Assume you have a lead who has expressed a strong interest in your product. They require the type of product you provide, have the budget to pay for it, want to buy within a realistic time frame, and have the power to make such decisions for their firm.

That lead is no longer a lead at that moment; it is an opportunity. The effectiveness of your sales process is now being tested. It's a true "put up or shut up" moment for your sales efforts.

But what if you don't have an overall framework, milestones, or reference points in place to convert that potential into a customer? What happens if you have many opportunities to manage?

Would you be putting yourself in the best possible position to manage such situations?

If that were the case, you'd be short changing yourself, your company, and your sales process - all because you weren't exercising a good process.

Sales opportunity management that is effective may be a big and complex benefit to your company. For starters, it enables you to gain a better understanding of your potential clients and prioritize your contacts with them depending on their commercial potential.

It also assists you in determining the ideal strategy to approach them based on their level of interest and the stage of their connection with your firm. Finally, it may assist reveal faults in your sales procedures, allowing you to continuously improve how you communicate with potential clients.

What is Sales Opportunity Management? 

Sales opportunity management is the practice of identifying and managing sales possibilities as they travel through your pipeline. Sales opportunities are contacts that have entered your sales cycle with a demonstrated desire and ability to conduct business with you.

This effective technique can turn out to be a big and complex benefit to your company. For starters, it enables you to gain a better understanding of your potential clients and prioritize your contacts with them depending on their commercial potential.

It also assists you in determining the ideal strategy to approach them based on their level of interest and the stage of their connection with your firm. Finally, it may assist reveal faults in your sales procedures, allowing you to continuously improve how you communicate with potential clients.

Given how much good opportunity management can achieve for your company, it's critical to understand how to execute it well. Here, I'll provide some advice on where to begin.

Opportunity Management- How to Get Started? 

Here are the few most important steps that one has to follow in order to setup an efficient opportunity management process-

Setup a Pipeline

A well-defined, effective sales pipeline is the foundation of all sales opportunity management. However, selecting what yours will look like might be a difficult procedure. There is no one-size-fits-all model that will work for every firm by default.

In many circumstances, the efficiency of your pipeline is determined by its capacity to be neatly partitioned and clearly viewable. Sales CRMs are among the resources available to guarantee that this is the case.

Many sales CRMs feature pipeline creation and maintenance capabilities that allow you to create your own phases to act as reference points for the maturity and viability of agreements as they develop.

Your steps will very certainly differ from those in the example. Appointment Scheduled, Qualified to Buy, Presentation Scheduled, Decision-Maker Bought In, Contract Sent, Closed Won, and Closed Lost are common pipeline steps.

The goal of building your pipeline is to provide a roadmap for your deal tracking. Without it, your process would lack the framework required to be as effective as possible.

Know About Your Customers- Do the Homework

Your prospective consumers will not all fit the same mold. Understanding each person's behaviors and commercial potential is essential for efficient opportunity management. Contacts will respond at various rates, have varied budgets, and have varying amounts of decision-making authority.

The idea here is that research is critical to this success. It enables you to prioritize more profitable, practical business and better understand and communicate with contacts. 

Track the Touchpoints of Every Contact

Keep an eye on your prospects' interest in doing business with you. That entails staying in touch with them on a regular basis. Follow up on any questions they may have in a timely and professional manner. Contact them at each level of the sales process.

By designing your pipeline, you ensure that the time it takes to go from step to stage is not random. There are certain steps that show where an opportunity is in your pipeline. You won't know if they're ready to make those moves until you stay in touch with them.

It's also critical to keep track of the interactions you have. Many sales CRMs feature tools for recording any conversation between your firm and its opportunities. Automatic sales activity records, shared inboxes, and email tracking enable this approach.

Know What to Improve   

One advantage of building a sales pipeline model in a sales CRM is being able to detect where you're missing out on prospects. This type of view helps you to identify gaps in your sales process that need to be filled.

Sales opportunity management is more than just keeping track of individual offers. On an organizational level, it might reveal a lot about your sales activities.

For example, you may discover that you are losing a disproportionate amount of business between presenting presentations and obtaining decision-makers' buy-in. If this is the case, you'll know you need to address how your sales representatives deliver presentations. This might include reassessing their training, reorganizing demonstrations, or redesigning your presentation materials.

This is nearly critical to sustaining good sales operations. To know how to approach a deal, you must be able to follow and comprehend it before it closes.

If you only remember one item from this article, make it this: sales CRMs make the sales opportunity management process a lot easier. Many will let you create your own pipeline to track your chances, their potential as clients, and the smartest and most relevant strategies to earn their business. 

Get in touch with Office24by7 now to get your hands on the best sales automation software and CRM.