Opportunities

Owned by Jodie Miners
Last updated: Nov 08, 2015
4 min read

Details

Rules

In Salesforce, all Money can belong only to an Account - so Opps must have an Account. 

Opps must have a unique name (create a workflow to set a naming convention). 

Issues

The Primary Campaign Source field is STUPIDLY not available to use on Views. Here is a workaround https://success.salesforce.com/answers?id=90630000000hNKBAA2

New Salesforce Org

Remove

Custom Fields

I don't know why, but a new org I recently created had custom fields in the Opportunity. This is confusing, so remove them, or at least remove all permissions from them. 

Page Layouts

Again, I don't know why a new org had 4 page layouts - just delete them all except the Opportunity Layout and start from scratch. 

Fields

Set permissions on the following fields that are not visible by default:

  • Expected Revenue
  • Private

Values

Buttons Links Actions

  • Remove Mail Merge buttons
  • Remove Request Update

Layout

Opportunities should have a layout based on Feed Layouts

Views

See Views

Required Views

  • All Opportunities
  • Opportunities Closing this Month
  • Won Opportunities
  • High Value Opportunities
  • Action - Hanging Around - Stage = Open, Created Date <= LAST 14 DAYS (or whatever the threshold is for the client).

Help

Leads

Leads are used for potential opportunities from companies that don't exist in Salesforce already. To be a lead, the opportunity must:

  • Be for an Account that doesn't exist in Salesforce yet
  • Have only one person associated with it.
  • Not be at the stage of talking about money yet. 
  • Be a simple record of initial contact with this person. 

If any of those are not true or become not true, then convert the Lead to an Opportunity or create it as a new Opportunity. 

When you convert a Lead, the Opportunity will be created as a the default Record Type set for the Profile of that user. 

Opportunity

If the Contact and Account does not exist, then create them first. 

An Account can have multiple Opportunities, at various stages. 

Finding Opportunities

To find an Opportunity, use any of these methods

  • On the Opportunity tab choose the list All Open Opportunities. All Opportunities that are Open (not Closed Won or Closed Lost) will be shown. Click on any heading to sort by that heading. 
    • You can create as many views as you need. 
  • From the Account's record click on the Opportunity related list and then click on the Opportunity name. 
  • Search for the name of the Opportunity, or the name of the Account. 

Creating the Opportunity

On the Account record, in the Opportunity related list, choose New Opportunity. OR from the Opportunity tab click New.

Then chose the Record Type. Each Opportunity should have a Record Type. 

If you have created the Opportunity record from the Account, the Account will be filled in. Otherwise choose the Account that the Opportunity is related to. 

The Opportunity Name should be unique - so name it something like XYZ Deal 2014. 

Choose the Lead Source (these can be modified if you need more). 

Choose the Primary Campaign for the Opportunity. Add a new Campaign in the Campaign Hierarchy if you need to. Opportunity values show up agains the Campaign when the Opp is set as "Closed Won". 

Enter the Close Date - the date you expect to receive the first payment in. 

You can set the Opportunity to Private - that means that only you (the owner of the Opp), people above you in the Role Hierarchy and System Admins will see it. 

You add the contact(s) related to this Opportunity as Contact Roles - eg Decision Maker, Management, General Contact. This links the Opportunity to the Contact. 

Managing the Opp

As the Opportunity progresses add any notes and log any calls in the Feed. 

Create a Follow Up Task for yourself to follow up on this Opportunity. (The Follow Up task is a publisher action that defaults to 2 days out and is assigned to the current user - I create this as global and add it to many layouts). Or use the buttons on the Feed to create a Task or Event (meeting). 

Using Salesforce for Outlook, you can attach any emails directly to the Opportunity. (or using Cirrus for Gmail). 

Add any proposals you send to them as attachments from the Feed. Or use the new Quotations object. 

Set the Stage that the Opportunity is at (Note that the stages can be modified if you don't like the preset stages). 

Set the probability of getting this money - this will modify the expected revenue (Amount x Probability). 

You can modify the Amount or Close date as things progress with the Opp. 

You can enter the Next Steps to keep a track of what you need to do next on this Opportunity. 

TBA - Opportunity Products. 

Communicating

The easiest way to communicate with the Account is to use your personal emails via Outlook or Gmail, and then attach the emails to the Opportunity. 

However, if you want to have some official correspondence, you can create some template emails with merge fields, and use the Send Email button on the Activity History related list to send emails related to this Opportunity. 

Closing the Opp

Set the Stage of the Opp to Closed Won or Closed Lost (eg if they decide to not go ahead with the deal it is Lost).