From Target to Lead to Opportunity to Quote

Contributing to Patrick McQueen 's brilliant answer I may say:

A Target means someone which doesn't know you and you don't know him/her as well. Think about a mailing you got somehow.

A Lead means someone which may be interested on something you offer once he/her contacted you or he/she is someone whose business fits your customer profile and, finally, you have enough information about him/her.

On converting a Lead, by default, it is mandatory to create a Contact and you can also create an Account and an Opportunity as well. Eventually you can customize your ConvertLead feature so it become mandatory to create an Account and an Opportunity if it fits your business rules.

Regards

Thank you everyone, that really has helped me to understand the process better.

We have been dropping off mailers door to door (B2B) and collecting business cards, compliment slips and letter headings before adding them to Sugar as Targets.

Some of the people we spoke to were interested in what we had to offer and asked for more details along with a quote. However, we still added them as a Target first before converting them to a Lead so I now know we can skip the first step in future.

We may be able to drop the Opportunity element too, because if they're a Lead and want a quote then why don't we just send one? Or, am I missing something about Opportunities?

As I said, we sell complex systems to integrators, who then resell them to end users, install them, integrate them with other companies' products, etc. Our Opportunity process involves identifying all the parties involved, determining customer needs, designing one or more solutions with our products, refining those solutions, forecasting the expected revenue and an expected purchase date, and even getting an Application Story - a description and photos of the installation for use in future sales and promotions activities. If you're not collecting this type of information or going through a customized selling process, maybe you don't need Opportunities. 

Steve Jaspar I'd love to connect with you as we have a fairly similar use cases. We're in the process of re-accessing out process and would love to discuss.

Steve Jaspar I'd love to connect with you as we have a fairly similar use cases. We're in the process of re-accessing out process and would love to discuss.