CRM Rehab
Your best list is already in there
Every company that ever bought from you is sitting in your CRM right now. So is every deal that stalled. It is the most valuable list you own and the one nobody has touched in years. Fixing it costs far less than chasing new logos.
$4,500 · fixed · three weeks · scope written down before it starts
What’s actually wrong in there
I have never opened a CRM at a small company and found it in good shape. That is not a knock on anyone. It is what happens when busy people use a system for six years and nobody owns the data.
Here is what I find almost every time:
- The same company entered three times, spelled three ways.
- Companies with no website listed, or three different websites listed.
- Missing addresses, so the mailer somebody wanted to send last year quietly died.
- Whole groups of accounts with no industry or size filled in, so nobody can sort them.
- People who don’t work there anymore.
That last one is the big one. About a quarter of business contacts change jobs every year. So a five-year-old CRM is mostly a record of where people used to work.
How I fix it
I pull everything out, fix it outside the system where mistakes can be undone, and put it back in one clean pass.
- Merge the duplicates. I match on what companies really are, not on exact spelling. I keep a log, so any merge can be undone.
- Fill in the blanks. Website, address, industry, headcount, revenue range. Pulled from outside sources instead of left empty.
- Find who left. I check every contact against where they work now. People who moved get flagged. When it’s worth it, I find where they went.
- Set aside the dead ones. Bounced emails, closed businesses, duplicates that can’t be merged. I move them out of the working list instead of deleting them, so your reports stop counting them.
- Write down the rules. What each field means and who fills it in. So it doesn’t fall apart again a month after I leave.
Why the job-change list is worth the most
Say a customer loved working with you. Then they left for a company you have never sold to.
That is the warmest introduction your business has. They already know you do good work. They are sitting inside an account you want. And right now nobody at your company knows it happened.
You get that list. It is usually the part clients are most surprised by.
Honest scoping
Three weeks and $4,500 covers a normal small-business CRM. Call it up to about 15,000 records across companies and contacts.
Much bigger databases are a different job and I will say so after I look, not in week two. I always ask to see the actual file before quoting. CRM size is the one thing owners guess wrong about, in both directions.
Included
What actually lands
A diagnosis first
What’s duplicated, what’s missing, what’s dead. Counted before I change anything, so you can prove the fix worked.
Duplicates merged
With a full log. Nothing gets destroyed without a way back.
Blank fields filled in
Website, address, industry, size, and whatever else you need to sort your list by.
A list of who left
Who changed jobs, and where they went. Including the ones now working at companies you want.
Rules your team can follow
Written down, so the database stays clean after I’m gone.
Questions
CRM Rehab, answered
How much does a CRM cleanup cost?
CRM Rehab is $4,500. The price is fixed and it takes about three weeks. That covers a normal small-business database of up to about 15,000 records. Bigger databases cost more, and I quote those after I have seen the file. The price includes the diagnosis, merging duplicates, filling in blank fields, finding who changed jobs, and the written rules for keeping it clean.
Which CRMs do you work with?
Whatever you already use. HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, Copper, Monday, or the spreadsheet that is honestly still your CRM. I do the work on an exported file and put it back as one clean import, so the platform barely matters. If you are on something unusual that cannot export, tell me on the first call and I will say whether it can be done.
Will this slow my sales team down?
No. All the work happens on an exported copy, outside your live system. I schedule the one import for a time your team is not selling. And because I keep a log of every merge, anything can be undone. Your reps work normally for all three weeks.
What is the job-change list worth?
About a quarter of business contacts change jobs every year. So a CRM nobody has maintained for five years is mostly out of date. The obvious win is that you stop emailing dead addresses. The bigger win is the other direction. A customer who liked you and moved to a company you have never sold to is the warmest introduction you have, and almost nobody is tracking it.
Can you just fill in the blanks and skip the cleanup?
I would rather not. Filling in blanks on a database full of duplicates means paying three times for the same company and then getting three different answers. If money is tight, say so. I can do the diagnosis on its own for less, and it tells you whether the full job is worth doing.
Same discipline
The other two sizes
Start here
Market Map
Every company in your market, found and sorted. Then cut down to the ones worth calling, with a real person and a working phone number on each one.
Keep it alive
Pipeline Ops
A list starts going out of date the day you get it. This is the monthly work that keeps it right, adds what’s new, and learns from what got answered.
Start here
Worth a thirty-minute conversation?
No deck and no pitch — you describe how you sell today and I tell you whether this is the right size for it. Sometimes it is one of the other two, and sometimes it is neither.