Build the Person Lifecycle

Priya asked for a walkthrough. One workflow changes her status to Sales-ready. Another sees she opted out of marketing email and changes it to Disqualified. A rep later marks the status Working. Nobody can now tell what Priya's relationship with GTM Lab actually is. This chapter gives the person lifecycle exactly one job: describe the current commercial relationship. Everything else gets its own field.

A stage is a contract, not a label

GTM Lab's person lifecycle uses four stages: Known person, Engaged, Sales-ready, and Recycled. A stage contract states what the stage means, what evidence permits entry, who's accountable, which exits are valid, and which date a report should use.

A single record can hold many true facts at once without conflict: Priya can be Engaged, opted out of marketing email, employed at Acme, a fit for the motion, and waiting on a Sales acceptance, all at once, with none of those facts forcing the others to change. The dates in the stage table are deliberate event dates, not Last modified, because an import or owner change can touch a record without touching the relationship you're actually measuring.

Priya moves forward without losing the rest of the record

The walkthrough request moves Priya from Known person to Engaged and records engaged_at. She can't enter Sales-ready until Sales accepts after confirming an active project, fit, and the Acme relationship, which is the handoff Chapter 6 builds. A separate resettable test proves recycling works: end a motion with a documented reason, move to Recycled, apply new evidence, and the record returns to Engaged keeping its first engaged_at and appending new history.

Carry this into your business

Start with the states that already change a report, handoff, or automation today. Keep consent, employment, fit, work, ownership, Account relationship, and deal progress in their own lanes, so a valid update in one of them can never quietly erase a fact that belongs to another.