Chapter 7: Working with Potentials

In any sales organization, potentials are the most important records to generate the real revenue for the organization. In a typical B2B organization all the potentials have to undergo a complete sales cycle, which start with identifying the hot prospect and ends with sales won or lost. The in between sales activities that has to be completed are sending product information to potentials, product demonstrations, sending sales quotations and business negotiations. Precisely, potential provides the following information for the sales management:

• Sales cycle (Duration of the prospecting the potential)
• The potential sales volume (Product units and price)
• Up-to-minute sales stage and the estimated sales probability in each stage
• Reasons for the sales status (Won/Lost)
• Competitors of the potential
• Forecast for the next quarter/year sales

The Potentials home page contains,

• Potentials List
• Potential Reports
• Tools such as Import, Export, change owner, and delete
• Quick Create pane
• Search
• Alphabetical Search
• Custom Views
• Page Navigation

You can perform the following operations in Potentials module:

• Navigate potentials
• Search potentials (Alphabetical or advanced search options)
• Creating Custom List Views
• Create potentials (Form filling, quick create, or duplicate options)
• Import potentials (from external sources)
• Associate potentials with other records
• Associate competitors with potential
• Add contact roles
• Customize contact roles
• Change potential owner (individually or in bulk)
• Export potentials to spreadsheets
• Print potentials details
• View reports
• Delete potentials(individually or in bulk)
• Customize potentials
• Set up Big-Deal Alert
• Configure Sales Stage pick lists
• Map Sales Stage-Probability values

Navigating Potentials

(Access Privilege: Read permission)

You can navigate potentials available in the potentials list according to the status of the potentials.

To navigate potentials

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials Home page, under the Potential List section, select one of the views from the Select View drop-down list to display the list of accounts according to the type of the account (For example, Prospect, Investor, Reseller, and others).  
3. In the Potential List section, click the Start, Previous, Next, or End link to access the respective list of potentials.

Searching Potentials

(Access Privilege: Read permission)

You can search the potentials alphabetically or filling the required information in Search box.

To search potentials

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials Home page, under the Potential Search section, do one of the following:
   • Specify the search criteria in Search box and click the Go button. Or
   • Select one of the alphabetical search links.
3. In the Potential List page, a list of potentials is displayed as per search criteria.

Creating Custom List Views

(Access Privilege: Read/Write permissions)

In the Potential List you can create/modify/delete the custom views, sort columns in the list view (ascending/descending order), search the records available in the current list view. In addition, you can modify some of the columns in standard list views. By default, the following standard list views are available in the Potentials module:

• Standard Views
  • All Potentials
  • My Potentials
  • New This Week
  • New Last Week
  • Closing This Month
  • Closing Next Month
• Recent Views
  • Recently Created Potentials
  • Recently Modified Potentials
  • Recently Viewed Potentials

To create custom views

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials Home page, under Potential List section, click the Create View link.
   
   

   Note: Under the Potential List section some of the standard list views are displayed. You can only rearrange the order of columns and more columns.

   
   
3. In the Create New View page, do the following:
   • In the View Information section, specify name of the custom view in the View Name (mandatory) field. The custom view name appears in the View drop-down list. You can also set the custom view as a default list view by selecting the Set as Default View check box.
     
   • In the Specify Criteria section, specify the filter criteria. For more details refer to the Specifying List View Criteria section.
   • In the Choose Columns section, select the columns to be displayed in the List View. For more details refer to the Selecting List View Columns section.
   • In the Accessibility Details section, select the users to whom custom list view has to be enabled. For more details refer to the Enabling View Access section.
4. Click Save. The custom list view is displayed in the View drop-down list.

Creating Potentials

(Access Privilege: Read/Write permissions)

In the Zoho CRM system, you can create potentials as given below:

• By entering data in potential details form
• Importing potentials from other sales force automation applications

Note: Some of the standard fields listed below may not be visible/editable depending on your organization business process and field-level security settings. In case your organization added/modified fields please contact your System Administrator for more details about usage of the other fields.

In the Potential: Edit form, you need to specify the potential-related information. The following table provides descriptions of the various fields in the form.

List of standard potential-related fields

You can create potentials by:

• Filling details in the potential creation form.
• Using the New Potential, a quick create component present in left hand-side of the Potentials Home page
• Duplicating the contact with a few changes from the existing contact details

To create potentials individually

1. Click the New Potential link.
2. In the Potential: page, enter the potential information.
   
   Note: Company name is a mandatory field. Refer to the “List of Standard Potential-related Fields” section for more details.
3. Click Save to save the potential information. Potential details are displayed in Potential: <Potential Name> page where you can perform the additional operations. Refer to the Associating Potentials with Other Records section for more details.

To create potentials instantly

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In left hand-side under New Potential section, enter the mandatory details, such as Potential Name, Account Name, Expected Close Date, and Sales Stage.
3. Click Save. Potential details are displayed in Potential: <Potential Name> page where you can update the additional details or perform the additional operations.

To create duplicate potentials

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potential List view page, select the potential to be duplicated.
3. In the Potential: < Potential Name> page, click the Duplicate button.
4. In the Edit: < Potential Name> page, modify some of the potential-related details.
5. Click Save. Potential details are displayed in the Potential: < Potential Name> page where you can perform the additional operations.

Importing Potentials

(Access Privilege: Data Import permission)

You can migrate your potentials from other CRM and Account Management applications. Before migrating data, you must convert the data into CSV/XLS format. Import link is displayed only if you have privilege to use Import feature. Please contact your administrator in case import link is disabled.

To import potentials

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials: Home page under Potential Tools section, click the Import My Potentials or Import My Organization Potentials button.
3. In the Specify Import File: page, browse the Potentials-related import file (CSV/XLS format) and then click the Next button.
4. In the Fields Mapping page, map the CSV/XLS column header with potential fields in Zoho CRM.
5. Click the Import button. It will take a few seconds to complete the importation.
6. In the Potentials: Home page, imported potentials are displayed under the Potentials List section. You can continue the importation further or complete the operation.

Associating Potential with Other Records

(Access Privilege: Read/Write permissions)

You can create a 360-degrees view of the potential to display all the associated details, such as open activities, history of the completed activities, contacts, products, sales stage history, attachments, and notes.

To associate potential with other records

1. In the Potential page, you can update the following details:
   • Sales Stage History: To display the history of the sales stage.
   • Competitors: To associate competitors to the potential.
   • Contact Roles: To select contacts associated to the potential.
   • Open Activities: To create tasks and events.
   • Closed Activities: To display the completed tasks and events.
   • Products: To add products to the potential.
   • Quotes: To create quote for the potentials.
   • Sales Orders: To create sales order for the potential.
   • Invoices: To create invoices for the potential.
   • Attachments: To attach documents to the potential.
   • Notes: To add notes to potential.
2. After updating the associated records, you can move to the next record.

Associating Competitors with Potential

(Access Privilege: Manage Competitor permission)

Most of the companies prefer to purchase products after analyzing the track of the different vendors. If you are working with a highly competitive market, where your competitors are directly competing with you in winning the deals, it is always better to know their strengths and weaknesses well in advance so that you can propose your offering in a better way.

In the competitor page you can add the competitor's strengths and weaknesses.

To associate competitors with potential 

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials: Home page under Potential List section, select the required potential.
3. In the Potential Details page under Competitors section, click the New button.
4. In the Competitor page, under Competitor Information section do the following:
   • Competitor Name: Specify the company name of the competitor. This is a mandatory field
   • Website: Specify the URL of the competitor website.
   • Strengths: Specify the strengths of the competitor's offering.
   • Weaknesses: Specify the weaknesses of the competitor's offering.
5. Click Save.

Adding Contact Roles to Contacts

(Access Privilege: Read/Write permissions)

While prospecting, you may need to contact different persons (contacts) to finalize the sales deal. It is always better to know the contact's role in your prospecting organization, so that always you have a right discussion with the right persons. For example, explaining about product price and discounts is always better with Financial Manager where as product features with the Product Manager. This kind of approach helps you to negotiate with the prospecting organization in a better way and cut short the sales lead-time.

To add contact roles to contacts

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials: Home page under Potential List section, select the required potential.
3. In the Potential Details page under Contact Roles section, list of contacts associated with potential are displayed. Click the Add Role button.
4. In the Contact Roles Mapping page, for each contact select the role from the Contact Role drop-down list.
5. Once you have completed associating roles to all the contacts, click Save.

Customizing Contact Roles

(Access Privilege: Contact Role permission)

By default some of the contact roles, such as Decision Maker, Product Management, Purchasing and other roles are available. You can customize the contact roles according to your business process.

Note: Users with "Administrator" privilege can customize the contact roles. Please contact your System Administrator in case you need some additional roles.

To add/modify contact roles

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup page under the Potential Settings section, click the Contact Roles link.
3. In the Edit Contact Roles page, do the following:
   • Click the Add Role link to add a new role.
   • Click the Delete Role link after selecting the role(s) to delete roles.
   • Modify the existing roles from the Contact Role text box.
4. Once you have completed updating the contact roles click Save.

Changing Potential Owner

(Access Privilege: Read/Write permissions)

When the prospecting is in progress, occasionally it may be very useful to change the owner of some of the potentials in a single step. You can change the owner of an individual potential or a group of potentials.

To change owner of potentials individually

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials: Home page, select the potential.
3. In the Potential: <Potential Name> page, click the Edit button.
4. In the Potential: <Potential Name> page, change the potential owner from the Potential Owner lookup field.
5. Click Save to update the potential owner.

To change owner of potentials in bulk

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials: Home page, go to the Potential List section and select the check boxes corresponding to the potentials. You can also select all the potentials.
3. Click the Change Owner button.
4. In the Potentials: Change Owner page, select the user from the Select New Owner pick list and click the Update Owner button to change the owner of the potentials permanently.
   
   

   Warning: Potentials ownership will be changed to another user, irrespective of its existing owner. Use this operation carefully, otherwise potentials belonging to different users will be changed to new user. To overcome this problem, first you may search the potentials with a required owner name then change the owner in bulk.

Exporting Potentials

(Access Privilege: Data Export permissions)

Occasionally, it is very useful to export the potentials from the Zoho CRM system to a spreadsheet programs for further data analysis.

To export potentials to external sources

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials: Home page under the Potential Tools section, click the Export All Potentials button.
3. In the File Download pop-up dialog, click Save to save the Potentials files in *.CSV file format

Printing Potential Details

You can view a printable form and print the potential details using browser’s Print function.

To print potential details

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials: Home page, under the Potential List section, select the required potential.
3. In the Potential: <Potential Name> page click the Printable View button.
4. In the Potential: <Potential Name> page, click the Print Page button to print the document.

Viewing Reports

(Access Privilege: Read permission)

You can directly access some of the standard reports pertaining to potentials from the Potentials Reports section. By default, the following reports are displayed under Potentials module:

• Pipeline by Stage
• Potentials Closing by this Month
• Sales Person's Performance Report
• Lost Potentials
• Potentials by Type
• Open Potentials
• Pipeline by Probability
• Sales By Lead Source
• This month sales
• Today's Sales

To view potentials report 

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials: Home page under the Potentials Reports section, click the required report link.
3. The report is displayed in Reports page, which can be further customized as per your requirements.

For more details about Reports customization refer to Chapter 19: Working with Reports.

Deleting Potentials

(Access Privilege: Read/Write/Delete permissions)

Rarely, you may need to remove the unnecessary potentials, which are lost. This helps you manage your potentials in a better way. You can delete potentials either individually or in bulk.

Warning: The deleted potentials are temporarily stored in Recycle Bin. If required you can restore the deleted potentials again. But if you delete potentials from Recycle Bin, you cannot restore again.

To delete potentials individually

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials: Home page, select the potential to be deleted.
3. In the Potential: <Potential Name> page, click Delete.
4. In the Confirmation dialog, click OK to delete the potential permanently.

To delete potentials in bulk

1. Click the Potentials tab.
2. In the Potentials: Home page, under the Potential List section, select the potentials to be deleted using Select Potentials check box (first column).
3. Click the Mass Delete button.
4. In the Confirmation dialog, click OK to delete the selected potentials permanently.

Customizing Potentials Module

(Access Privilege: Customize ZohoCRM.com permission)

Customization of the Potentials module includes, renaming the tab name, modifying the pick list values in standard fields, adding new custom fields, modifying Potential page layout, and show/hide the related list views according to your Sales management process requirements.

For more details, refer to Chapter 24: Customizing Zoho CRM

Setting up Big Deal Alert

You can use the Big-deal Alert function to notify your management/Colleagues if there is a chance of winning a big deal, which you wish to share the good news with them. Sometimes executive board members may be interested to know all the Big-deal information well in advance. You can send the Big-deal alert as an e-mail notification to all the Zoho CRM users/selected users and colleagues not registered as Zoho CRM users.

To configure big deal alert 

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup: Home page, under Potentials Settings section, click the Big Deal Alert link.
3. In the Workflow Rule page, do the following:
4. • In the Rule Edit section, the Big Alert rule details are displayed. The default criteria is "Amount >= 1000 and the probability = 100". You can change the Amount and Probability by editing the existing criteria.
   • In the Related Alerts section, the Alert details are displayed. The default alert is "Select the Big Deal E-mail template and send to all the users in Zoho CRM". You can change the Alert details by editing the existing alert.
   • In the Related Tasks section, you can add tasks for the Big deal Alert rule.

For more details refer to Chapter 25: Managing Workflow

Configuring Sales Stage Pick list

You can modify the default stage for new and converted leads.

To configure Sales Stage Pick list

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup: Home page, under Potentials Settings section, click the Field List link.
3. In the Potentials List page, edit the Sales Stage field.
4. In the Edit Pick List page, add/modify values in the Values list box. Once you have updated the pick list values you can sort the values alphabetically and use the first values as the default pick list value.
5. Click Save.

Mapping Stage and Probability Values

Sales Stage is very important criteria to identify the performance of organization-wide Sales pipeline. In the Stage-Probability mapping page you can perform the following operations:

• Create different types of Sales stages according to your organization-wide Sales process
• Associate Probability values to the Sales stages
• Associate Forecast types (Open, Closed-won, or Closed-lost) to Sales stages
• Associate Forecast categories (Pipeline, Closed, Omitted, Best Case, Committed) - Fro more details refer to Chapter 7: Managing Sales Forecasts

To map stage and probability values

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup: Home page, under Potentials Settings section, click the Stage-Probability Mapping link.
3. In the Stage-Probability Mapping page, do the following:
   • Add the Sales Stage and the corresponding Probability of closing the sales deal
   • Delete Sales Stage and assign the existing Probability to another Sales Stage value
   • To modify the existing Sales Stages, use the Replace option.
4. Click Save.

To map sales stage and forecast type 

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup: Home page, under Potentials Settings section, click the Stage-Probability Mapping link.
3. In the Stage-Probability Mapping page, do the following:
   • Add the Sales Stage and the corresponding Forecast Type
   • Delete Sales Stage and assign the existing Forecast Type to another Sales Stage value.
4. Click Save.

To map sales stage and forecast category 

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup: Home page, under Potentials Settings section, click the Stage-Probability Mapping link.
3. In the Stage-Probability Mapping page, do the following:
   • Add the Sales Stage and the corresponding Forecast Category
   • Delete Stage Stage and assign the existing Forecast Category to another Sales Stage value.
4. Click Save.