Click here to view the tutorial “How to Create an Opportunity in Repfabric Sync+ for Outlook”
You add an opportunity in the system to keep track of all interactions you have with the customer, manufacturer and distributor of a deal you are working for new business. Opportunities can be created in your instance of Repfabric online, your e-mail service (i.e. Outlook or Gmail) with our Sync+ plugin, and on the Repfabric mobile app. This tutorial shows you how to create an opportunity in the online portal.
1. Left click “Opportunities.”
2. Left click “New.”
1. Customer: enter customer name and
1a. Contact: customer contact name
2. Manufacturer/Principal: choose from your list of principals/manufacturers.
2a. Contact: manufacturer contact name
3. Distributor: choose from your list of distributors
3a. Contact: distributor contact name
Other Parties: tap the plus sign to add other companies that participate in some manner with this opportunity as well. In Electronics, this could be CEMs, and in building industries this could be Architects
ONE OF THE COMPANIES THAT YOU PUT IN “CUSTOMER” OR “DISTRIBUTOR” FIELD MUST HAVE A SALES TEAM ATTACHED TO IT.
4. Topic: Give this particular opportunity a brief phrase, 3-4 words that will help you differentiate it from other opportunities you may have with the same manufacturer or customer.
5. Next Step: Enter the next step to take with this Opportunity. You may want to consider a convention of key words to help you further sort your opportunities. For example, if you enter ‘phone,’ ‘email’ or ‘drop in’ in the next step then you can quickly search that column and knock out all your emails while you are at the desk or, perhaps later in the day between appointments, you could search for “phone” and knock out all your calls.
6. Activity: Use the drop-down list to enter the current activity for this opportunity.
7. Sales Team: The Sales Team is auto-selected based on the customer as all customers are assigned to a sales team when they are imported or created in Repfabric. If you want to change the sales team, then you would do that at the Company record.
8. Follow up: Enter date for follow up. When an opportunity is created, a date about 7 days later is auto-populated for the follow up date.
9. Priority: Assign a level of importance.
10. Est Annual Quantity: Enter quantity.
11. Contract Date:
12. Competitor 1: Who do you have to compete with for this opp?
13. Type: Enter the type of opp. Not all customers use this feature. It is a sub-table you can edit and further define what kind of opportunity this is. In the plumbing industry, for example, some clients use this to define if it is a retail or commercial opportunity.
14. Status: This field will auto-populate based on “Activity”, but you can select one other option “Needs Review” if the standard status doesn’t work and this opp needs additional attention.
15. Opp Owner: Enter sales person working this Opp. This could be you or it could be an inside sales rep who can handle some of the steps in your process.
16. ͏ Potential (%): Enter percentage likelihood of winning the deal.
17. Value: Enter dollar value of opp.
18. Production Date: Enter desired date.
19. Competitor 2: Who else do you have to compete with for this opp?
20. Lead Source: Where did this lead come from?
Description: Description will appear on the left in “cliff notes” area of the Repfabric screen and it will show in your email plugin at the bottom. It’s a brief description of the opportunity that could help your sales team (and inside reps) have a deeper understanding of what this opportunity is about. In other words, it could be about part ___ and the description could include “We are part of the design phase to reduce wattage, heat etc. This will be used in the 2019 model of ____.”
Reporting Comments: THESE COMMENTS CAN BE REPORTED. Think of this area as a way to help your line get a feel for what’s happening on this deal. An example could be “competitive pricing should be under $___ per unit” or “___ part failed, looking for another solution.” These comments remain in place until they are revised. IF the language is nondescript it can be kept month after month. There is also a date button so you can add a date-specific comment like “new engineer on board likes ___ part.”
21. Left click “Save” button.
Custom
This tab is for fields that are not currently available by default. Some customers use this for specific manufacturer fields that will be exported or, in some cases, if the shipping information differs from the customer’s office location. To edit this section, go to Home > Set Up > Configuration Settings > Custom, then add and organize anything needed.
Emails
Anyone on your sales team, who has access to your opportunities can click on this tab and read through the recent emails between you and the customer or manufacturer. Repfabric is highly attuned to catching the emails and filing them with the right opportunity. For complete accuracy, send the first email from inside the opportunity in Repfabric, then the intelligent system has a higher chance of discerning which email goes where. If an email fails to get logged to the right opportunity for any reason, that can be logged from the plugin or from the email area in Repfabric.
Attachments
In order to attach a file it is a TWO STEP process. First, select the file and find it on your computer. Second, hit ‘upload.’ HINT: rename the file before you upload it so when you look at it later instead of it saying “scan01” it says something helpful like “pump image – internal” or “switch configuration.” Repfabric does not let you click it to view it. Once it’s uploaded, you’ll have to download it to your phone or computer to look at it again.
There are two places in Repfabric to store attachments. One is here in the opportunity and the other is at the company record. HINT: make sure your team has an agreement of what type of files go where so you avoid the “I swear I put it there” conversation. It can happen when one person looks at the opportunity attachments tab and the other person is looking at the company record attachments tab. A dealer or rebate agreement, an NDA ,or annual parts list could go to the company record while specific drawings related to this opportunity would go to the opportunity record.
Line items
This is where you can specify the part numbers associated with this opportunity. It is helpful to include this detail because it allows you to share specifics with your line for what products will be ordered, and part numbers successfully specified can be compared against orders and commissions received (so make sure you got paid on the “win”).
Contacts
There could be a dozen contacts listed on the company record. The one marked primary in the company record will automatically be associated with the opportunity. You can click “link contact” to search for contacts already in Repfabric and add them to this list. If you click “add new contact” it will add an entirely new contact to your list of contacts for this opportunity.
Comments
There are three places to enter comments about an opportunity – this is the one place that is for internal use only. This section cannot be exported for reports like Reporting Comments can to prevent sharing internal discussion with your line. This also tracks comments in diary form. It keeps a running list of who said what. This is useful for inside and outside reps communicating to each other. “ISR, please request the quote today.” “OSR, quote done but they don’t have part ____, would the customer like ___ instead?” Think of this comment tab as a place where you can keep notes to yourself. With so many deals in the air, sometimes details can get lost. It could be captured here like, “remember to take sample ___ next time and demo how that could work his ___ project.
Related
If you have a contract manufacturer, architect, or another company working on this opportunity you can relate that company with the customer or manufacturer by using this button. This company affiliation is considered with jobs and commission reconciliation.
Clone
This button can be used to duplicate the common fields on a project basis when multiple manufacturers are involved (this multiple opportunities), each with its own “envelope (opportunity)” where emails are stored.
History
If at any point there is some concern on the level of activity for who did what on this opportunity, you can click “history” and see chronologically when this opportunity was progressed or edited.
