What is the difference between an Insightly lead, an opportunity and a contact? In this article, we are specifically referring to the CRM Insightly and the way Insightly is used for the sales process, however the information could be useful no matter which CRM you choose to use.

Lead

A lead is someone who has expressed an interest in doing business with you, but has not booked an appointment or spent any money.

Opportunity

An opportunity is someone who has moved further into the sales process. Each company can define what this means. For my organizing and consulting business, we convert a lead to an opportunity when they book a consultation.

Contact

A contact is a client or business associate. The Contact object in Insightly is used as an address book. You can add tags or custom fields to designate what type of contact someone is and use custom views to sort people by type.

Why use Leads in Insightly?

Some businesses choose to skip the Insightly Lead Management feature or Opportunities altogether. This is completely fine, if that works for your business. However, you may be missing out on some valuable data. When you start someone as a lead, it allows you to see how long they are a lead, how long they are an opportunity, the percentage of leads that convert, the percentage of opportunities that convert, where your leads are coming from, etc. I personally find this data valuable when I am making decisions about where to spend my marketing dollars or when adjusting our sales process.

Do you use Leads, Opportunities and Contacts? How do you decide when to convert from a Lead to an Opportunity?

For assistance setting up and implementing your CRM, check out our CRM Consulting page or contact us at info@lastingorder.net!