An opportunity stage determines where in the pipeline your opportunity is.
There are nine opportunity stages available in the stock version of Method:
Prospecting (10%): Determining the level of interest a potential customer has in your product or service.
Qualification (10%): Qualifying a lead or customer by using criteria including how interested they are, how likely they are to purchase, etc.
Needs Analysis (20%): Determining whether or not your product or service is a good fit based on their requirements.
Value Proposition (50%): Understanding what the value of your product or service is, and determining how valuable a customer would find it.
Identify Decision Makers (60%): Identifying the person or people with the power to make purchasing decisions, and develop a relationship with them.
Perception Analysis (70%): Determining how a customer perceives your product or service and their expectations of you.
Proposal / Price Quote (70%): Creating a quote and/or a proposal for review.
Negotiation / Review (90%): Hammering out the final details of the deal.
Closed Won (100%): A sale is agreed upon. If the opportunity came from a lead, that lead is converted to a customer.
Closed Lost (0%): The customer does not pursue your product or service. Lost opportunities are recorded to gather data on how to improve your sales pipeline, products, services, marketing, etc.
These stages represent the progression of a sales opportunity towards a successful sale. Instead of using our stock versions, however, you can create your own.
Create/edit an opportunity stage
The whole point of Method is to tailor your CRM experience to your business practices, so we’ve included an option to create a new opportunity stage.
The following steps will show you how to create and edit opportunity stages.
Note: The add and edit screens are laid out the same way, so we will go through how to create a new stage. You can edit an existing stage by clicking on it and changing the information in the fields. It's a Method best practice not to edit stock options, but you can create your own very easily!
From your Method dashboard click ⊕ New on your Opportunities App.
This opens your New Opportunity screen. In the Stage dropdown, click New/Edit Opportunity Stage.
This opens the Opportunity Stage List. To edit an existing stage, select it in the list. To create a new stage, click ⊕ New Opportunity Stage.
This brings you to the New Opportunity Stage screen.
Opportunity Stage* - Choose a unique name that reflects the step in the pipeline this stage best represents (e.g. continuing research).
Stage category* - Select a category to which this stage belong: open, closed won, or closed lost. This affects how the opportunity will look in charts and reports.
Stage Order - Although not used, this can be utilized in a customization if you wish to order the stages.
Stage Probability Percent - Identify the probability percent you would like this stage to represent.
When you're done, click Save & Back. This opportunity stage is now available throughout Method.