Leads and Contacts

[bsjy]

If I have a person who for my business is a perpetual center of influence that might lead to me getting new customers but will never be a customer himself (e.g. a consultant or an attorney), would Sugar want me to make the person a Contact or a Lead?

[ssaddler]

We are a consulting firm and our approach is to create the attorney (in your example) as a contact as he is quite special and would always be on our most important lists (e.g. the golf outing). We added a "referred by" field with a link to contacts on our opportunities screens. The attorney then is referenced in all opportunities he brings to us. Leads just don't get the long-term attention and may get deleted at a year-end cleanup activity.

[eitrix]

good said, SugarCRM does not force you to anything, it's a matter of how you implement your business logic to reflect upon sugar.

In this case, contact is more appropriate then a lead.