The greatest strength a CRM can give you is a centralized platform where you can easily see a client’s data and what position they are in throughout your sales process. Enter the Prophet Opportunity:
An Opportunity is a new and powerful record type that Prophet brings to Outlook. It is a combination of an individual’s contact data, company data, and your company’s internal workflow. From here, you can track progress on a sale and enter estimates and details of your key performance indicators. We will now go into detail on the different kinds of data and functionalities available within an Opportunity, starting from the top.
The Top Bar
As with any kind of record, it is important to save any changes and additions you make when you are finished. To do this simply click the top left most icon ‘Save and Close.’
This will update the record in your Prophet database and ensure that any changes you made will be visible the next time someone accesses the opportunity. If you want your changes to be recorded as a separate opportunity altogether, click the ‘Save and New’ icon found to the right of the first one.
The next tools found in the top bar of the opportunity are the arrow icons. These icons allow you to scroll through preceding and following opportunities within the same workflow chain.
To the right of these icons, are quality of life functions that allow you to interact with the client. With just one click you can send an email, schedule an appointment, or set up a task on Outlook. One additional function is the ability to export the data saved on your Opportunity into an Excel or Word format. Click the ‘Generate File’ icon and select your preferred document type.
You can also follow an opportunity, making it easier to check up on and track progress. Follow or unfollow an opportunity with these icons:
You will then receive email notifications about any updates made about opportunities that you have followed.
Directly underneath these fields, you can find basic descriptor information of the Opportunity, mainly the relevant company and contact.
By selecting the company and contacts, Prophet will open a popup box that will allow you to pick companies and contacts registered in your Prophet database.
Underneath the company and contact fields is a generic Sales Description field you can use to describe the opportunity.
The Middle Fields
Now we will explore the core of the opportunity, the middle fields. These fields are where you can store relevant details about the opportunity. The data in the middle fields are separated by 8 different tabs that you can use for organization purposes.
The General tab houses your most important data regarding a sale or opportunity.
The first field you will see is your sales status field. This field will provide you a dropdown with a variety of statuses that your relationship with the client may look like.
The field underneath it is particularly important as it designates the sales stage that your opportunity is in. The sales stage indicates where you are within your workflow and gives both you and Prophet an idea of what tasks remain. Your workflow is an essential part of how Prophet functions. To learn how to develop and customize your own workflow, click here.
Data you enter in an opportunity is not only saved in this record but also brought into your Prophet database where you can compile information for critical insight about overall sales performance within your department. For more information, click here.
The rest of the fields offer the ability to input other qualifying information, such as region, current CRM, competing firms, and unique record number that the database uses as a primary key.
On the right side of the General tab, you can find fields for entering your KPIs and any follow-up actions you might have.
The next tab in the middle fields is your Products/Services tab. Here you will have the option to select and detail whatever product or service you are trying to sell. This tab also comes with fields that will input price and information about your supply chain.
The Contacts tab gives you the ability to add any associated contacts to an opportunity, as seen here:
Opportunities do not need to be tied to a single contact, and can be extended to multiple relevant parties.
The next tab is the Users tab, in which you can assign members from your firm to an Opportunity, as seen here:
The tab after that is the Company Information tab. Here you can input relevant information about your client or prospect’s company. This can house basic contact information, Account Numbers, Reference accounts, and physical addresses.
The following tab is the Marketing Info tab. Here you can see the steps used to qualify your leads and the sources that they came from.
Now that we have covered the essentials tabs of the middle fields, we can go over the final section of the opportunity: Bottom Notes
Bottom Notes
The first tab of the bottom notes are exactly as they sound. They provide a space for entering any extraneous information that won’t fit neatly into one of the fields located in the opportunity. By default, they house any email exchanges you have had with a contact.
After that is the tracking history. This will log any activities you perform within the opportunity and the exact time that activity was performed.
The next note is the Sales Stage History. This tab shows a record of the sales stages you have passed through to reach the current state of the opportunity.
The email tab will also show a brief history of your email exchanges but will add more detail including details about the size and files associated with different emails.
The calendar will show any deadlines or meetings you might have with a contact, and is associated with your Outlook calendar.
The Task tab will show any tasks associated with an opportunity. These tasks are a different kind of Outlook record that correlate to a specific action or meeting.
The files tab allows for quick and easy access for any files that might be sent during your exchanges with a prospect or client.
The next tab might be your most useful out of the Bottom Notes. Your workflow tab is where you can keep track of where an opportunity is within your own work process. This becomes essentials as you learn to automate your email exchanges and meetings with Prophet. By heading to your workflow tab, you can check in on any of the automated processes you have going and make sure that your workflow continues smoothly.
Your last tab, Related Records, will show any other kinds of records that are relevant to the opportunity such as contacts, tasks, and anything else that Outlook has available.
This covers the entirety of the Prophet CRM opportunity. With it you can keep track of leads, potential sales, and use it as your center of sales automation. If used correctly, it can revolutionize how you conduct your sales and gives you one easy place to access any data you might need with a few easy clicks.