Follow up on Estimates sent

We use a similar system to document quote requests/new leads using Issues, and once the quote is sent off to the customer for review, it gets completed by the sales person. When the Opportunity gets signed/approved by the customer, the Salesperson makes a new Issue after they Win the Opportunity and assigns it to the relevant manager in the Operations department as part of the “Job handoff” process. The issue has all attachments/drawings/maps/etc relevant to the project, and the sales person fills out a short templated form they just copy and paste into the body of the issue answering important questions like anticipated timeframe for commencement/completion discussed with the customer, specialty items needing purchased or specific pricing that they sourced themselves, any unusual invoicing set ups, and any important other details that were discussed with the customer that the Operations team will need to know as they prepare to do the work. We also do an in person hand off meeting guided by these Issues each week where Operations and Sales can discuss any questions and clarify any details they need to about the projects Won that past week. Then Operations takes those details and starts the process of projecting out the schedule and procuring materials, and once the project actually gets put on the schedule, Operations closes that issue. It does mean we have a lot of Open Issues in our system, but we use Categories like “New Sales Lead”, “New Work Order Sold”, and “New Contract Sold” to help organize them. It’s also nice that these Issues are connected to the Opportunities themselves, so we can refer back to them if we need to in the future and easily find them. It’s a system we’re still getting adjusted too as well and it doesn’t work perfectly every time, but the more consistent we get with it, the better it seems to get. 

Hi Anni,

Here is the workaround we use for tracking the sales cycle in Aspire.

We utilize Issues and create different issue categories that correspond to each stage of the sales process.

Once a proposal has been sent to a client, we update the issue category to "Proposal Sent – Needs Follow-Up" and adjust the due date based on the next follow-up action.

As the opportunity progresses through the sales cycle, we continue updating the issue accordingly. Once the sales process is complete, we simply mark the issue as completed.

I hope this helps. 

​@AnniLoggins we use the opportunities module to manage the pipe line- I won’t send a full screen shot but it looks like this. We have display for next activity and last activity to track the sales follow ups etc. 

ONce the job is sold and won thats an onboarding process similar to what ​@cnugent describes with the hand off and additional information. We use automations and google forms to get scheduling and ordering information to opps. 

See below of our opportunities views for sales pipe line management- 

I’ve included our filters and display settings-
 

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer.  This is very helpful and we are going to implement these ideas to test them out.

Anni