Opportunity Pipeline

Each opportunity has a record number, subject, firm organization, account counterparty and owner. The Relationship Owner works it from New through Qualified, Proposal and Negotiation, then records Won or Lost. Expected close date and expected value help the Sales Manager inspect the active pipeline. Probability and loss reason add context when they are entered. The status tells the team where a conversation stands; it is not a substitute for a reviewed intake decision.

Each opportunity keeps a single owner and counterparty. Activities show conversations, while intake and review records carry separate decisions. A manager can read the expected value as a forecast for a prospect and inspect Won or Lost as the recorded pipeline outcome.

• Prepare. Relationship Owner establishes the record and checks the links to the relevant firm, person or opportunity.
• Work. The assigned team member records the event or decision where it belongs, using the available status, date and evidence fields.
• Review. Sales Manager and Auditor inspect the record in context, including the parent opportunity and any earlier decision or exception.

The team should use one parent opportunity for one prospective engagement. Related activities, intake requests, review decisions, attachments and operation receipts refer to that parent. This makes a later handoff easier to follow: the recipient can open the opportunity and then inspect the specific record that explains the next action.

Agree who owns a new opportunity, when the team changes its status, and how changes in expected value are discussed. Pick a real prospective engagement for the first rehearsal. Decide who may make routine corrections, who records a review result and how the team handles a returned or rejected item. Keep those decisions in the operating procedure so an owner does not have to infer them from a status label.

Also decide how the team names records and documents. A short, descriptive subject or title should identify the matter without relying on a private message thread. Confirm which organization the record belongs to before the first import, then test access with the same user accounts the team will use in daily work.

A client contact asks for representation on a new matter. The owner gives the opportunity a subject and expected close date, logs the initial call and qualifies the work. As the proposal develops, the expected value can be revised. If the client declines, the owner records Lost and the reason. A later inquiry becomes a separate opportunity against the same account.

Ask the receiving teammate to find the current state from the record itself. They should be able to identify the owner, the next decision and the history behind it. If an attachment, intake or receipt changes the interpretation, open that child record rather than summarizing it from memory. This rehearsal exposes ambiguous ownership and missing operating conventions before the team expands to more matters.

• Open opportunity pipeline — New through Negotiation prospects with owner, close date and expected value.
• My opportunities — The Relationship Owner’s assigned prospects and their next expected close dates.

Start with Matter Intake, then use the engagement process to rehearse pipeline and intake. The data model shows the exact record links, and roles identifies the team members who work at each step.