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The Challenge

Nothing was down. It just wasn't working, which is harder to diagnose and easier to live with for too long.

1. The lead model was the wrong way round. The standard Lead module had been renamed and repurposed to hold unqualified prospects, while a custom module held the pre-qualified ones. That single decision breaks a lot downstream: the built-in conversion flow, standard validation, native lead reporting, and any future automation that expects a lead to be a lead. Everyone who touches the system afterwards works around it instead of using it.
2. Following up ran on memory. No structured way to record what had been promised, to whom, and when the next touch was due. Task assignment was manual and follow-ups depended on the individual rather than the process.
3. Leads arrived in five places and landed in none. Website enquiries, LinkedIn and Meta ads, YouTube and referrals all came in separately, with no single home and no source attribution worth reporting on.
4. Emails were going to spam, and nobody had made the connection. Email sync into the CRM was incomplete, so conversation history was partial. Worse, the sending domain had no proper authentication, which meant proposals and follow-ups were landing in junk folders. Deals were going quiet for a reason that had nothing to do with the deal.
5. No pipeline visibility. Without stages that matched how the business actually sells, management had no reliable read on what was in play or what was stuck.

What We Built

Four weeks, seven phases, starting with an audit and a gap analysis before anything was changed. The platform was already right. The way it had been modelled wasn't.

The data model, rebuilt properly

• Both modules exported in full, then the standard Lead module rebuilt with the field structure to hold pre-qualified leads as intended, and a new custom module created for raw and unqualified prospects.
• Data re-imported into the right homes — qualified into Leads, unqualified into the new module — so the platform's standard behaviour started working again.
• A new custom module for follow-up checklists tied to each deal, so a commitment made on a call becomes a record rather than a memory.
• Modules, fields, layouts and naming conventions restructured across the board.

A sales process the team can actually follow

• Structured stages — inquiry, qualification, proposal, follow-up, closure — configured to match how the business really sells rather than a default pipeline.
• Workflow automation for task creation, assignment rules, stage updates, email notifications and follow-up reminders driven by deal status.
• Custom views that show and hide fields based on qualification status, so a rep sees what's relevant to the stage they're in and nothing else.

Five lead sources, one destination

• Website forms and LinkedIn Lead Ads captured automatically into the CRM.
• Meta ads, YouTube and referrals routed in, with the last two logged manually — worth stating plainly, because not every channel offers an API worth building on and pretending otherwise just creates a gap nobody notices.

Email that arrives, and gets recorded

• Full Gmail sync with the CRM for sent and received mail, fixing the missing and delayed message visibility so contact history is complete.
• SPF, DKIM and DMARC records configured on the sending domain to fix deliverability and stop outbound mail landing in spam.

WhatsApp, where the client conversations actually happen

• WhatsApp Business connected through a third-party provider, with message templates and automated message workflows.
• Message tracking and history logged against the contact and deal, so WhatsApp stops being a private conversation on somebody's phone and becomes part of the account record.

Reporting worth opening

• Dashboards for lead funnel, sales pipeline, task status, conversion and team performance.
• Roughly 7,500 lead and follow-up records migrated from spreadsheets into the rebuilt structure.

Results

• The CRM behaves like a CRM again. Leads sit where the platform expects them, so conversion, validation and native reporting work without workarounds.
• Follow-ups are a record, not a memory. A dedicated follow-up module tied to each deal, with automated reminders and assignment.
• Email reaches the inbox. Domain authentication in place and full Gmail sync, so history is complete and proposals stop landing in junk.
• Five channels, one pipeline, one dashboard.
• Four weeks, start to trained team.

Why It Worked

We rebuilt the model instead of automating on top of a broken one.

The cheap version of this project exists. You leave the modules where they are, write some workflows around them, hand over a dashboard and invoice. It demos well. It also means every future automation has to be written twice — once for the module that should hold leads and once for the one that actually does — and the client pays for that misalignment forever. Renaming a standard module is the most expensive small decision available in a CRM, and undoing it early is far cheaper than living with it.

The other thing worth saying: the email fix was not in the original brief. It surfaced during the audit, and it was quietly costing them deals — proposals were landing in spam and nobody had connected the two. SPF, DKIM and DMARC is unglamorous, nobody sells it, and it was probably the highest-value hour of the whole engagement. That is the argument for auditing before you build. The same audit-first week is what rescued a stalled Zoho rollout for a telehealth provider.

Frequently asked questions

Facing the same challenge?

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