CRM Cleanup Checklist

Clean the CRM once, then make it stay clean — dedup, stage discipline, and the process fixes that stop re-dirtying.

1. 01Export everything first. A cleanup without a backup is a gamble.
2. 02Fix the flows before the data: automate capture from every source so cleaned data stays clean. (This is the step everyone skips.)
3. 03Merge duplicates: match on email, then phone, then fuzzy name+company. Keep the record with the richest history.
4. 04Define each pipeline stage in one written sentence: what must be true for a deal to sit there.
5. 05Sweep stage-by-stage: every deal either matches its stage definition, moves, or closes as lost with a reason.
6. 06Archive contacts with no activity in 18+ months into a reactivation segment — don’t delete, don’t let them pollute reporting.
7. 07Reduce required fields to what you actually use for routing and reporting. Delete the wishful ones.
8. 08Standardize picklist values; free-text fields that should be picklists become picklists.
9. 09Set validation rules so bad data is rejected at entry, not discovered at reporting.
10. 10Rebuild the two or three reports leadership actually uses, now that the numbers mean something.
11. 11Schedule a monthly 30-minute hygiene review: dups created, stale deals, fields drifting. Maintenance beats re-cleanup.

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