Many people refer to their sales opportunities as their sales funnel or pipeline. If you visualize what a traditional funnel looks like and how it works you'll start to see the similarities. You pour something into the top of a funnel and ideally everything flows out again through the bottom. The funnel can become "clogged" and have to be shaken up a bit, and at times some of the items that enter into the top of the funnel never make it all the way out through the bottom.
The whole concept behind a sales pipeline is that you probably won't be able to close 100% of your deals but that the rate of success increases as the opportunity progresses through your pipeline. Additionally, you'll probably want to track the progress of an opportunity as it travels through the pipeline and use that information to find out what's working well for you and what's not.
If one of your opportunities changes it is necessary to edit the opportunity in ACT! to reflect those changes. This information appears in your various reports and dashboards so updating your opportunities is vitally important.
- Click Opportunities in the Navigation bar.
- If you are not there already click the List View button on the icon bar (optional).
- Double-click the opportunity that you want to update to open it. Do not click the contact's name on the Opportunity List or you will end up on the contact's record instead.
- Change the information in the Stage field as necessary.
- Update the Estimated Close Date (optional).
- Change the opportunity's status (optional).
All reports and dashboards that you access will automatically reflect the updated information. In addition, ACT! will automatically change the information in the Last Edited and Last Edited By fields to reflect the current date and the name of the user who implemented the change.
There are a number of ways that you can access an opportunity in order to change it. In addition to double-clicking the opportunity from the Opportunity List you can also:
- Create a lookup for the contact associated with the opportunity and then click the contact's Opportunities tab. On the Opportunities tab, double-click the opportunity.
- Search for an opportunity by clicking the Lookup menu, choosing Opportunities, and then selecting one of the field choices. You can search by opportunity name, product, or status. If more than one opportunity meets your search criteria the Opportunity List will open and you can double-click the opportunity you want to modify.
All new opportunities are assigned the Open status. When you close a sale, you can record the outcome by changing the status to either Closed—Won or Closed—Lost to reflect the outcome. ACT! will automatically fill in the Actual Closing prompting you to choose an option from the Reason field drop-down list. In addition ACT! records a history on the contact's History tab; if you associated the opportunity with a group or company, ACT! records a history on the History tab for the group or company as well.
There is also an Inactive status. However, rather than making an opportunity inactive and potentially forgetting about it, you might consider simply changing the Estimated Close Date to a much later date.