How to track future, potential sales

[Crystal_Hopper]

Here's my use case:

• Sales makes a brand new sale of our core product 
• Sales knows that the new customer qualifies for some add-on products but isn't ready to purchase right now
• Sales wants to keep track of (by product) these customers who are qualified to buy

I could help Sales put these future buyers on a List, or several Lists. But Sales' idea is to build a Deal Pipeline with the columns representing these various products. Then put a Deal in the column for the product they qualify for. This doesn't work when multiple products are at work unless there are multiple Deals. This is possible but visually could it be too messy?

So, what is the best practice to help Sales keep track of customers who qualify for more products and which products they qualify for, knowing there could be 1 to many products.

Additionally, if we see a great deal of customers qualifying for a particular product set, but not purchasing, then Marketing could use this data to push materials and information to these customers. So, they need visibility to this data.

Thank you!!

[Chriso-mwx]

Thanks again @TiphaineCuisset for getting me in on this

Hey @Crystal_Hopper ,

I immediately got some thoughts on this that I like to share.

First, I want to highlight that the setup with individual stages per product is not ideal and it's also not intended for that. You probably know that these stages are there to move the deal through the journey of an oppotunity. Your sales team might be better of to use Products/Line Items for that. But maybe you're getting some resistance there, idk.

In the case of an opportunity that closes now but is qualified to buy an add on later on, I don't see a problem why this could be a new Deal. The first one for your core product is done... won... closed. So if a sales rep spots another opportunity for selling something else that might close not immediately it's fair to enter another deal in a respective stage like Qualified to Buy. Given if you got a usual setup for the stages.

The issue arises more when these two products are part of the same "Deal Journey" but then are splitt into two different Deal-Records in two Stages/Columns. I find this very confusing.

If your sales team is keen on leaving the setup as is (and even if you're able to change the pipeline), I think using a multiselct field on the associated company records might be a good play in general. Something like:

Quailified to Buy:

• Product A
• Product B
• Product C
• ....

Just when there is a realistic chance to sell a product a Deal-Record should be created.

Let me know your thoughts.

Cheers, 

Chriso

[TiphaineCuisset]

Hi @Crystal_Hopper 

Thank you for reaching out.

I want to tag some of our experts on this - @Josh @DarianVretenar @Chriso-mwx do you have some advice or thoughts for @Crystal_Hopper on this?

Thank you!

Best

Tiphaine