New to sugar, use leads or accounts

[tlck9]

Hi There

I' a new user to Sugar crm and I'm looking to start our marketing processes from scratch;

My main focus is on companies, i'm likely to pick up various company records and add them into sugar

I've read various posted and appreciate the Lead to Account to Opportunity process, will this work if my main focus is companies rather than a contact.

Your advice please;

if I add in a lead, it has the field account name, now should I use this to record the name of the company?
or will this create a account, or look for the company records.

If I decide to use the lead, how can I reference the company name? or will I have to set up the company as a account and ignore leads?

any ideas appreciated, or perhaps point me to another answered post that I may have missed.


Edit: I've added a lead into the system and it gives me a account name, now does this only create an account once the lead has been qualified and converted into a contact/account, as I cannot find an account with that name

Thanks in advance

[susiewilliams]

Hi there,

There are a few resources I can point you to to sort this out. First, there are two podcasts we have posted here that might get you thinking... one is Accounts vs. Opportunities, and the other is Leads vs. Contacts.

I know you said you sell to Companies, but in the end it's a person, not a company, that buys your product. Keeping track of the people (and their relationships within their company) I think will be a key use of Sugar for you.

Take a look at your business processes today, and draw them out so you get a very good picture of what's happening now. I think if you do that, it will become more clear how to map your processes to the CRM software.

Hope this helps.

[tlck9]

Hi there,



Take a look at your business processes today, and draw them out so you get a very good picture of what's happening now. I think if you do that, it will become more clear how to map your processes to the CRM software.

Hope this helps.

Thats the good thing, from a marketing/sales point of view there arent any in place, the company I'm starting to work with have had one customer for their lifetime and now I want to go to market, so I can be quite flexible.

i will check out the resources...thank you

[Ram Kumar]

You want to start marketing your company / services. For this the best possibility is to start with Marketing Campaigns.

Marketing Campaigns require Targets. A Target is a company / person whom you want to send information about your company and services. Once the Target receives information about your company / services, he contacts you back asking for more information or shows some interest. Then he becomes a lead. If the lead has a company associated with it, it becomes an Account.

So the best place to start is Targets. Enter all the people / companies as Targets in your marketing campaign and see if some of them come back for information. They in turn become leads and your Sales Automation starts from there.

With Warm Regards

Ram Kumar
www.rheakt.com

[tlck9]

Thanks, I hadnt thought of starting with targets.

can I just ask, if I add a target, which then becomes a lead - I can add account information - however this doesnt become a "proper" account until I convert it, is this correct? eg it wont show up if I search in Accounts until the lead is converted

[susiewilliams]

Yep that's true. And as you picked up, the general flow is targets to leads to account/contact/opportunity (an opportunity is an identified potential sale with a contact who is associated with an account).

[tlck9]

thanks susie

if I have two contacts at the same company and convert them to a lead, will I be able to specifiy that they both are put into a single account? is this how I would manage seperate contacts until account stage.

[Ram Kumar]

The best thing is once you identify that you have potential to sell your services to a contact / account, you can create an Account. Both the contacts will be linked to the Account.
Now if you do not find any need for your services at the present moment, even then you can go ahead and create an Account and associate the contacts to the Account.

Now at a later point of time a lead can come from the Account, it could be from the same contact which exists in your SugarCRM or from some body else in the company.
At this moment you will create a new Lead from the Subpanel of the Accounts tab. So it gets associated to the Account automatically or you can give the Account name in the lead form and when you convert it will prompt you that there exist an account already created.

Now whenever you are trying to send another marketing campaign you can use contacts from your own SugarCRM as Targets along with the fresh targets you have.

so typically start from Targets and populates leads, contacts and accounts as and when required and not just when you have some target information.

With Warm Regards

Ram Kumar
www.rheakt.com