A Lead is a single record that holds the person and company information together before qualification. When a Lead is qualified and you want to start a formal sales process, you convert it. The Lead Conversion process splits the Lead into three separate records: a Contact (the person), an Account (the company), and a Deal (the opportunity). This separation enables a more structured B2B sales process where one company can have multiple contacts and multiple deals.
Leads typically have a Lead Source field tracking where they came from (website form, trade show, cold call, referral) and a Lead Status field indicating their current stage in the qualification process. Scoring Rules can automatically score leads based on their attributes, helping sales teams prioritise which leads to contact first.
A Lead is an unqualified prospect record in Zoho CRM that holds contact and company details for someone who has expressed interest but has not yet been vetted. Once qualified, a Lead is converted into a Contact, Account, and Deal.
When a Lead is converted, Zoho CRM creates three new records: a Contact (for the person), an Account (for their company), and optionally a Deal (for the sales opportunity). The original Lead record is moved to a converted status and is no longer active in the Lead pipeline.
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