Crm Hygiene

CRM Hygiene

What This Does

Keeps your CRM (the list of contacts and deals you sell to — whether that's real software or a spreadsheet) clean and trustworthy. A messy contact list quietly costs you deals: duplicates make you look disorganized, stale leads inflate your pipeline, and blank fields mean follow-ups fall through. This skill runs a repeatable clean-up — deduplicate, sweep stale leads, standardize fields — and a pipeline review so the numbers you plan on are real.

Part A — Deduplicate

1. Pull the full contact list (export to CSV if it's in software). Work on a copy — never edit the only record you have.
2. Find likely duplicates by matching on, in priority order:
   • Same email address (strongest signal)
   • Same phone number
   • Same company + very similar person name
   • Same company domain across contacts
3. Merge, don't delete blindly. For each duplicate pair, keep the record with the most complete/recent info and fold in anything the other has (a phone number, a note, a deal). Preserve history — a lost note can be a lost deal.
4. Log every merge (kept ID, merged ID, date) so you can trace anything that looks wrong later.

Part B — Stale-Lead Sweep

Define "stale," then act on it consistently:

• Archive, don't delete. A cold lead can warm up; keep the record, just remove it from the active pipeline so it stops inflating your numbers.
• Every contact you keep active must have a next step and a date. No next step = it's not really in the pipeline.

Part C — Standardize Fields

Blank and inconsistent fields break follow-ups. Enforce a minimum standard:

Required on every active contact:
- [ ] Name (first + last)
- [ ] Primary email OR phone
- [ ] Company (if B2B)
- [ ] Lead source (how they found you)
- [ ] Stage (see pipeline below)
- [ ] Owner (who's responsible)
- [ ] Next step + date

Standardize formats:
- [ ] Phone numbers in one consistent format
- [ ] Company names consistent (no "Acme" / "Acme Inc" / "acme" splits)
- [ ] Stage names from the fixed list only — no free-text stages

Part D — Pipeline Review

Sort active deals into a fixed set of stages and sanity-check each:

# Pipeline Review — {Business Name}   (as of {YYYY-MM-DD})

| Stage | Deals | Value | Health check |
|-------|-------|-------|--------------|
| New / Uncontacted | {n} | {$} | Anything >7 days here? Contact or drop. |
| Contacted | {n} | {$} | Has a next step + date? |
| Qualified | {n} | {$} | Real budget + need confirmed? |
| Proposal / Quote | {n} | {$} | Follow-up scheduled? |
| Won | {n} | {$} | → hand to invoicing-ar |
| Lost | {n} | {$} | Reason logged? |

## Cleanup actions
1. {e.g. Merge 6 duplicate contacts for Acme}
2. {e.g. Archive 14 leads with no contact in 180+ days}
3. {e.g. 9 "Proposal" deals have no follow-up date — set one}

Output Format

Deliver one of: a dedup log (pairs merged, kept vs. folded), a stale-lead sweep list (what to re-engage vs. archive), a field-standardization checklist with gaps found, or a pipeline review table with concrete cleanup actions. Always end with the top 3 actions.

Tips

• A clean small pipeline beats a big dirty one. Ten real, next-stepped deals are worth more than fifty vague ones.
• Email is your best dedup key — start there, then phone, then company+name.
• Archive is your friend; delete is dangerous. You almost never need to permanently remove a contact — just move it out of the active view.
• Every active deal needs an owner and a dated next step. If it has neither, it's clutter inflating your forecast.
• Won deals should flow straight into invoicing-ar; lost deals should always carry a reason so you can spot patterns.
• Run the sweep monthly. Hygiene is a habit — a once-a-year cleanup means eleven months of decisions made on bad data.
• If you handle personal contact data, follow the privacy rules that apply to you (consent, deletion requests). This skill organizes records; confirm compliance obligations with a professional.