Terms like lead, contact, company, customer, and opportunity are fundamental in B2B sales and CRM systems. A clear understanding of these concepts helps you communicate more effectively, stay organized, and work more strategically across your sales process.
Lead
A lead is a person who may be interested in your product or service but hasn’t yet been qualified. They may have filled out a form, subscribed to your newsletter, or been added to a prospect list.
At this stage, it’s unclear whether a real sales opportunity exists. The goal is to learn more and determine whether the lead is worth pursuing.
Lead Qualification
Lead qualification is the process of evaluating whether a lead has the potential to become a customer. Not every lead is a good fit, and not all are ready to buy. Qualification ensures your team focuses its time and resources on the most promising prospects.
A qualified lead typically meets key criteria—such as a clear need for your solution, the authority to make decisions, sufficient budget, and a defined timeline.
Lead Conversion
Before qualification, leads often come with minimal information—usually just a name, company, job title, and basic contact details. While this is sufficient for initial outreach, it’s not enough to manage a complex sales cycle.
Once a lead is qualified, it is converted into multiple detailed records in your CRM:
- A contact record stores information about the person.
- A company record is created if you’re selling to the organization, and the contact is linked to it.
- An opportunity record is created if there’s a potential deal, linking the contact and company to that opportunity.
In essence, lead conversion transforms a single lead into a structured set of related records—contact, company, and opportunity—giving you full visibility into the relationship.
Company
In B2B sales, you typically sell to businesses rather than individuals. The company record represents the organization you’re targeting.
Multiple contacts can belong to the same company. A company record provides a centralized view of all activities, opportunities, communications, and past transactions related to that organization.
Contact
A contact is an individual involved in your sales process. In B2B, this could be someone from the company you’re selling to; in B2C, the contact may also be the customer.
Contacts can be involved in one or multiple opportunities and are often tied to a company. Tracking contacts helps you remember who you’re speaking with, what their role is, and what matters to them.
Example: John Smith is a contact at Acme Corp. He’s the purchasing manager and your primary point of contact for a software solution.
Customer
A customer is a company or contact that is either currently engaged in a sales relationship or has made a purchase in the past. Those who have not yet made a purchase are referred to as potential customers, while previous buyers are your existing customers.
TeamGram CRM helps you manage both—enabling long-term relationship-building rather than just one-time transactions. Existing customers often become valuable sources of repeat business, upsells, referrals, and testimonials.
Opportunity
An opportunity represents a potential sale that you’re actively pursuing. It typically begins once a qualified lead expresses interest and ends when the deal is either won or lost.
Opportunities track each stage of the sales process—from early discussions to proposal, negotiation, and closing. They help your team stay organized and allow you to forecast future revenue with greater accuracy.
You can think of an opportunity as a deal in progress.
Quote
A quote is a formal document that outlines the details of a proposed sale, including products or services, pricing, and terms. It is typically issued in the middle or later stages of a sales cycle, once there is clear buying intent.
Quotes help set expectations and can be crucial in moving a deal toward closure. In TeamGram CRM, quotes are directly linked to opportunities, making it easy to track what was offered, when it was sent, and whether a response is needed.
Activity
An activity refers to any interaction or task related to a sales process—such as calls, meetings, emails, follow-ups, or to-do items.
Tracking activities ensures that nothing slips through the cracks. In TeamGram CRM, activities are linked to contacts, companies, and opportunities, giving you a complete timeline of what’s happened and what’s next. This visibility keeps your team aligned and your process moving forward.
Speaking The Language of Sales
Mastering sales terminology is essential to working effectively in today’s CRM-driven environments. These concepts—lead, contact, company, customer, opportunity, quote, and activity—form the backbone of how modern sales teams organize their workflows, track progress, and close deals.
Understanding them is the first step toward building stronger sales processes and better results.