the timing is bad and set a later date to connect. Asking for a referral is always a good follow-up.
Do Not Contact: Contact or Account has unsubscribed from our messaging.
Unqualified: The prospect or account is on the restricted list of industries. Adult content, tobacco, marijuana, firearms, etc.
In Progress: The account or contact is in the SQL stage.
Open Deal: The account or contact has moved from the SQL stage to SAL.
Onboarding Customer: Account is onboarding onto Paystand platform.
Current Customer: Account is a Paystand customer.
Churned Customer: Account decided to discontinue services with Paystand.
Not Prospect: Account or Contact is unqualified.
Previous Lost - Nurture: Account is designated as closed/lost.
Bad Data: Email is invalid or empty.
Not only are these account stages important because it gives you context about an account or contact but Apollo will actually block your emails from being sent if they are on a certain stage.
These stages are: Connected, No interest, Unqualified, Do not contact, In progress, Open deal, Onboarding customer, Current customer, Bad data.
This is why it is crucial to make sure your accounts and contacts are set to the correct stage before you start sequencing.
Checklist Before Sequencing:
- Confirm that the account is within the rules of engagement, that no one in the account has been contacted in the last 30 days.
- Confirm that the account is not in one of the blocked stages: Connected, No Interest, Do Not Contact, Unqualified, In Progress, Open Deal, Onboarding Customer, Current Customer, Bad Data.
- Assume ownership of the account and all prospects within that account.
- Begin research and sequencing.