Ofivio — from onboarding to final delivery · Part 2 · Winning the work · Chapter 9 of 56

Finding work: leads and the pipeline

Write down every enquiry as a lead, chase it with a follow-up date, and move the real ones onto the pipeline as deals until they are won or lost.

Finding work: leads and the pipeline

Before there is a project there is a phone call, a referral or a message from your website. Sales is where you write that enquiry down and follow it until it turns into work or is set aside. It comes before any project: a lead becomes a deal, a won deal becomes a client, and the client's job becomes a project. The principal or whoever handles new business does this. Sales arrives with Marketing as the Business Development module, which you add from OfiMart.

The Overview tab answers one question: what is in the pipeline, and what will close. Four tiles sit across the top. "Open pipeline" is the value of every deal still in play. "Weighted" is each open deal's value multiplied by its probability, so a deal you rate at a coin toss counts for half. "Win rate" shows a dash until you have decided something, then the share of decided deals you won. "Overdue follow-ups" counts the leads whose promised date has passed. Below them, "Pipeline by stage" draws one bar per stage, the Leads and Quotations boxes give their counts, and "Closing soonest" lists open deals by expected close date. "How to use this" opens a short walk-through of the whole room.

1. Open the Leads tab — Departments column › Sales › Leads. The line under the tabs says how many leads are open and how many you have ever had.
2. Press "New lead" — The "New lead" form opens. It says it plainly: only the name is required, fill the rest in as you learn it.
3. Type the name, and anything else you know — Name is the only required field. Company, Phone, Email, Designation and City can wait until you have them.
4. Choose the Source — Referral, website, social, campaign, event, cold outreach, walk-in, partner or other. If your firm runs campaigns in Marketing, a "Campaign" field appears too: pick the campaign that brought this person in, so its cost per lead can be counted.
5. Add an estimated value — Your first guess at the fee. It carries over when the lead becomes a deal.
6. Set "Follow up on" and "What you promised" — The form's own hint is the rule of this room: a lead with no next action is a lost lead. Write the date you said you would call back and what you promised, for example "Send the profile and call back".
7. Press "Add lead" — The lead joins the "Every lead" list as new. A line saying "New lead" and the name appears in the Live feed on the Right bar, and any Oficiate rule your firm set for a new lead runs.

Each row shows who, the company, the source, the status, the follow-up date and two buttons. Work the lead from the row itself. Change the status as the conversation moves: new, contacted, qualified or unqualified. When a follow-up date passes it turns red, and a red line above the list says how many leads have a follow-up that is past due. Click a name to open "Edit lead" and press "Save" after a change. "Show all" brings back leads you have finished with; "Open only" hides them again. "Archive" takes a lead off the list.

1. Press "To pipeline" on a lead that has become real — When there is an actual job and a number attached, the lead belongs on the pipeline. The dialog "Move … to the pipeline" opens with the person's name.
2. Check the deal title — It is filled in for you as the company name followed by "new work". Rename it to the job, for example "Zaidi Apartments — design & supervision".
3. Confirm the value and the expected close date — The value comes from the lead's estimate. The expected close date is what "Closing soonest" sorts by.
4. Press "Create the deal" — Ofivio says "Lead qualified" and takes you to the Pipeline tab. The lead now reads "Converted" with a "See deal" button, and keeps its history. Converted is never something you pick by hand; this button is the only way to it.

The Pipeline tab is a board of five columns: Qualification, Proposal, Negotiation, Won and Lost. Each column shows how many deals it holds and their total value, and an empty column still shows, reading "nothing here". A card carries the title, the company, the value, the probability and the expected close date. A conversation that never started as a lead can go straight onto the board: press "New deal", fill in Title, Company, Contact, Value, Stage, Probability % and Expected close, and press "Add deal". A new deal can only start in an open stage; won and lost are decisions, not starting points.

1. Move a deal with the stage list on its card — Pick the next stage. The probability takes the stage's suggestion; open the card and change "Probability %" if you know better.
2. Losing asks "Why was it lost?" — Type what actually happened, for example "Went to a cheaper firm on price", and press "Mark lost". The reason stays on the card, and is the only thing that makes a lost-deal list worth reading later.
3. Winning says "Deal won" — Ofivio reminds you to create the client when you are ready, and that nothing is invoiced automatically. The card now offers "Create client", which the next chapter walks through.

Enquiry → Lead → To pipeline → Deal → Won → Client → Project

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