In Salesforce, an opportunity is a sale or a potential sale you want to track.
Types of Opportunities
There are four types of opportunities in Salesforce:
- Account: An associated account
- Amount: An estimated amount of the sale
- Close Date: An estimated close date when you think the sale will close
- Stage: The stage the opportunity is at
Create an Opportunity
- Open the account related to the opportunity.
An opportunity is always associated with an account, so the best way to create a new opportunity is to start from its account.
- Scroll down to the Opportunities list and click New Opportunity.
- Type a meaningful name for the opportunity.
- Select a Close Date.
This is your best guess as to when the sale might close.
- Select the stage your opportunity is at in the sales cycle.
- Enter an Amount.
This should be your best guess as to the amount the opportunity will close for.
- Click Save.
Salesforce saves the opportunity.
Define Contact Roles
Now, there can often be several contacts involved in a sale, such as decision makers, influencers, and buyers. You can add these contacts to an opportunity in the Contact Roles list--here’s how.
- Click New in the Contact Roles list.
- Click the Contact Lookup button next to an empty contact field.
- Find and select the contact you want to add.
- Select the contact’s role.
- Add any additional contacts & role.
- Click Save when you’re done.
Salesforce adds the contacts to the opportunity.
