Tracking the Account Lifecycle
In order to model Top of Funnel efficiency in Account Based Marketing (ABM), there needs to be a way to track the period when an account goes into prospecting and when an opportunity is finally created.
To do this, we add a custom field called 'Account Stage' to track the account lifecycle.
Account Stages
These stages should not be edited, as they are standardized (see 'Stage Transitions' section below)
The standard stages are:
Open: the account queued to be prospected by a rep
Prospecting: the account is being prospected by the rep
Opportunity: an active opportunity is being pursued on the account
Customer: the account has become a customer (oppt closed won)
Disqualified: the account is not a good fit (closed lost)
Closed Nurture: the account may be a good fit later (closed lost)
Churned: the account was a customer but is no longer one
Automatic Stage Transitions
We can't expect reps to update stage transitions, nor can we trust that they will do so consistently and accurately. That's why we automatically manage Account Stage behind the scenes:
When an account is created, the stage defaults to Open. If an account already existed and was not in Customer stage, it moves back into Open.
The first time a task is logged against the account or any related contact, the stage advances to Prospecting stage
When an opportunity is created on an account that's being prospected, it automatically advances to Opportunity stage
When an opportunity is Closed/Won, it automatically advances to Customer.
When an opportunity is Closed/Lost, it automatically advances to Closed Nurture.