Understand the default Opportunity stages in the Sales Pipeline
The Vintory Sales Pipeline is set up with some default stages.
The stages laid out create a streamlined sales process. Too many steps create a cumbersome process with too much room for leads to get cold. Too few and you lack clarity and process.
So let’s break it down.
New Leads - These are people that have not been spoken with yet. When someone fills out a form on your landing page it goes into this category and triggers notifications for reps to follow up. The sooner the better.
Responsive Lead - Is where you move them once you’ve connected either on the phone, text or email. Hopefully over the phone for a fruitful owner discovery call where lots of details are captured in the CRM notes.
Appointment Booked - Is when you and the lead have an exact time on a calendar to speak on the phone, on zoom or at the property. If you use the calendar feature in the CRM it enrolls to lead in a series of reminds similar to what your dentist office might send.
No Show - Is pretty obvious, putting a deal here can trigger automations that reach out to the lead to get them rescheduled.
Negotiation - If you’ve had more that one conversation and/or have done an income projection this is where a lead can sit without getting any automated outreach.
On Hold - If also a place where leads can hang out with automations. Especially if a lead is giving you a verbal that they want to move forward but are unable to. Common reasons are: they just bought the place and don’t have the keys yet. They are doing major renovations,. Sometimes they are wait for the term to be up with their current manager or have a tenant moving out.
Pro Forma Nurture - This stage can be used to keep the lead in your view, and also to manage which of your leads have already been sent the Pro Forma. If after you've sent the Pro Forma, and the lead becomes unresp0nsive, they will most likely be placed in the next stage.
Long term Nurture - When the lead is a long shot. They either became unresponsive after speaking with them or said they are not sure if and when they would ever be ready. The automation here will drip an email every 45 days. After those 5 emails, I like to give them a quick call and re-enroll them if they have not answered. I hate giving up on any leads.
Send/Sent Contract - Is just that. If you have the automation set up that sends signable docs to the lead when moved into this category that will happen. If not, use this to automate follow up to ensure they received the contract with a text asking to confirm. Assuming they got it and are dragging their feet is no good. In my experience contracts can get caught in spam folders. And if you are not following up after a day or two to confirm…the lead assumes you don’t hae your act together and start to lose that loving feeling.
Closed Won - This stage is where you can see at a glance how many contracts you’ve won and the total at the top is calculated if you’ve put in a lead value from an income projection.
I recommend sticking with this flow as much as you can. If you want to customize, be aware that changing the names of these stages can disconnect the automations.
Adding stages is ok as long as they serve a purpose for automation. Otherwise you add a bunch of stages that don’t do anything to help move the deal forward.
Updated: June 26, 2024