About the Opportunities module Updated 2001-05-09 1. Create a Prospect or a Client Prospects A prospect is a potential client. To create a prospect, see Prospect > Create a New Prospect. You only have to enter the "Prospect Name," but we suggest that you fill out the form as completely as possible if you can - most of the information will be carried over if you decide to create a new client from this prospect (see below). You may define a territory, a business type, a client size, and a client source for the prospect. These are account entities. There is a default list provided for each one, but you can delete these and also create your own. Clients You can use existing clients with the Opportunities module. You can also create new clients either from the Account tab or the Sales prospects > Clients sub-tab. See Account > Create a New Client Record. Clients created in the Opportunities module will be available to all other modules in the account. Prospects are only used in the Opportunities and Proposals modules - you have the option to convert prospects to clients should this become necessary. 2. Add Contacts to a Prospect or Client Contacts are associated with prospects and clients. Each prospect or client can have more than one contact. The contacts are people with whom you may be dealing on behalf of the prospect or client - people you might phone, meet with, etc. To create a contact, see Prospects > Create a New Contact. The "Last name" and "Sales prospect affiliation" fields are required. You can also create contacts from the Account tab. 3. Create a Deal To create a deal, see Deals > Create a New Deal. When you create a deal, you must associate it with a prospect or client. Once you have selected a prospect or client, you can then select one or more of the associated contacts with which you and your users will be working on this particular deal. Depending on the user role privileges that you have, you may be able to assign the deal to a user other than yourself. Otherwise, the user who created the deal will be the one assigned to it. A newly-created deal will have an "Open" status by default. As the deal progresses, you can adjust the status (Open, Closed, Lost). You can rate a deal(hot, warm, or cold) and estimate the probability of closing the deal. You can also record the monetary value to your company should the deal be successfully closed. To close a deal, you need to change the deal status to "Closed" (see Deals > Modify an Existing Deal Record). You can also change the status to "Lost," which allows you to keep a record of the deals you lost as well as those you closed. 4. Create an Estimate Once you have created a deal, you can create an estimate for that deal. It allows you to specify expected staffing requirements and expenses associated with a deal. You will be able to estimate your profit margin for the deal, which in turn will help you decide whether or not the deal is worth pursuing. For more information, see Estimates. 5. Create ToDos Todos are activities you have scheduled involving your prospects and deals. For example, you may have scheduled a phone call or meeting with a contact. To create a todo, see ToDos > Create a New ToDo. Depending on the user role privileges that you have, you may be able to assign the todo to a user other than yourself. Otherwise, the user who created the todo will be the one assigned to it. When you create a todo, you can select the prospect, or client, and deal to which it is associated. Select the relevant contact for the todo. The selection of contacts from which you can choose will depend on your selection in the "Sales prospect : Deal" field. You can enter a start date and time, and a due date and time to your to do. When you create a todo, the default status is "Not Started." You can change the status at any time. The available options are "In Progress," "Completed," "Waiting," and "Deferred" (see ToDos > Modify an Existing ToDo Record). Todos that are not "Completed" will appear as Open todos on the Dashboard. Any due or overdue todos will also appear on the Dashboard as such. 6. Create Events Events are completed activities (including todos and deals). When you change the status of a to do to "Completed," the "New Event" form will appear, with the todo's information already pre- filled. All you need to do is click "Save" and an event recording the completed to do now exists. The same thing happens when you change the status of a deal to "Closed." You can create an event that records the closing of the deal. To quickly record a call made to a contact, click on the contact's phone number in the Prospects or Clients list (Oppportunities > Sales prospects tab). A "New Event" form will appear with the fields pre-filled with the contact's information. The default name of the event will be "Called [contact name]." The same thing will happen if you click on the contact's e-mail address, creating an event with a default name of "Send email to [contact name]." You can, of course, create your own events from scratch. To create events, see Events > Create a New Event. 7. Create a Client from a Prospect Once you have closed a deal with a prospect, or have decided to do business with them, you can create a client based on the prospect. The client can then be used in the other modules in your OpenAir.com account. To create a client from a prospect, see Prospects > Create a Client from a Prospect. 8. Create a Proposal You can create proposals to send to both clients and prospects. See Opportunities > Proposals for more information. Note that you cannot make proposal items billable if the proposal is associated with a prospect. You must convert the prospect into a client. Once you have done this, the proposal will be billable to the newly-created client.