I’m going to get tactical for a minute.

I’m noticing an interesting CRM trend lately. Too many opportunities are in the CRM without an active or open, associated task.

The sole purpose of the pipeline or sales process is to move deals from contact to contract, from start to finish. It’s to get them closed, win or lose. When an opportunity is in the CRM without an open task, it is doomed to die. Why? Because the only way an opportunity to move through the pipeline is to work it and the only way to work it is to manage it through specific tasks.

Any opportunity that lacks a task, in essence, is missing the action or actions that will get it closer to the close and that’s no way to treat an opportunity.

A sale is a series of actions, each action being necessary to satisfy the decision criteria of the buyer. Closing a sale requires identifying the necessary actions and successfully executing them. In other words can you, do, provide, share, prove, and convey what that prospect needs to feel comfortable making the decision to buy.

If an opportunity doesn’t have a task associated to it, it’s a dead opportunity. If there is nothing to “do” then the opportunity is toast. Put a fork in it.

It’s not enough to have just a task. An open task to “follow-up” isn’t enough. Each task must have an objective and a desired next steps.

Tasks:
Phone call
Email
Send white paper
Skype meeting
Webinar
Demo
Pilot
etc.

Objective:
Prove interoperability
Gain stakeholder approval
Clarify solution
Determine fit
Address pricing concern
Overcome feature misconceptions
Differentiate from competition
Validate product impact
Address implementation concern
Handle change fears
Etc

At the end of the day, every opportunity in the pipeline must have an associated task or it’s not a real opportunity, every task must have a set of objectives or it’s not a real task.

The better the tasks, the stronger the objectives of the task, the faster the opportunity moves.

Do all your opportunities have task?