All Companies have a sales process, even yours
Written by ShamrockCRM on October 19, 2009 – 8:49 pm -I speak with many companies about their business processes and many of them feel that they have broken out of the mold with their businesses. Many companies believe that if you have not worked specifically with the Financial/Bio/Tech/Comm/Health/Nonprofit/etc industry, you will not understand their complicated business/sales processes. In my opinion, if you have a strong expertise in CRM and with many varying global firms, you can easily adapt/mold organizations from any industry into the CRM umbrella of processes.
Every company…every company, whether they are a for profit organization, a nonprofit, a government agency has a sales process. Even if they do not sell a product, per se, they still have a sales process…guaranteed. If your business model is simply to collect donations from constituents, you still have a sales process. You still actively cultivate your potential donors (campaigns/leads) and convert them into true relationships (accounts/contacts) and over time you have different stages in which you contact them, demonstrate your need, give presentations, take them to lunches, hold meetings/trade shows/events, and finally “close the deal” and win your donation (opportunity/quotes/proposals/orders). That is essentially a sales process with different terminology.
Sales Process
When implementing Salesforce.com, you need to look past the labels that are given out of the box. Forgo the word “Opportunity” if you do not understand what the term means. Try to understand the underlying meaning of the term, think about how your business would fit within this idea/process and mold the tool and your process into one aligned unit. An Opportunity, as an example, is the possibility to bring in revenue. You have a certain probability of bringing in x dollars. This could be from sales, services, donations, grants, membership fees, tax rebates, etc. If you need to rename Opportunity to “Revenue” to make more sense, go for it.
Salesforce.com was built with the best practice in mind for all industries, so trust them that it is built correctly, learn what everything means and you can truly unleash your inner sales process 
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- Sales and Marketing Process Maps
- Donor Management Software
- Salesforce.com vs. GiftWorks? Which is better for Nonprofits?
- Sales Cloud 2 Detailed Feature Descriptions
- The Basics of Salesforce Chatter
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