Launchpad Lesson 16 - Lead Conversion Mapping

Now let's look at an important step that ensures we don't have to do double entry when it comes to data.

Recall from an earlier lesson that a lead is where we start the process. When we are convinced that there is an interest in our solution, we will convert this lead into an account, a contact, and an opportunity.

This step is called lead conversion mapping, and it involves mapping our fields on the Lead object over to the fields on the Account, Contact, and Opportunity objects. Let's have a closer look.

Lead conversion mapping ensures that the data we created while our record was a lead is still accessible, despite the fact that we'll no longer access that lead record.

The standard Lead fields that Salesforce built for us are automatically mapped to the Contact, Account, and Opportunity fields. But any custom fields that you created for the Lead need to be mapped to the corresponding fields on these three records. That's why we spent time creating new custom fields for these records first, so that the data has a place to go.

This mapping ensures that, no matter how early we capture key information from our prospects, it never goes away, even though the record might.

So, let's go into Setup.

Go to the Object Manager, type Lead in Quick Find, and select it.

Once here, you'll click on Fields & Relationships and then, in the top-right corner, click the action that says Map Lead Fields.

This brings up the Lead Field Mapping tool that we'll use. You'll notice that only custom fields are available, and that's because all of your standard fields, like Name, Address, and so forth, are already pre-mapped for you.

Another important thing to remember is that before you do this exercise, you need to make sure that you've already created the field you need to map to and placed it on the appropriate object. We did this in the lessons on Contact, Account, and Opportunity setup. So, this all maps up very nicely.

You can see the option to map the Lead field for Annual Rocket Ship Budget on the Account. It's the exact same field as it is for Rockets Launched Annually. With the Lead field for Primary Product Interest, we didn't put it on the Account record. Hence, it's not even available here as an option.

The field types for the Lead field and the field you are mapping to have to be the same. For example, you can't map a picklist field on the Lead to a text field on the Account. They would both need to be picklist fields. You even need to make sure that your character lengths are identical. We're going to see this in a second.

If you name your fields consistently and take the time to add them to the right records, this step becomes elementary.

We can skip the Contact because we didn't put any custom fields here and go right to the Opportunity, where we can map the Lead field for Primary Product Interest.

Then click Save.

And guess what? We didn't have the exact same fields to map. Our budget field must have been set up with a different length on the Account record. But we know how to fix that, right?

If we go to the Object Manager for the Account, we can see from Fields & Relationships that the field for the Rocket Ship Budget can fit nine digits and zero decimal points.

If we go to the Lead object, we can see that it is only eight digits and zero decimal points. Pretty easy to overlook that when we built them.

So, let's change the Lead field to nine.

Easy peasy. Click this dropdown. Select Edit. Change the length to nine.

Click Save, and now back to your Lead Mapping tool.

Click Save, and presto.

So, let's take a look at how this all plays out for the sales user.

Here I am on a Lead record for Han Solo, the facilities manager for Millennium Industries, and the status has been updated to Working—Contact Made.

Let's say that in our initial call, we learned the following: Han's company launches 100 rockets a year, Han is primarily interested in Rocket Shop for our rocket parts, and his budget is around $5 million.

Note here that I can use an M for millions, and the zeros will automatically fill in when we click anywhere outside of this field.

Now we can lock down these values when I click Save.

Now recall the lesson way back near the beginning of this course on the Sales Cloud intro. When the salesperson determines that the lead is worth pursuing—and in this case, if we had spoken with Han Solo and he provided all this information to us, that would definitely qualify as a sales opportunity—we would then convert this lead.

And Salesforce makes this super easy to do.

We'll click Converted from the top row, or alternatively, we could select it from this action on the dropdown.

From here, we're going to create a new Account, a new Contact, and a new Opportunity. And we'll name the opportunity with something descriptive based on what we feel we may sell to them.

See how Salesforce puts the Account name first, followed by this hyphen? Personally, I like to space out my hyphen a little bit more, so it looks like this.

Note, too, how the user could create a new Account and Contact but not an Opportunity by checking this box. The best case of a user doing this is when we want to create multiple Contacts for this Account, even if they're not going to buy right away, and we just want to keep them on our radar.

Salesforce also encourages the user to search for existing records, and we can do that like this.

Once we are satisfied that there are no existing records for this company, let's click Convert.

And here Salesforce gives the user a nice, almost congratulatory signal that the Lead has been converted to three new records.

Let's check the Account record first.

Here we'll see, on the Details, the annual figures for Rockets Launched and the budget. And on the Related List, here are the Contact and the Opportunity.

If we select the Opportunity, we can see the stages, the Sales Path, which we just covered in the prior lesson, and the Primary Product Interest down here.

The last thing to point out is our four key fields for Opportunities.

The Stage is set at the first stage of the sales cycle. The Probability is already determined for this stage, but is editable if you've left it that way. The Amount is blank, and the Close Date is automatically set as the last day of the current fiscal quarter.

I've never been sure why Salesforce chooses this date, as it seems pretty arbitrary to me. But make sure your sales reps are trained to adjust this to what they feel the real close date is likely to be.

There are ways to adjust this using a tool called Process Builder, but that is beyond the scope of this course.

Finally, if we try to go back to the Lead record for Han Solo, Salesforce will automatically take us to the Contact record, as the Lead record is effectively eliminated and the Contact is now in its place.

Okay. So now, when we convert a Lead, our data maps over appropriately.

Now note that anytime you add a field to the Lead object that needs to be mapped, you will need to come back to this step.

Up next is a key lesson on Activity Management.