Managing Sales Methods and Stages


This demonstration shows how to modify the supplied sales methods and sales stages to fit your business requirements.


Steps:

  1. Sales methods and sales stages allow organizations to follow standard processes in order to target sales to a particular customer or opportunity.

     

    A sales method and its stages can align to the customer buying decision process. For example, is the customer more interested in price, features, service, or delivery time? Once this is decided, then your sales method and sales stages can reflect this interest.

     

    In a typical implementation, a single sales method has several sales stages (for example, Qualification, Negotiation, or Closed).

    Step 1

  2. To get started managing sales methods and stages, access the Manage Sales Methods and Sales Stages task in the Setup and Maintenance area.

    Step 2

  3. Click the Standard Sales Process link.

     

    The Standard Sales Process is one of the supplied sales methods.

    Step 3

  4. Let’s discuss some of the more complex fields that you can modify for a sales method.

     

    A set represents a group of business units. The Set field allows the sales method to be shared across multiple business units.

    Step 4

  5. Set in days, the Close Window value is added to the current date to set the initial opportunity close date.

     

    If not set, the application retrieves the default close window from the Opportunity Close Date Default profile option.

    Step 5

  6. Revenue line sets allows the grouping of revenue items. You would only check the Enable Revenue Line Set Capability check box to use revenue line sets with this sales method.

    Step 6

  7. The Disable check box lets you disable the sales method. Only disable sales methods during implementation and not after the methods are in use in transactional objects.

    Step 7

  8. Several supplied sales stages exist within the Standard Sales Process sales method.

     

    Edit the first sales stage. Click the 01 - Qualification link.

    Step 8

  9. Let’s examine some of the more complex fields in the Edit Sales Stage page.

     

    Quota Factor feeds the data in the sales Pipeline report. Quota factor is the number that a salesperson's quota would need to be multiplied by to meet his revenue targets at this sales stage. You would enter a 3, for example, if you wanted to indicate that a salesperson needs three times the amount of deals to meet his revenue targets at this sales stage.

    Step 9

  10. The Disable check box allows you to disable the sales stage. Only disable sales stages during implementation and not after the stages are in use in transactional objects.

    Step 10

  11. Win probability is the likelihood (in percent form) of winning the opportunity.

     

    The Win Probability field sets the default win probability at opportunity level for the sales stage.

     

    If you don’t want your sales stages to control opportunity win probability, make sure they are null by blanking out any value in this field.

    Step 11

  12. The Duration field signifies the average number of days that you expect this sales stage to last. For example, you would enter 30 if you think this sales stage will last about 30 days.

    Step 12

  13. The Stalled Deal Limit field signifies the number of days after which an opportunity in this sales stage would be considered stalled.

     

    This field drives metrics for the Stalled Opportunities business intelligence report.

    Step 13

This concludes the demonstration on Managing Opportunity Sales Methods and Sales Stages.

 

For information on setting up the elements of the Sales Coach, such as process steps, required fields, and recommended documents, refer to the Setting up Sales Coach demonstration.

 

For information on how salespeople use Sales Coach, refer to the Using Sales Coach demonstration and documentation.

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