Pipeline

An opportunity is the working record for a possible school or family engagement. It connects the account, owner, subject, expected value and expected close date. The owner can name the primary contact, record probability and write the next step. That gives the Sales Lead a usable discussion record: what the customer is considering, who owns the conversation and what must happen next. Pipeline Command presents the live lifecycle stages, open value by stage and an overdue follow-up queue.

The opportunity starts at New. The qualification workflow logs an activity, changes the status to Qualified and writes an operation receipt. Proposal submission logs an email activity, moves the status to Proposal and records the operation. The close workflow takes the caller-supplied outcome and reason and closes the opportunity as Won or Lost, again writing a receipt. The record also supports Negotiation as a status. Owners should be clear about the conversation that justifies that status when they use it.

• Own the opportunity. Assign a Team Member and link the account that will decide whether to buy.
• Move with evidence. Use the qualification and proposal workflows for their recorded activity and receipt trail.
• Close the outcome. Record the actual Won or Lost result and a loss reason when the deal is lost.

Agree what qualifies a school opportunity and what the team must know before a proposal email goes out. Decide when the expected value should be updated from priced lines and who reviews an expected close date that slips. The opportunity has a revision field; if an owner changes the scope, the team should retain the current revision while discussing the proposal. A next step should describe one action that a person can complete, with an activity due date to keep the follow-up queue useful.

The Sales Lead can set a regular pipeline review by opportunity owner and status. A New item needs a qualification conversation. A Qualified item needs a clear proposal scope. A Proposal item needs follow-up with the primary contact. Negotiation calls for an explicit next step, and Won or Lost needs the outcome recorded rather than being left as a forecast. These are operating decisions by the team, grounded in the statuses the record supports.

A school requests a term of tutoring. The Account Owner opens the opportunity against the school account, records a value and expected close date, then follows up with the coordinator. Qualification records that touchpoint and moves the deal to Qualified. After preparing service lines, the owner sends the offer and runs proposal submission; the linked email activity records that step. If the school accepts, the close workflow records Won; if it declines, Lost and a reason help the Sales Lead understand the result. The receipts let Operations Coordinator check the sequence of actions.

• Open Opportunity Board — Open work grouped by the status the sales team is discussing.
• My Open Opportunities — The owner’s deals with the next action and expected close date.
• Closed Outcomes — Won and Lost results for follow-up and review.

See qualification, proposal submission and closing.