Opportunities
An opportunity is a specific piece of business with a company: a value, a stage, an owner, an expected close date, and the activity attached to it. It is the unit everything in analytics counts.
New business
£284,000 open · 31 opportunities
Qualified11
Proposal8
Negotiation5
Won7
Designing stages
The most common mistake is stages that describe what you did rather than what the customer did. "Proposal sent" is your activity; "proposal under review with a named decision-maker" is their state. Stages built on your activity always look healthy, because you can always do more activity.
| Weak stage | Stronger stage | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Contacted | Responded | You can contact anybody. Only they can respond. |
| Demo booked | Demo attended, follow-up agreed | A booking is not attendance. |
| Proposal sent | Proposal under review | Sending is your side of it. |
| Negotiating | Terms agreed, pending signature | Names the thing that has to happen next. |
- Five to seven stages is the workable range. More and nobody updates them accurately.
- Each stage carries a probability used for weighted pipeline. Set them from your own history, not from a default.
- Several pipelines per workspace is normal — new business and renewals rarely share a shape.
- Configure at
/crm/settings/pipelines.
Stage velocity
How long opportunities sit in each stage is usually more informative than conversion rate, because it points at the stage that is actually broken. A stage where everything piles up is a stage whose exit criteria are unclear or whose next action belongs to somebody who is not doing it. See Analytics.
What this does not do
Weighted pipeline is stage probability times value. Nothing models seasonality or rep accuracy.
An opportunity has a value, not a basket.
Discounts and terms are not routed for approval.
One owner per opportunity.
Questions
Can we have different stages per pipeline?
Yes. Stages belong to a pipeline.
What happens to an opportunity when it is lost?
It moves to a lost stage with a reason, and stays for analytics.
Can stage probability be changed retrospectively?
Yes, and historic weighted figures move with it. Change it deliberately.