The Sales Lifecycle starts with a Campaign Record in Salesforce. All the people who attend the Campaign can be marked as a Lead in Salesforce.
Sales Cycle
Campaign -> Lead -> Account, Contact, Opportunity
- A campaign record is created, which will be used to find the best marketing strategy.
- Leads will be generated in Salesforce from different sources and if they came from a campaign then they will be added to the Campaign as Campaign Members. Different sources for Lead Creation can be:
- Manual Entry of Leads
- Web to Lead form
- Imported using Data Import Wizard
- Leads will then be assigned to the Sales Staff. This process is called Lead Assignment Process. In Salesforce we can automate this by using Lead Assignment Rules. With Lead Assignment rules we can assign Leads to Users or Queues.
- Note: Even though you can create multiple Lead Assignment Rules at a time but only one Assignment Rule can be Active at a time.
- After the Lead is assigned, it needs to be qualified by the Sales Reps. If the Lead qualifies and a Sales Rep will convert the Lead into Account, Contact, and Opportunity. While converting the Lead you can select an existing Account, Contact, and Opportunity or you can create a new Account, Contact, and Opportunity. Also, you can select the Converted Status of the Opportunity.
Opportunity Cycle:
Prospecting (Qualification) -> Discovery (Needs Analysis) -> Customer Evaluating (Proposal/ Price Quote) -> Closing (Negotiation/ Review) -> Closed Won -> Closed Lost
