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How to Use FirstSales as a Lightweight CRM

Run a pipeline from Contacts, Lists, Tags, and journey status. Track stages and replies without a deal board, and know when to reach for a full CRM.

Tutorials
CRM & Pipeline
min read
8 min
steps
7 · Beginner

  1. How FirstSales thinks about pipeline

    FirstSales is a campaign-first outreach tool, not a full deal-stage CRM. There's no kanban of opportunities or dollar-value pipeline. Instead you track leads with three primitives (Contacts, Lists, and Tags) plus each contact's journey status in a campaign. That's enough to run a clean, lightweight pipeline without leaving the app.

  2. Contacts are your records

    Every lead is a Contact with a lifecycle status (active, bounced, or unsubscribed) and a verification state (clean / risky / dirty / unknown). Bounced and unsubscribed contacts are auto-excluded from sends, so your working set stays healthy without manual pruning.

    Contacts are your records

  3. Segment with Lists

    Use Lists as your pipeline stages or segments: "Prospects", "Contacted", "Warm", "Client". A contact can move between lists as it progresses, and a campaign sends to a chosen list. This is the closest thing to columns on a board: which list a contact sits in tells you where it is.

  4. Label with Tags

    Tags are cross-cutting labels for anything Lists don't capture: source, persona, priority, objection. A contact carries many tags at once, so you can filter "founders" who are also "replied" without duplicating records. Tags plus Lists give you a two-axis pipeline.

  5. Track engagement in the Inbox

    The Inbox (Unibox) is your activity view. Each contact's journey status in a campaign (active, paused, completed, unsubscribed, or bounced) tells you exactly where they are in the sequence. Replies land here, so you work live conversations without a separate deal record.

  6. A practical pipeline workflow

    Put it together: source into a "Prospects" list → run a campaign → when someone replies, tag them "replied" and move them to a "Warm" list → advance to "Client" when they convert. The journey status shows sequence progress; Lists show your stage; Tags carry the nuance. It's a real pipeline built from primitives.

  7. When you need a full CRM

    For deal stages, revenue forecasting, and two-way sync, FirstSales lists CRM connectors (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive) under Integrations, currently marked coming soon. Until those ship, keep your system of record in your CRM and use FirstSales for the outreach layer, exporting contacts when you need them elsewhere.

Pro tips

  • Lists = stages, Tags = attributes

    Give each pipeline stage a List and move contacts forward as they progress. Reserve Tags for cross-cutting facts (source, persona, objection) so you can filter within any stage.

  • Let status do the pruning

    Bounced and unsubscribed contacts auto-exclude from sends. Don't hand-delete them: the lifecycle status already keeps your active pipeline clean.

  • Work replies from the Unibox

    The Inbox is your live conversation view. Journey status tells you who's mid-sequence vs. completed, so you can prioritize warm replies without a separate deal board.

  • CRM connectors aren't live yet

    Salesforce/HubSpot/Zoho/Pipedrive show as coming soon. If you need two-way sync today, keep the CRM as system of record and export FirstSales contacts into it.

Frequently asked questions

Does FirstSales have a deal pipeline or opportunities?

Not as a dedicated object: there's no kanban or revenue pipeline. You build a lightweight pipeline from Contacts, Lists, Tags, and each contact's campaign journey status.

How do I track lead stages?

Use Lists as stages (Prospects → Contacted → Warm → Client) and move contacts between them. Layer Tags for attributes like source or priority that cut across stages.

Where do I see replies and engagement?

In the Inbox (Unibox). Each contact's journey status (active, paused, completed, unsubscribed, or bounced) shows where they are in the sequence, and replies land there.

What happens to bounced or unsubscribed leads?

Their contact status marks them bounced or unsubscribed, and they're auto-excluded from future sends. No manual cleanup needed.

Can I connect Salesforce or HubSpot?

Those CRM connectors (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive) are listed under Integrations as coming soon. Until they ship there's no two-way sync: export contacts to move data into your CRM.

Should I use FirstSales as my only CRM?

For outreach and a lightweight pipeline, yes. For deal-stage management, forecasting, and two-way sync, keep a dedicated CRM as your system of record and use FirstSales for the sending layer.

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Install with AI

Your coding agent sets up the FirstSales CLI and skills for you.

Prompt for Claude Code

I'm setting up FirstSales (https://firstsales.io), an AI outbound sales platform: campaigns, contacts, a reply inbox, deliverability and lead signals. Help me get my workspace sending real, good emails end to end, from Claude Code.

Read these first so you know how FirstSales works:
- Developer docs and API: https://developer.firstsales.io
- CLI: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@firstsales.io/cli
- Skills for coding agents: https://github.com/firstsalesio/firstsales-skills (read README.md and GUIDE.md)

Setup
1. Install the CLI: npm install -g @firstsales.io/cli
2. Install the FirstSales skills:
   claude plugin marketplace add firstsalesio/firstsales-skills
   claude plugin install firstsales@firstsales
3. Ask me if I already have a FirstSales account. If not, send me to https://app.firstsales.io to sign up.
4. Ask me to create an API key under Settings → API → API Keys, with only the scopes we need.
   Never ask me to paste the key into this chat. Tell me to run this in my own terminal, so the key stays hidden:
   read -rs FS_KEY && firstsales auth login --api-key "$FS_KEY"; unset FS_KEY
5. Run `firstsales whoami` and tell me which workspace and organisation we are connected to.

Then ask me about my business: what I sell, who I sell to (roles, company size, countries), my best customers, and what I use today for outbound (tools, lists, mailboxes). Walk me through:
1. Teaching FirstSales my business: website, offer, proof points and case studies in the knowledge base, so the AI writes like someone who knows the product.
2. Connecting my sending mailboxes and checking my sending domain: SPF, DKIM, DMARC and warm-up. If anything is unhealthy, tell me the exact DNS record to add.
3. Bringing in contacts: import my CSV or CRM export into a clean list, remove duplicates and bad emails, and block domains I must never email (customers, competitors, my own).
4. Building my first campaign: the right list, senders, steps and timing. Write the sequence with me, show me the drafts, and do not launch until I say yes.
5. Setting up Signals if it fits: find people engaging with LinkedIn posts about topics my buyers care about, and turn them into leads.
6. Inviting my team and giving each person the right access.

Once campaigns run, show me how to work the reply inbox from here: which replies need an answer, draft responses in my voice, and move good conversations into deals. If I use Cal.com, connect it so follow-ups can offer my booking link (not the first email).

Throughout, as you learn about my business, proactively suggest and help create:
- Reply templates for the questions and objections my prospects are likely to raise, based on my product, site and codebase if you can see them.
- Campaign ideas and segments worth testing, with the reason for each.

Safety rules:
- Show every change as a dry run (--dry-run) first and wait for my yes. Never send emails, launch campaigns or delete anything without my yes.
- Tell me before anything that spends credits, and how many.

Be opinionated. If the docs give a sensible default, just use it. Don't make me choose between five options.
Developer docs ↗npm: @firstsales.io/cli ↗GitHub: firstsales-skills ↗