How to Use HighLevel Sales Pipelines and Opportunities – Traditional vs Creative Ways to Power Your Business
When most people think of sales pipelines in HighLevel, they think about leads moving through a classic sales process: new enquiry → booked call → proposal sent → deal won.
And that’s a perfectly valid use — in fact, it’s what pipelines were originally built for. But once you understand how powerful the Opportunities system inside HighLevel really is, you’ll see it can do far more than just track deals.
At MarketerM8, we help clients go beyond the basics and unlock the full potential of pipelines — turning them into powerful tools for automation, operations, support, and even affiliate management.
The Traditional Way to Use Sales Pipelines
Sales pipelines have been around for decades in CRMs. They help you visualise where every prospect is in your sales process and what actions you need to take next.
In HighLevel, each stage of the pipeline represents a step in your sales journey, and every opportunity is a contact or deal moving through that journey.
For example, a typical pipeline might look like this:
New Lead – Someone’s just filled in your enquiry form.
Booked Call – They’ve scheduled a discovery call.
Proposal Sent – You’ve sent them pricing and details.
Negotiation – You’re ironing out the details.
Won / Lost – The deal is either closed or it’s not happening.
This simple, visual way of tracking deals helps you stay organised and close more sales. You can quickly see where leads are getting stuck, forecast revenue, and focus your time on the opportunities most likely to convert.
But this is just the starting point.
Beyond Sales: Creative Ways to Use Pipelines
The real magic happens when you stop thinking of pipelines purely as “sales tools” and start thinking of them as workflow engines. Because every time an opportunity is created or moves stage, it can trigger automations — emails, task assignments, internal notifications, you name it.
Here are some of the creative ways we and our clients use pipelines at MarketerM8:
1. A Ticketing System for Client Support
One of our favourite uses of pipelines is as a ticketing and support system.
Here’s how we use it inside MarketerM8:
A client fills in a short support form describing their issue.
That form automatically creates a new opportunity in our “Support Tickets” pipeline.
From there, we can assign the issue to the right member of the team, add notes, update progress, and communicate internally — all from within HighLevel.
Once the ticket is resolved, moving the opportunity to the Resolved stage automatically triggers an email to the client confirming the issue has been fixed.
This turns the humble pipeline into a simple but powerful ticketing system — no third-party software needed.
2. Managing Affiliates and Referral Partners
We also use pipelines to manage our affiliate partners.
Every time an affiliate refers a new client, that triggers the creation of a new opportunity in our “Affiliate Deals” pipeline. As the affiliate hits milestones, we move the opportunity through different stages — and each stage triggers an automation.
For example:
When they close their first deal, it sends them a congratulatory email.
When they reach five deals, it notifies our team to upgrade their commission rate.
When they hit ten deals, it triggers a workflow to send them a bonus reward.
This approach turns the pipeline into a dynamic affiliate management tool — tracking progress, automating rewards, and strengthening relationships.
3. Workflow Triggers for Operations
Pipelines can also be used for internal processes — anything where you want to track progress through a series of stages.
For example, we’ve helped clients use pipelines to:
Manage project delivery, moving tasks from “Brief Received” to “In Progress” to “Completed.”
Track onboarding steps for new clients, triggering emails and tasks at each stage.
Automate review requests once a service is complete.
Because opportunities can trigger workflows when they’re created or moved between stages, the possibilities are almost endless.
A Built-In Alternative to Pipedrive – Included for Free
Many businesses pay hundreds of pounds a month for tools like Pipedrive to manage deals and track opportunities.
With MarketerM8, you get the same functionality — and more — built directly into your system at no extra cost. It’s like having your own version of Pipedrive fully integrated with your marketing, automation, and CRM tools, without the need for additional subscriptions.
See Pipelines in Action in Our Workshop
We showcase many of these creative pipeline uses inside our dedicated HighLevel Sales Pipelines & Opportunities Workshop.
👉 Click here to watch the workshop and see how we use pipelines ourselves for support ticketing, affiliate management, operations, and much more.
And if you’d like to explore everything we teach in our live training series, you can browse our full workshop menu by clicking here. With 13 workshops covering every major part of HighLevel, they’re designed to keep you and your team ahead of the curve.
Final Thoughts
Sales pipelines and opportunities are far more than just a way to track deals — they’re one of the most versatile and powerful tools inside HighLevel.
Whether you’re managing leads, handling client support, rewarding affiliates, or streamlining your operations, pipelines give you visibility, automation, and control in one place.
And with MarketerM8, you get your own Pipedrive-style pipeline system built in, fully integrated, and included in your subscription — no extra tools required.
