Creating a lead from a suspect

[iannai]

I am new to Sugar. Can someone explain how I migrate the status of a contact or account to the status of a lead? I would like to classify my contacts as Suspect, Leads, prospects and Customers. As the contact moves through the sales process their status changes accordingly. I am having trouble understand Sugar's core methodology and syntax around accounts so any help would be appreciated.

Tks

[sugarcane]

Hello,

It sounds like you are using the Contact module to hold all of the Contact information you have. You have the option to just create a status dropdown field with values of 'Suspect, Lead, Prospect and Customer' - just update this dropdown when needed. And then you don't need the Leads module.

The system is designed with separate modules if you want to keep you Contacts in separate buckets. There is a Targets module located within the Campaigns module. This would be for people who you have never spoken to, but have maybe bought a list of names and you want to send them an email campaign. These Targets (if you choose to use this module) can then be converted into Leads in the leads module. Leads are a bit further along, but are still not qualified.

Once you qualify a lead and want to Create an Opportunity against them, then you can convert the Lead into a Contact and an Account (or attach to an existing account). These contacts would then be considered customers.

I would suggest reading the Sugar Manual for more details. Some of our Client use Targets, Leads, and Contacts, some only Leads and Contacts, and others only Contacts -- so you just need to determine which is the best for your business process.

[iannai]

Many thanks. Makes sense.