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Why Fields Are Really, Really Important

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Every CRM has a fields associated with leads, contacts and opportunities (records).  It is very standard.  And quite literally, EVERY organization has a bunch of fields that people don’t utilize or do so inconsistently.  It’s the norm.

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Why? Because it’s a pain to fix and seems somewhat harmless.

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Here’s the rub. Incomplete and inconsistent fields are almost always a result of an incomplete and inconsistent Go-To-Market process.  Furthermore, the fields you choose - or thoughtfully don’t choose -  will form the foundation of what your data looks like years into the future. The Go-To-Market process is what needs to be understood first. Where do our leads come from? What data to we have? What do reps need?  What data can we enrich?

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When organizations don’t thoughtfully work through these questions, several problems arise:
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Bad Data

‍There is missing and inaccurate data.  Management misses key insights, and fixing this problem in the future becomes 10x more costly. For instance, opportunities are marked Closed-Lost but the reason is not required. We now know the reason 50% of the time - is it accurate? Can we draw conclusions?

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Subpar Operations

‍When you have an inability to draw conclusions, inconclusive reporting, and confused employees, you have subpar operations. A sales team simply cannot reach peak effectiveness in this state

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Confused Employees

‍Not knowing what data is required results in confusion during input (i.e. creation of a lead) as well as when pulling reports. Processes and reports cannot be consistent because the data is not consistent.

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The GTM Problem

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Collectively agreeing upon the fields and structure in your CRM requires a high level of discussion, process and internal alignment. This is what creates high performing Go-To-Market teams. The resulting fields and structure are just a happy byproduct.

Internal alignment on the fields that matters means first aligning on the Sales Process that matters. “How do we go from a Lead to a Customer to a Net Promoter?” This means doing it consistently and efficiently.

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Here are some steps and internal discussion:

• Where do our leads come from and in what ways do they enter our CRM?
• How are we going to reach them?
  • Channels (i.e. phone, Linkedin, email)
  • Cadence (i.e. email #1, email #2, LinkedIn message, phone call, Closed)
  • Content (i.e. message 1, case study 1, free offer)
• What is the journey in a Closed-Won vs Closed-Lost scenario?  More specifically, how do we ensure that non-responsive prospects still receive automated messaging to bring them back?
• Which fields do we need to run this process?  How should they be designed
  • Required vs Optional
  • Dynamic Fields vs Static
  • Type (i.e. Picklist vs Free Form)
• Which fields do we have by default - and which do we need to add?
• How should this layout in the CRM, especially for mobile if reps are in the field?

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Forget the CRM fields for a moment.

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Steps 1-3 above are crucial for any sales and marketing team.  There absolutely needs to be alignment on these.  Once there is, you’ll see a high performing teams where employees know their path to success and managers have the data they need to optimize for continued improvement.

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The Data Problem

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Let’s assume for a moment that your company has an amazing Go-To-Market process, but no one has really paid much attention to the CRM. It’s not a likely scenario or one we encounter much at Everpeak, but it is possible.

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So let’s assume there has been no discussion around:

• Which fields should be required?
• Are we requiring the right fields?
• Are the optional fields superfluous and simply causing confusion?
• Are there Dynamic fields to give us valuable data?  For instance, if a rep marks an Opportunity as Closed/Lost, are we then showing a drop-down with a list of reasons?
• Is the layout easy for reps to use on mobile?

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Even if the GTM process is spectacular, not answering these questions will mean that every rep is doing some part of that process differently. There will be deals lost for unknown reasons, companies with missing information, and contacts who are irrelevant to the account.

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At some point, the organization will decide that this data is important.  It could be because it realizes key insights are missing because data is missing.  It could be because Artificial Intelligence requires a consistent data structure.  Whatever the reason - fixing this in the future is a massive, tedious, and expensive list.

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Fix it today, benefit your GTM process immediately, and future proof for tomorrow.

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Your Default Fields Are Crap

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Let’s get even more practical and name names. The two leading CRMs - Salesforce and Hubspot - are powerful for many reasons, one of which is how customizable they are. But both have a similar problem:  they include far too many fields by default.

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The “out of the box” number of fields for Contacts alone is crazy.  Salesforce includes 47 Contact fields by default and Hubspot includes 94 Contact fields (aka properties) by default.  This is simply too many fields for the average organization.

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On both Salesforce and Hubspot, your default Contact fields include:

• Assistant’s name
• Fax
• Home phone
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Yet, you won’t see LinkedIn URL. I would guess more of your prospects and clients have a LinkedIn account - as compared to a fax machine?

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The act of hiding many of these fields is not difficult. Yet, less than 20% of the CRM implementations we see have done this. Why? Because it requires internal discussion and alignment around the GTM process.  Per the above process, it takes some (very worthwhile) effort.

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The technical change is easy.

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The internal alignment is difficult.

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The Fields That Matter

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Every organization is going to be different. Some might do direct mail, where a physical mailing address or a Salutation matters.  For most though, they do not. For a B2B service company, there typically just not that many fields that should matter.

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However, the ones that matter really need to be accurate and need to be required. Examples include:

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Accounts

• Account Name
• Account Owner
• Description
• Website
• Industry
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Website is so crucial.  Why? Because if you have the website domain, in the future, you can easily enrich more data such as employee headcount or revenue.  You can also initiate automated outbound campaigns using email or LinkedIn.  The email addresses and individual LinkedIn URLs can all be tied back to the company’s website URL (and yes, D&B number could be used in lieu of website).  Here’s a 6 min video of how to build an entire prospect audience in Apollo using only website URLs. Without the Account website, you’re severely limiting your automation options and signing yourself up for a large data lookup project in the future.

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CRM fields are a not only a detail that matter - they are a canary in your coal mine. They are not the root cause of a problem, but they are the outward indicator. Take the steps to optimize your CRM fields, and you will naturally take steps to optimize your enter GTM process and the future of your data.

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