How do Opportunities and the Opportunity Pipeline work?

In this article, we are going to be talking about how Opportunities and the Opportunity Pipeline work within RealtimeCRM. We will be going over what they are, how exactly they work and the benefits they can bring.

Opportunities

So what are Opportunities in RealtimeCRM?

Well, you can think of them as prospective sales. Your company might call them Leads. If you’ve got a pitch or meeting that could lead to a sale, it would go under Opportunities. Imagine a recruitment company pitching their services to a potential client. It may or may not end in success but it’s an Opportunity for business.

The Opportunities feature isn’t just for pitches or physical meetings though. You could be in conversation with a prospect via email or telephone, or running a web demo for a Contact. The core principle of Opportunities is to allow you to log and manage anything that could lead to future business. Recording Opportunities can also help you find out what is working in your business, as well as what isn’t and why.

Add an Opportunity

  • Click on the Opportunities panel in the left-hand sidebar
  • You will then be brought to the Opportunities page, if you look at the very top of the page you will see the ‘+Add opportunity’ button
  • Clicking on that button will bring up a form, where you can fill in the relevant information for the Opportunity
  • Things such as the Opportunity name, a brief description, opening date and estimated close date, and the value can all be recorded. You can then select from either a previously added Company or Contact or both, as well as having the option assign a Sales Manager to oversee this Opportunity
  • Once you’ve completed the details of the Opportunity simply click the blue ‘Create’ button, and your new Opportunity will be created
  • You’ll then be taken to that specific Opportunity’s details page. From there you can see all the details you have entered such as the description of the Opportunity as as well as its position in the Opportunity Pipeline

Any changes you make, such as moving the Opportunity up or down a stage will be recorded in the Activity timeline this allows you to keep track of everything that changes or happens to the Opportunity. You can also assign Tasks to your Opportunities for example, that you need to call a Contact at a specific time and you’ll be reminded to do it.

What are ‘Stages’ and how do I set them up?

The stages of an Opportunity allow you to measure how far along the sales process an Opportunity is. For example, the first stage of an Opportunity could be a telephone meeting in which you discuss the USP of your product and how it would benefit the customer. The second stage may then be a quote, the third a physical meeting with a demonstration of the product and then the fourth would be the final discussions and the closing of the deal. Those are just examples though, one of the great features about the Opportunity stages are that they allow for great customisation meaning you sculpt them to fit any type of sales campaign you require.

Note: We used a total of four stages in our example, but you can add as many as you wish.

We’ve made editing your Opportunity settings as intuitive and hassle free as possible. If you head to the Settings page and then into the Configuration tab, you will find Opportunity Stages.

If you click on the blue Add a Stage button a form will appear, allowing you to enter the name of your new stage as well as an in-depth description, so everyone can understand its purpose. If you need to change the order of your stages, you can just simply drag them into the position you desire by clicking on the  symbol. For a more in depth look at how to modify and add Opportunity stages please see our support article on the topic .

Note: When changing the order of a stage, make sure that an Opportunity or Project isn’t on it.

See how successful you have been

Our Opportunities function also allows you to take a broad overview of your Opportunities history enabling you at a glance to see how many Opportunities you’ve won and lost as well as the average value of your Opportunities thus providing valuable information for you to decide how to proceed in future to increase your success rate.

To view an overview of your Opportunities simply click ‘Overview’ under the search bar on the Opportunities page

The Opportunity Pipeline

What is the Opportunity Pipeline, and how does it work?

The Opportunity Pipeline is designed to make it easy for you to track how near you are to closing an Opportunity. Built to work seamlessly with Opportunities, the Opportunity Pipeline provides a great visual representation of where you are in the sales process. Allowing you to gain an insight into what is and what isn’t working for you and your business by showing you the relative value of each Opportunity, how close your Opportunities are to closing and on which stage an Opportunity is languishing in instead of moving forward. Each Opportunity is displayed as a circle, the greater the value of the Opportunity the larger the circle.

You can also click on each circle to bring up the details of that Opportunity and drag it up or down to move it along the various Opportunity stages you would have previously created.

Finding a specific Opportunity in the Opportunity Pipeline

Let us imagine you have many Opportunities and as such it can be difficult to find the one you’re looking for that’s why RealtimeCRM enables you to filter Opportunities to find the correct one, simply head to the Opportunity Pipeline or the Opportunities tab on the left hand sidebar and click Add filter and it will allow you to filter Opportunities by the Company or Contact associated with the Opportunity or the value of the Opportunity as well as other filters.