There are four basic statuses that a sales lead can have, and they are mutually exclusive (a lead can have only one status at a time):

• Open
  The sales lead is being worked by one of your sales representatives, and no conclusion has been made as to whether the sale will happen or not.
• Closed and Won
  The sales lead has turned into a paying customer, and the deal has been "closed".
• Closed and Lost
  A sale could have been made, but for any number of reasons the potential customer chose not to purchase your products or services.
• Not Qualified
  This sales lead was never really in the market for your products or services. They didn't ever have a need, the means, or the desire to purchase your offering.

Under each of these statuses you have the ability to assign a sub-status to your sales lead that categorizes them within each of the basic statuses. This allows you to pull reports on exactly where each of the leads are within the sales cycle, and provides you with the data to easily make the crucial business decisions your business needs. For example, you may want to keep track of why sales are lost that could have been won. To report on this, you may want to create sub-statuses for that basic status of: "Chose Competing Product" and "Too Expensive". Then, when you look back at your reports you will see exactly how many of your sales were lost due to competition versus how many were lost due to price.