Best practice:Ĭreate opportunity stages that represent a series of customer interactions. The salesperson is likely to be doing many things to move the opportunity along during this period.Īlternatively, milestone-based stages only reflect the status at a specific moment. That period might be weeks or even months. The reason is that each opportunity stage reflects the status of the deal over a period.
Consequently, action-oriented opportunity stages are better than milestone-based stages.įor example, Qualifying is better than Qualified. Naturally, there’s significant interaction with the customer over the three months. Let’s say a typical B2B sales process has a three-month lifecycle. Stick to four or five pipeline stages for better funnel visibility.Ĥ. Best practice:ĭon’t over complicate things.
If that applies to you, it’s better to create sub-stages in a separate field. Sometimes, companies with long sales cycles fall into this trap. This situation often occurs when a business tries to get too granular in measuring the pipeline. The result is that pipeline visibility deteriorates rather than improves. In other words, it’s impossible to see the wood for the trees. Unfortunately, the standard opportunity stages that come out-of-the-box with Salesforce aren’t going to reflect many businesses’ sales process. That way, you do at least know where you stand from an internal point of view. Opportunity Stages need to reflect your sales process. With a complicated purchase and many stakeholders, even the customer may not be sure of their internal buying process. Second, it isn’t easy to know where we are in the customer’s buying process. That way, the pipeline reflects where each deal is along the buying journey.įirst, every customer’s buying process is different. Ideally, opportunity stages reflect the customer buying process. Opportunity Stages reflect the sales process The meaning and definition of each are communicated clearly to salespeople.Ģ. Opportunity stages are clear, unambiguous and do not overlap. The result is that reports and dashboard charts do not deliver meaningful information on the sales pipeline. More importantly, neither did the sales team. It’s because accurate funnel visibility is impossible to achieve if salespeople are uncertain about what each opportunity stage means.įor example, I worked recently with a client that had Opportunity Stages of Closing and Negotiation. Always, ambiguity is a significant mistake in this situation. Many times I see unclear opportunity stages. Opportunity Stages are clear and unambiguous In Salesforce, each stage links to a percentage probability.įive best practices deliver meaningful opportunity stages in any sales team.ġ. On the other hand, if your opportunity stages don’t reflect your sales process, then your pipeline reports and sales forecasts will not be reliable. Realistic opportunity stages are critical because they deliver pipeline visibility through reports and dashboards.
In a CRM system, salespeople update the opportunity stage as the deal moves through the sales process. Opportunity stages describe the high-level steps within your sales process. So cut through the frustration with this complete guide to opportunity stages best practice. The benefits are higher quality funnel visibility, improved sales pipeline management, better measurement of sales targets. Nevertheless, getting the opportunity stages to reflect your sales process accurately is essential. The outcome, usually, is far too many stages.
I’ve seen this provoke many heated discussions. However, if the pre-defined stages are not what you need, the question is, what should the Salesforce opportunity stages be in your business?
(If you’re not sure how to do this, I explain the steps thoroughly in the video at the end of this post). That’s especially true if you’re still using the standard opportunity stages-those out-of-the-box stages in Salesforce. The Opportunity Stages in Salesforce should match your sales process.