Salesforce.com Opportunity records constitute the building blocks of your sales pipeline and forecasting. Each deal past, present and future should contain all the relevant information for a first sales opportunity or an upsell opportunity. Accounts can and should have multiple opportunities associated with it based on each and every deal your team is able to work with prospects and customers.
As the deal moves through its stages, more details are captured including:
- Customized fields
- Activity History
- Open Activities
- Documents
- Related Objects
One of the areas which are important to help coordinate team selling is mapping the Opportunity based on Contact Roles. These are the people in the Account as well as any relevant partners to the deal. The Opportunity ties together the details of what makes the deal work and how to proceed to win the Opportunity as well as service the customer.
In the Contact Roles section, be sure to use this as part of your Salesforce.com strategy to manage individual Opportunities. This requires setting up the Contact Roles in your Salesforce.com customization. Your industry will have its own set of . Here are some which are relevant:
- Decision Maker
- Influencer
- Partner
- Legal Counsel
- Spouse
- Executive Sponsor
- Technical Resource
The types of Contact Roles will vary widely. You can start with an initial setup and expand these as your Opportunities involve more types of people. The key concept is to capture the types of functions involved with an Opportunity record. This enables you to see the people that are involved.
After the jobs have been identified, be sure to select the Primary Contact within the list of Contact Roles. This will help identify who the main person in the engagement for anyone on your team. Each deal for an Account may have different Primary Contacts depending on what the deal is and which department or focus you are engaging.
Opportunities are focused on a goal – closing and winning a sale. Knowing the layout of the people involved helps to orient you quickly as well as drive focus on the respective communications and actions necessary to drive the Opportunity. Taking a quick look at the Contact Roles in an Opportunity record can help keep the relevant sales activities in your sales process top of mind as the names and relationships prompt effective next steps.
How are you using Contact Roles to help close sales?
