In Crelate, we support the notion of an opportunity. An opportunity can signal any potential, active, or completed chance at revenue. How about John Smith that works at ABC Company that I've been reaching out to in search of new job orders? Check. How about the active job order I have for XYZ Company who is hiring for a Sales Manager? Check. How about the role I closed for LMN Company 6 months ago? Check, albeit a closed opportunity.

Of note, opportunities aren't necessarily confined to your efforts to hire. Do you host Recruitment Workshops and track who attends? Do you also work in the Consulting world? Basically, ask yourself, what presents the opportunity for new business and a chance at revenue. Once you have your answer, hopefully the name speaks for itself!

Having custom opportunity types themselves may not be for everyone. While we would, in the scenario that your business may hire Contract workers, Full-Time staff, etc, recommend that those different types serve as a custom opportunity type, not all firms have this need. (More on this in our Best Practices article). If you're more apt to stay in a single lane, you may likely be all set to use the default opportunity type provided.

However, all of these various types of hiring, consulting, work-shopping, etc all bubble back up to what Crelate defines as an opportunity. This includes any lead or prospect for new business. In the scenario where you're looking to market your firm out for new business, those leads or prospects signal an opportunity for new business. This also includes any business that's closed. That closed (won or lost) business still represents an opportunity, just in a closed state that may or may not require further action.

We find the chart below can help to depict the hierarchy and overarching reach of what an opportunity consists of.

We hope you're now equipped with what an opportunity is. Next, let's take a look at some best practices and dive into creating a new opportunity type.