Dynamics CRM Opportunity

Opportunity Topic
Opportunities are created when “an opportunity” to make a sale is found for an existing customer. Although Opportunities do not require the existence of a customer record, you can easily create a new Account or Contact record to associate the Opportunity with if the customer is new. By doing this, however, you skip the step of creating Leads and then converting Leads to customers and Opportunities. This might be how your business works. Perhaps your sales cycle is very quick, and Leads are not something that you cultivate.

Dynamics CRM Sales

Lead Topic

Lead To Opportunity sales flow:



Leads are not customers but rather potential customers. This is an important distinction because it provides a needed level of separation when working with your customer base. Leads are converted to customers when they become qualified. If they are disqualified, they remain as an inactive Lead.

Using Leads properly can provide rich insight into your organization on several levels. Because Leads are not yet qualified (they are potential customers who haven’t yet met internal criteria to be converted to customers), they should be considered the customer entry point into the CRM system. Although it is certainly possible that you will be adding Accounts and Contacts directly into Microsoft Dynamics CRM, entering Leads enables you to manage the following:

• What new customers might be interested in your products 
• How your salespeople are cultivating their new customer base 
• What kind of criteria is being used to convert Leads to customers

When working with Leads, you should not include potential sales information anywhere other than the Notes and Description fields. This is because Leads are considered potential customers, not potential sales. This is an important distinction: Potential sales information should be captured with an Opportunity, not a Lead.If you’re creating a Lead and want to associate it with an existing customer, you probably want to work with Opportunities, which is explained in the next section.

Lead Rating:
Rating found in the Header section. This is a self-assessment of the Lead itself and can be cold, warm, or hot. When used properly, it can drive workflow events, such as a callback by the sales manager within 1 day if the Lead is hot, or within 5 days if the Lead is cold, for example.

Reactive Lead:
It is important to know that when a Lead is reactivated for whatever reason, any qualified records that might have been generated (such as Accounts, Contacts, or Opportunities) continue to exist. You can end up creating duplicate records if you frequently reactivate closed Leads.

Closed Leads should be an important auditing tool of your organization because these Leads can be analyzed for the effectiveness of your sales team and to determine which campaigns created how many Leads.

Dynamics CRM Contacts

Tip:
The Birthday field is a great excuse for customer Contact. Who wouldn’t like to receive a call, email, or small gift from a vendor on their birthday.