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Sales Stage for abandoned opportunities

Dave Hodgman

Hi all,

My sales teams would like a new Sales Stage of "Abandoned" to be available for opportunities and revenue line items.  This would allow them to capture an "opportunity" that may have been just a conversation that didn't eventuate into a real opportunity.  They don't like marking these as Closed Lost because a proposal was never really discussed.

I realise there is some complexity here.  The Abandoned stage would need to be linked to the Opportunity Status, although I would prefer that to also say something like Abandoned.  This may have an impact on the forecasting functions.

Any suggestions would be welcome?  How are your teams treating abandoned opportunities?

Regards,

Dave Hodgman

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  • Hi Dave,

    I would suggest you always choose one of the top level 'Closed' status, and regarless if Closed Won or Closed lost, have a related selectable Won and Lost reason field, so one for the later would be the Abandoned value, as in effect that is a reason not a stage?

  • in reply to Tony Romano

    Hello,

    I'm pretty much in line with 's suggestions here. Also, maybe work with your team to tell them that closed lost is not necessarily a bad thing. 

    To summarize and maybe add a bit: 

    1. Define relevant "lost reasons", including "internal no go". Not too many, just enough
    2. Filter out these lost reasons in win rate calculations
    3. Use leads instead of accounts+opps for less qualified contacts. Yes, that's a bit more work but that's better for 1) opp win rate morale and 2) GDPR/data cleaning: it's easier to clean out dead leads than accounts + contacts + opps. 
    4. Maybe add a "suspended" stage for those opps that are not really dead that your sales team can try to warm up from time to time. This often feels less definitive to salespeople

    Hope this helps!

    Damien

    Damien Pochon

    CRM & Digital consultant @ ITS4U Group

Reply
  • in reply to Tony Romano

    Hello,

    I'm pretty much in line with 's suggestions here. Also, maybe work with your team to tell them that closed lost is not necessarily a bad thing. 

    To summarize and maybe add a bit: 

    1. Define relevant "lost reasons", including "internal no go". Not too many, just enough
    2. Filter out these lost reasons in win rate calculations
    3. Use leads instead of accounts+opps for less qualified contacts. Yes, that's a bit more work but that's better for 1) opp win rate morale and 2) GDPR/data cleaning: it's easier to clean out dead leads than accounts + contacts + opps. 
    4. Maybe add a "suspended" stage for those opps that are not really dead that your sales team can try to warm up from time to time. This often feels less definitive to salespeople

    Hope this helps!

    Damien

    Damien Pochon

    CRM & Digital consultant @ ITS4U Group

Children
  • in reply to Damien Pochon

    Hi Damien,

    Thanks for your input. I like your suggestions but we are not a large organisation and I need to keep things simple where I can. 

    Looking at what's new in v12, I'm probably going down the path of using the new Sales Stage Classifications feature. I may introduce "Abandoned by Us" and "Abandoned by Customer" as new Sales Stage options, both classified as "Closed Lost".  

    Introducing a "Suspended" Sales Stage is an interesting idea, I think our sales teams may go for that.

    Thanks!

    Dave.