Your CRM should be making you money.

Instead, it’s probably costing you deals, wasting your time, and creating more problems than it solves.

I spent last week auditing CRMs for five different businesses. All of them thought their system was “fine.” All of them were wrong. And the problems I found? They were bleeding revenue every single day.

Here’s what I discovered, and more importantly, here’s how to fix it before you lose another deal.

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The CRM Problem Nobody Talks About

Most business owners treat their CRM like a digital filing cabinet. They dump contacts in there, maybe add a few notes, and call it a day.

That’s not a CRM. That’s an expensive spreadsheet.

A real CRM should be doing three things:

1. Capturing every lead automatically

2. Moving deals through your pipeline without you touching them

3. Telling you exactly where your bottlenecks are

If your CRM isn’t doing all three, you’re leaving money on the table.

I had a client doing $42K a month who couldn’t tell me how many leads they got last week. They had a CRM. They were paying $300 a month for it. But they had no idea what was actually happening in their business.

That’s not a tool problem. That’s a setup problem.

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The Five CRM Mistakes That Kill Deals

Let me show you the exact mistakes I found in every single CRM audit. These aren’t edge cases. These are the problems that almost every business has.

Mistake #1: Manual Data Entry

If you’re manually typing leads into your CRM, you’re slow. And slow loses deals.

I watched a business owner spend 15 minutes entering a lead into their system. Name, email, phone, company, source, notes. Fifteen minutes.

By the time she was done entering the information, the lead had already moved on. They’d filled out three other forms. They’d talked to two competitors. They’d made a decision.

And she was still typing.

Here’s the thing: every form on your website should automatically create a contact in your CRM. Every email should be logged. Every call should be tracked. Every interaction should be captured without you lifting a finger.

If you’re doing it manually, you’re doing it wrong.

But it’s not just about speed. It’s about accuracy. When you’re manually entering data, you make mistakes. You misspell names. You transpose numbers. You forget to add the source.

I found one CRM where 30% of the phone numbers were wrong. Thirty percent. Because someone was typing them in by hand and making typos.

The Fix:

Connect your forms directly to your CRM using Make.com or Zapier. When someone fills out a form, they should land in your CRM instantly with all their information.

Set up email integration so every email you send or receive is automatically logged to the contact record.

Use a phone system that integrates with your CRM so calls are tracked automatically.

This isn’t complicated. It’s just connecting the dots. But most businesses never do it because they think “I’ll set that up later.” Later never comes.

Mistake #2: No Pipeline Stages

Your CRM should show you exactly where every deal is in your sales process. But most people just have a list of contacts with no structure.

That’s useless.

You need pipeline stages. And they need to match your actual sales process.

Here’s a basic B2B service business pipeline:

Every deal should move through these stages. And you should be able to look at your pipeline and instantly see:

If you can’t answer those questions in 30 seconds, your pipeline is broken.

The Fix:

Set up pipeline stages that match your actual sales process. Not some generic template. Your actual process.

Then create automation rules that move deals through the pipeline automatically based on actions:

The less you have to manually move things around, the more accurate your pipeline will be.

Mistake #3: Dead Contacts Everywhere

I looked at one CRM that had 3,847 contacts. When I asked how many were actually active opportunities, the owner said “maybe 50?”

That means 3,797 contacts were just clutter. Dead weight. Noise.

And here’s the problem: when you have that much clutter, you can’t see what actually matters. You can’t tell which leads are hot and which are cold. You can’t prioritize. You can’t focus.

You’re drowning in data and starving for insight.

The Fix:

Clean your CRM. Right now.

Create a filter for contacts who:

That’s your dead contact list. Archive them. Don’t delete them (you might need them later), but get them out of your active view.

Then set up an automation that automatically archives contacts after 90 days of no activity. Keep your CRM clean going forward.

Mistake #4: No Follow-Up System

Most deals don’t close on the first call. They need multiple touchpoints. But most businesses have no system for follow-up.

They rely on memory. Or manual reminders. Or “I’ll get to it when I have time.”

That’s how deals die.

I found one business that had 47 deals sitting in “Proposal Sent” stage for more than 30 days. Forty-seven. When I asked what the follow-up process was, the owner said “I usually check in after a week or so.”

Usually. After a week or so.

That’s not a system. That’s hope.

The Fix:

Build automated follow-up sequences for each stage of your pipeline.

Example for “Proposal Sent” stage:

The key word is “automated.” You set it up once, and it runs forever.

Every deal gets consistent follow-up. Nothing falls through the cracks. And you’re not relying on your memory to keep deals alive.

I had a client implement this and their close rate went from 18% to 29% in 60 days. Same leads. Same offers. Just consistent follow-up.

Mistake #5: No Reporting

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

But most business owners have no idea what their numbers are. They don’t know their conversion rates. They don’t know their average deal size. They don’t know how long deals take to close.

They’re flying blind.

I asked one client what his lead-to-close conversion rate was. He said “pretty good, I think?”

That’s not a number. That’s a guess.

The Fix:

Set up weekly reports that automatically email you your key metrics:

You should be able to look at one email every Monday morning and know exactly how your business performed last week.

Most CRMs have built-in reporting. You just need to set it up. And if your CRM doesn’t have good reporting, that’s a sign you need a better CRM.

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The CRM That Actually Works

Let me tell you about Marcus. He runs a consulting business doing about $38K a month. His CRM was a mess.

Leads were being entered manually (sometimes). Pipeline stages didn’t match his sales process. Follow-up was inconsistent. And he had no idea what his numbers were.

We spent one afternoon fixing it.

Here’s what we did:

Step 1: Connected Everything

We connected his website forms, his email, and his calendar to his CRM. Now when someone fills out a form, they automatically land in his CRM with all their information. When he sends an email, it’s logged. When someone books a call, it’s tracked.

Zero manual entry.

Step 2: Built a Real Pipeline

We mapped out his actual sales process and created pipeline stages that matched it. Then we set up automation rules to move deals through the pipeline based on actions.

Now he can look at his pipeline and instantly see where every deal is and where things are getting stuck.

Step 3: Cleaned the Database

We archived 2,100 dead contacts. Kept his active opportunities front and center. Set up an automation to keep it clean going forward.

His CRM went from overwhelming to useful overnight.

Step 4: Automated Follow-Up

We built follow-up sequences for each stage of his pipeline. Now every deal gets consistent, timely follow-up without him having to remember anything.

His close rate went from 19% to 31% in the first 60 days just because he stopped dropping the ball on follow-up.

Step 5: Set Up Reporting

We created a weekly report that emails him every Monday morning with his key numbers. Leads, deals, revenue, conversion rates, everything.

Now he knows exactly how his business is performing without logging into his CRM.

The result? He went from $38K a month to $54K a month in 90 days. Same effort. Same team. Just a CRM that actually worked.

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The Tool That Makes This Possible

Look, I’m not here to tell you which CRM to use. There are dozens of good options. GoHighLevel, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Close, whatever.

The tool doesn’t matter as much as the setup.

But here’s what does matter: your CRM needs to connect to everything else you’re using. And that’s where automation platforms come in.

I use Make.com for almost all my CRM integrations. It connects to basically every CRM and every other tool you’re using. Forms, email, calendars, payment processors, everything.

The free plan gives you 1,000 operations a month, which is plenty to get started.

But here’s the key: don’t just connect things randomly. Think through your process first. Map out what should happen when a lead comes in. Then build the automation to match that process.

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The One-Afternoon CRM Fix

You don’t need to rebuild your entire system. You just need to fix the five mistakes.

Here’s your action plan:

Hour 1: Connect Your Forms

Set up automation so every form on your website automatically creates a contact in your CRM. No more manual entry.

Hour 2: Build Your Pipeline

Create pipeline stages that match your actual sales process. Set up automation rules to move deals through the pipeline based on actions.

Hour 3: Clean Your Database

Archive dead contacts. Set up automation to keep it clean going forward.

Hour 4: Automate Follow-Up

Build one follow-up sequence for your most common pipeline stage. Test it. Then build the rest.

Hour 5: Set Up Reporting

Create a weekly report that emails you your key numbers every Monday morning.

That’s it. Five hours. One afternoon. And your CRM goes from costing you money to making you money.

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The Real Cost of a Broken CRM

Let’s do some math.

If you’re generating 50 leads a month and your close rate is 20%, you’re closing 10 deals.

If your average deal size is $3,000, that’s $30,000 in monthly revenue.

Now let’s say you fix your CRM and your close rate goes from 20% to 28% (which is conservative based on what I’ve seen).

Same 50 leads. But now you’re closing 14 deals instead of 10.

That’s an extra $12,000 a month. $144,000 a year.

From the same number of leads. Just by not dropping the ball.

That’s the real cost of a broken CRM. Not the $300 a month you’re paying for the software. It’s the six-figure revenue you’re leaving on the table because your system doesn’t work.

And that doesn’t even count the time you’re wasting on manual work, the stress of not knowing your numbers, or the deals you’re losing because you’re too slow to respond.

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What to Do Right Now

Stop reading and do this:

Open your CRM. Look at your pipeline. Ask yourself these five questions:

1. Are leads being entered automatically or manually?

2. Do my pipeline stages match my actual sales process?

3. How many dead contacts am I looking at?

4. Do I have automated follow-up for each stage?

5. Can I tell you my conversion rate right now without looking it up?

If you answered “no” to any of those questions, you have work to do.

Block one afternoon this week. Fix the five mistakes. Your CRM should be working for you, not against you.

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What’s Coming Friday

I’m going to show you the client onboarding system that cut onboarding time from 3 hours to 8 minutes while actually improving client satisfaction scores.

It’s the system every service business needs but almost nobody has.

See you Friday.

Dan

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*P.S. If you want a CRM setup checklist with every automation and integration you need, reply to this email with “CRM” and I’ll send it over.*