Foundations / Project

CRM and RevOps Architecture

Most CRMs are a contact list with optimism attached. Stages mean different things to different reps, attribution is a guess, required fields are advisory, and the pipeline number in the board deck cannot be reconstructed from the underlying records. This fixes the model underneath.

Pricing On request Scoped on platform and migration complexity
Timeline 3 to 6 weeks Project

The problem

Nobody can answer which channel produced last quarter's closed revenue. Deals sit in stages that describe activity rather than buyer commitment, half the fields are empty, duplicates multiply, and the reporting is rebuilt by hand in a spreadsheet every month because nobody trusts the dashboard.

WHO THIS IS FOR

  • Companies whose CRM was set up quickly and never revisited
  • Teams that cannot attribute pipeline to a channel or a campaign
  • Anyone migrating between CRMs and unwilling to carry the mess across
  • Founders who need board reporting they can defend line by line

Scope

What is included

01

Data model

  • Object architecture across contacts, companies, deals and custom objects
  • Property design with required fields that are genuinely enforced
  • Association model so account-level activity is visible rather than scattered across contacts
  • Naming and picklist conventions documented so the model survives contact with a growing team
02

Pipeline design

  • Stages defined by buyer commitment rather than by internal activity
  • Written exit criteria per stage, so qualified means the same thing to everyone
  • Forecast categories and probability mapping that reflect your real close rates
  • Loss reason taxonomy that produces usable analysis instead of price on everything
03

Attribution and automation

  • Source and campaign attribution tracing every meeting to the account and sequence step behind it
  • Lifecycle stage automation and lead routing rules
  • Task and follow-up automation covering the handoffs that are currently dropped
  • Integration with your sending tools so outbound activity lands in the record automatically
04

Reporting and hygiene

  • Dashboards for pipeline, conversion by stage, channel performance and activity
  • Deduplication and a cleanup pass across the existing database
  • Data hygiene rules and an owner, because entropy is the default state
  • SOPs and a training session for the team that will live in it

How it runs

3 phases

01

Audit

What exists, what is used, what is quietly ignored. Usually a third of the fields are dead and two stages mean the same thing. This phase is mostly listening to the people who actually enter the data.

02

Design and build

Model, stages, attribution, automation and dashboards, built in a way your team will keep to. A model nobody follows is worse than the mess it replaced, because it produces confident wrong numbers.

03

Migrate and train

Existing data cleaned and migrated, then training for the people who use it daily. SOPs written for the person who joins in six months.

Outcomes

What it produces

1
Source of truth for pipeline reporting
100%
Of meetings traceable to their originating account and step
3 to 6
Weeks from audit to trained team

What you own at the end

It is your CRM instance, your data and your documentation throughout. Nothing depends on a partner account or on a consultant retaining admin access after handover.

Questions

About this engagement

Which CRM should we use?
HubSpot if marketing and sales need one system and budget allows. Pipedrive if you want sales-only simplicity. Attio if you are early and want flexibility. I will recommend based on your stage and team, and I take no partner commission on any of them.
Can you migrate us from another CRM?
Yes, and a migration is the best possible moment to fix the model rather than faithfully reproducing the problem in a new tool.
What if our team will not keep the data clean?
Then the model is too demanding and that is a design failure, not a discipline failure. Required fields have to earn their place. I design for the smallest set that still produces trustworthy reporting.
Do you also connect our outbound tools?
Yes. Sending tools writing back into the CRM is what makes attribution real, and it is the single change that most often turns the dashboard from decorative into useful.

Next step

Interested in the CRM and RevOps engagement?

Start with a 30-minute discovery call. No pitch, just a clear conversation about your pipeline problem and whether this system fits it.

Typically replies within one business day