The sales cycle and its implementation in CRM

In our previous discussion, we looked at what Sales Force Automation is and how it helps businesses overcome obstacles in a sales process. The process of taking a customer through a sales cycle, right from acquisition to conversion and retention can be streamlined, and routine tasks such as sending emails, scheduling tasks, and updating fields can be automated using a CRM, so that you are more efficient and save time and effort. Now, let us specifically look at what a sales cycle is and how Zoho CRM is designed to implement it.

A sales cycle, by definition, is a customer's journey from acquisition to retention. From gathering prospects to engaging with them, and finally making the sale, the stages in the sales cycle vary between businesses.

Let us take the example of an electronics company. The company organises a trade show, and over 100 registered participants express interest in the company's products. After gathering data from these prospects, the company's sales reps send each of them an email thanking them for their interest, and offer them more information about their products and services. After initiating contact, the sales reps proceed based on each prospect's response and qualify them accordingly. The reps continue engaging with them until they close the deals⁠—either won or lost.

This is a process any business is involved in. When you run this process using Zoho CRM, you need to understand how this application is designed for you to implement the sales cycle.

How is it implemented in Zoho CRM?

Before we get into the details of Zoho CRM's design for the sales cycle, we need to understand a few key terms. You will come across these terms numerous times in the product.

A Lead in Zoho CRM, is any prospective customer who may be interested in your products or services. It could be anyone who has probably responded to your advertisements. They may be interested in your business, but you don't know for sure. You need to follow up to find out.
During the follow-up process, you'll identify leads who continue to express interest in the company's products and services. You'll then convert them into Contacts and Accounts.
A contact, in Zoho CRM, is basically a qualified lead—someone who is genuinely interested in doing business with you.
An account, on the other hand, is the company or organisation that the contact belongs to. It's also worth mentioning that an account can be associated with multiple contacts.
After conversion, you will continue engaging with your contacts, as further nurturing and follow-ups are likely to result in business opportunities, or Deals. A deal, in Zoho CRM, refers to a business opportunity that you follow up on with a customer. Once you bag a deal, it goes through various stages in the sales process until it is closed—won or lost.

Now, let us understand this better with the example of the electronics company. A team of sales reps who attended the trade show gathered the contact details of 100 leads, and they were stored within the company's CRM account. The team of sales reps back at the office were then able to send out a "thank you for your interest" email to each lead.

John Smith, one such prospect, from ABC Corp is added as a lead in CRM.
As the sales reps followed up with John, they learn that John is very keen to buy one of their products. So they CONVERT John Smith from a raw lead to a qualified lead — that is, a contact.
Upon conversion, John automatically gets added as a contact and ABC Corp gets added as his account in CRM. He is no longer a lead.
On further follow-up, a deal may be associated to ABC Corp, as the sales rep opens business opportunities with John.

In short, a lead can be generated through a variety of sources and converted to contacts and accounts within Zoho CRM. When a business opportunity arises, it can be associated with these contacts and deals.

This is how Zoho CRM is designed to implement any sales cycle, overall. We have discussed the concept here. If you have any questions with the implementation, please add your questions as comments below. Feel free to suggest your favourite topics to be discussed in this CRM Admins Chat Room.