Welcome to Day 8 of the Dynamics 365 CRM Fundamentals Series! Yesterday we mastered Activities & Timelines. Today, we tackle one of the most essential pieces of any sales CRM: Leads.

Whether it’s an inquiry from your website, a phone call from a referral, or a marketing event contact, CRM helps you track, qualify, and convert leads into paying customers in a structured and efficient way.

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💡 What Is a Lead in CRM?

A Lead represents a potential customer who has shown interest in your product or service, but hasn’t yet been qualified. Leads may or may not become customers — that’s why CRM helps you assess and convert only the right ones.

Examples of Leads:

• A visitor filling a contact form on your website
• A cold call response from a telemarketing campaign
• A person met at a trade show
• An email subscriber interested in a demo

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📥 Capturing Leads in Dynamics 365

You can create leads manually or capture them automatically from multiple sources:

• Manual entry: Create from inside the CRM (Sales Hub → Leads → + New)
• Web Forms: Using Power Pages, Dynamics Marketing, or custom API
• Email Campaigns: Integrate with ClickDimensions, Mailchimp, or Dynamics 365 Marketing
• Import CSV: Upload leads from Excel files

Lead records typically contain fields like:

• Name
• Company
• Email & Phone
• Lead Source
• Product Interest
• Status (Open, Qualified, Disqualified)

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📌 The Lead Qualification Process

The goal is to determine if the lead is worth pursuing. Qualification usually involves:

1. Capturing contact and company info
2. Identifying budget, authority, need, and timeline (BANT)
3. Making at least one interaction (email, call, meeting)
4. Evaluating the lead score or potential

If it looks promising, you convert the lead into an Opportunity + Contact + Account.

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🔁 Business Process Flow: Lead to Opportunity

Dynamics 365 uses a guided Business Process Flow (BPF) on the Lead form to help sales reps track qualification steps. The BPF might include:

• Identify Contact
• Determine Need
• Establish Budget
• Contact Made?
• Ready to Qualify?

At the end of this process, you’ll see a Qualify button.

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✅ What Happens When You Qualify a Lead?

Clicking Qualify will:

• Automatically create a Contact (person)
• Create an Account (company) if needed
• Create an Opportunity to track the deal
• Close the Lead as “Qualified”

This ensures all CRM data stays connected, and the Opportunity becomes your main focus moving forward.

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🚫 Disqualifying a Lead

If the lead is not a good fit, click Disqualify. Reasons could include:

• No budget
• Not interested
• Duplicate entry
• Invalid contact info

Disqualified leads can be reactivated later if needed.

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📈 Views & Filters for Sales Reps

Common views for working with leads:

• My Open Leads – Leads owned by the logged-in user
• Leads This Month – Filtered by creation date
• Unqualified Leads – For follow-up or clean-up
• Hot Leads – Based on custom rating or score

You can create personal views or dashboards with charts like:

• Leads by Source (Pie Chart)
• Leads by Rating (Bar Chart)
• Lead Conversion Rate (Metric or KPI)

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🤖 Automating Lead Processes (Bonus)

You can automate lead qualification and scoring using:

• Power Automate: Trigger alerts for new high-value leads
• Lead Scoring Rules: Assign points based on interactions (emails, clicks, etc.)
• Assignment Rules: Route leads to specific sales reps based on region or product

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💼 Real-Life Example: Software Company Lead Funnel

A software company uses CRM to manage their inbound demo requests:

1. Lead enters via website form (integrated with CRM)
2. Lead assigned to regional rep based on country
3. Sales rep calls and marks Contact Made = Yes
4. If fit confirmed, they hit Qualify
5. CRM creates Opportunity → Proposal Sent → Deal Won

All this is tracked seamlessly in Dynamics 365 CRM.

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📘 What’s Next – Day 8: Working with Opportunities

Now that we’ve captured and qualified leads, in Day 9 we’ll explore:

• What is an Opportunity?
• Stages in a sales pipeline
• Forecasting revenue using CRM data

This is where CRM becomes a true sales-driving engine.

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💬 Comment Below

How are you capturing and qualifying leads today? Do you use CRM web forms, Excel imports, or email marketing tools? Share your methods and let’s learn together!

👉 Stay tuned for Day 8 – We’ll explore the CRM sales engine in action!