An organization’s CRM is only as good as the data inside of it. If you haven't already exported your data to excel, follow this tutorial and download the template on how to manually do it.

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So what do we mean by “data?”

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If you have a CRM, you invariably have some inaccurate data in the examples above. Some organizations have a little - and some have a lot.

If the data in your CRM is accurate, you will be able to:

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• Forecast revenue
• Identify the highest-value Leads
• Identify the activities that produce high-performing Reps

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If the data is not accurate, these reporting insights and many others will not be possible.  Before we focus on fixing this problem, it’s important to understand the status quo.  Export the current data and create a summary of the more prominent issues, like the one below.

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How to clean up your CRM Data

We cannot make this a one-size fits all.  Data is very different from one company to another.  So let’s concentrate on the most common issues, and get a step closer to clean data and an optimized revenue machine.

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Here is an overview of where we’re going to focus and why:

1. Record Types - Assigning different record types will allow you to keep all entities (Accounts) separate; most importantly, prospects vs customers
2. Invalid Emails - Stating the obvious, but bad emails waste time and effort. Knowing the bad emails is also a flag to signify that you need a new contact.
3. Invalid Leads - Sales qualified leads (SQLs) are the only place sales reps should focus. Having unqualified (bad) leads wastes time and makes effective attribution impossible.
4. Invalid Opportunities - Sales reps should have a clean pipeline, and this gives managers clean forecasting.

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Record Types - Prospects and Customers

Record Types apply to Accounts and to any entity you work with - strategic partners, investors, customers, employees, etc. Since prospects can become customers and customers can become prospects, they are just different types of Accounts.

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Keeping prospects and customers as separate Record Types allows organizations to do SO much.  Efficiently market, up-sell and cross-sell. You can trigger customer satisfaction surveys once you know the customers, and you can make it much easier for sales reps to follow-up with high-value prospects.  These are all extremely effective levers to increase life-time value (LTV) and decrease customer churn.

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Keeping the Record Type as up-to-date as prospects convert to customers and vice-versa can be automated.  But first, ensure that you have a Record Type for prospects and a separate one for customers. Steps:

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• Refer to the Data Export
• In excel, manually designate which are customers and which are prospects
• Import into Salesforce to over-write the current Record Types
• For easy ways to automate this going-forward, contact Everpeak

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Invalid Emails

You will have bad emails.  Not a big deal - until it is.  The average mid-career professional (age 30-40 yrs) changes jobs every 2.75 yrs.  The contact data for your prospects becomes obsolete quickly, resulting in wasted time and costs.

At Everpeak, we’ve tested a number of services that identify bad emails.  They do this by checking the domain mx records and “pinging” the mail server. This is done without sending an actual email.

A good option that we use is ZeroBounce. Plans range based on volume from $18.00 down to  $2.25 for every 1,000 records.

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Invalid Leads

These are not as obvious as invalid emails.  There is a judgement call.  The important thing is that there should be a Sales Ops Mapping to align all sales teams on:

• How to prioritize Leads (if you’ve built out Lead Scoring, this is obvious)
• The communication cadence.  For instance:
  1. Email #1
  2. Email #2
  3. LinkedIn invite
  4. Phone call
  5. Email #3
  6. Disqualify or Archive
  *Note: this cadence should have a time period (i.e. 45 days)

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• What happens to Disqualified and/or Archived leads
  1. Disqualify means they are not in the ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). No more communication.
  2. Archived means they have not been eliminate as a future Customer. Keep them on the email newsletter (effectively reverting to an MQL)

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Once you’ve aligned on the Sales Ops Mapping, go through the Data Export and manually Disqualify leads that are obvious. This could be where the email bounced or if the company is clearly not in your ICP.  Next, classify the Leads that should be Archived. These will be the ones that you have followed-up with multiple times with nor response.  Finally, update these within your CRM.  Make sure the Archived leads remain on your email newsletter!

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What you are left with is the Leads that need to go through the cadence. So get to it!  But make sure to hold yourself and your team accountable to the timeline.

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Invalid Opportunities

All roads lead to Opportunities - they are your revenue growth.

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Your process from first touch point to new customer contract needs to be tight before we clean up Opportunities. Otherwise, you’ll just end up with a bunch of invalid Opportunities again.

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Like Leads, there is subjectivity as to whether an Opportunity is valid. Opportunities have a shelf life. They should NOT be kept as a way sales reps use to remind themselves of “hot” prospects. There are many better ways to do this (i.e. Tasks). Opportunities are used to forecast your revenue.

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Taking your sales cycle length into account:

• Mark all Opportunities that are not moving forward
• Ensure you continue to follow-up with the associated Contacts. How you do this depends on your process. Examples include:
  • Set a Task to follow-up
  • Mark the Contact rating as ”Hot”
  • Move the Contact back to a Lead for follow-up
• Ensure that the Contact remains on your email newsletter and/or drip campaign

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When complete, you should have a Pipeline Report consisting of Opportunities that the rep feels could legitimately close by the Close Date. Next, make sure there is an Amount and Probability on each Opportunity.

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The Next Steps

If we agree that CRM data is important (please email me if we do not), then the next step is to ensure that this clean data is not soon dirty again.

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How do we do this? As always, it depends. But here are some key methods:

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• Write down the Process
  • The Sales Ops Mapping is really important for internal alignment and ensuring that Leads are truly qualified.
  • Other important processes to write down are:
    • How Leads enter the system (do not let Reps import!)
    • When to convert a Lead to an Opportunity
    • Criteria for when Opportunities should be Closed - Lost.
    • Checking on data quality periodically
  • We often call these SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures).  If you are not creating SOPs today, you will be amazed at how valuable they are.
• Required Fields
  • The process determines the essential data and CRM fields.
  • Require these fields!  For instance, no Opportunity should be created without an Amount. What if it’s not accurate?  It can change.  But it cannot be zero.
  • If a Deal is Closed-Lost, have a drop-down of the most common reason. Require a selection.  This data is invaluable.
• Automate
  • CRMs are customizable. This means automating processes, saving you time, and improving data quality.
  • Examples of automations:
    • Automatically changing a lead from New to Contacted once emailed or called.
    • Associating probabilities with Opportunity Stages; requiring the Stage means that it will automatically populate a probability (which can still be changed as needed).
    • Automatically changing a Prospect record type to Customer once the Opportunity is Closed-Won.
• Limit the Leads
  • Leads should not enter your CRM as Leads unless they have expressed interest.
  • Prospect lists (ie from a tradeshow or LinkedIn) are great. But they are not sales qualified. They should be kept separate.

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Great sales teams are typically focused on people and relationships.  Golf and three martini lunches may still have an important role in some industries, but even in those industries, a data-driven approach will yield results.

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Can you fly a plane without instruments?  Sure.  But why would you?

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Embrace your instruments.  Embrace your data.

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