I’d like to get opinions on what to look for in a CRM when working at a consumer goods company. With specific biz processes and ways sales reps and KAMs operate, what’s working for you?

I am wondering how other people are using CRM in a sales context. We write down meeting notes in the CRM and send newsletters for a mailing list. Couldn't this be all be done in an email calendar? Contact details can also be recorded in your email.

For what things do sales people use the CRM, which cannot be replicated in the email calendar, excel or other tools?

Hey all,

I'm up and coming GTM Engineer (hopefully) and I want to get some references & case studies for myself.

I dont take payment, I dont have a company, I'm basically a GTM engineer here at my company as employee. I never enjoyed any other work but this.

This. I love. I crave.

So here is the deal: tell me the issue, I'll see if it's viable to resolve, I'll tell you what it'll need to resolve and if you okay it, I can build a solution for you on my weekends or free time.

I build fast, but I have work, so don't expect to get a fix fast within a few days, some things may take weeks, especially if reliability is a concern. I'll tell you beforehand.

Requirements:

1. US or EU company with 10+ employees, some LinkedIn presence and is a legitimate revenue generating business, not an empty shell. Exceptions can be made for local businesses, just ask.

2. If software is required, you pay, but nothing expensive, always within budget. If it's not cost effective solution, it's my failure. Usually I utilize free stuff. I will use my own Claude and Codex unless it gets really complex and I have to burn my x20 subacriptions to finish it. Usually not necessary and I have plenty of leftover Opus 5 and Codex every week.

3. Comment explaining the issue, software being used, tried solutions, why it's important, how much is at stake. This helps me choose and prioritize.

4. You provide the contract. You'll likely need outline what is okay in case study and what isn't. Only approved numbers.

5. Communication is key, I will NEED to ask you questions. It can be dumb ones for you but important for me. I nerd your time, I need acceptable response time and I need you to be respectful.

P.S. Again, I dont work at an GTM agency, I'm not a contractor, there is no marketing or sales intent here, no payment involved, nothing. This is pro bono.

As it's pro bono, I have limited capacity, so I'll be choosing the person / company to help. No hard feelings, please.

My specialties: Marketing (paid and organic), Sales (inbound and outbound) Data (CRM, marketing, other). And automations for all of them Software: Hubspot, Apollo, Claude / Codex API, Google Meet, dialer

Most recent work: Server-side tracking, CV & LI parser, data entry from transcript

EDIT: I WON'T build a custom CRM. I'll show you how to utilize Hubspot for cheap though. You really don't need a custom CRM. And you don't need "AI-first CRM" and you don't need the crap people sneakily advertising here in comments and posts.

I'm also based in US.

I started working in the CRM field as my first job in 2022, so it has been 4 years now. I mainly focus on commercial targeting, liaising with the commercial planning department to design campaigns, and then executing communications through customer journeys via the selected channels (email/DEM, push notifications, etc.).

I have acquired knowledge of SQL, Salesforce CDP, and Marketing Cloud, and I earned the "Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Engagement Specialist" certification (formerly Email Specialist).

​Unfortunately, I currently work in consulting, which I want to leave to transition into an in-house CRM Specialist role at a company.

​How can I proceed? Does it make sense to get Salesforce AI certifications? If so, which ones?"

I’m doing a UX assignment for a mobile sales app and would love some input from people who work in field sales.

Between customer visits, what do you usually check first on your phone: leads, tasks, or sales numbers?

Also, what’s one thing your current sales app makes frustrating or harder than it needs to be?

Any real examples would be really helpful.

Contract changes are really giving us a hard time. Customers add seats, remove product, change billing terms, no big deal. until you have to update the CRM, original quote, pricing approvals and the make sure billing has the same info.

We pulled 350 recent amendments and found roughly 30% needed manual intervention beyond the actual customer request. Not to mention we've had 3 cases where the wrong version made it downstream.

We're looking into contract amendment automation. but i thought it doesn't hurt to figure out what works before we add another tool to the stack.

Do you automate the changes inside the CRM, use a separate tool or just accept someone in the team has to manually follow up the process?

I'm building a reproducible Drupal CMS 2.1 (Drupal 11) demo/starter/showcase project and I want the whole setup to live in the CLI and in git, no UI clicking. This is my current flow and I'd like to know where it diverges from best practice.

I work as a developer advocate for CKEditor and I need the boilerplate for my showcases/demos/workshops/...

Initial scaffold:

```sh ddev config --project-type=drupal11 --docroot=web ddev start ddev composer create-project drupal/cms # Initial installing of the packages mostly CKEditor pack + premium features, but it does not matter that much ``` 

Day-to-day setup (fresh clone):

This is mostly when I need to have a PR deployment/preview build/feature branch for specific event/or something similar.

I plan to use Render to have the PR-based deployments.

```sh ddev start ddev composer install ddev drush site:install --existing-config -y \ --account-name=admin --account-pass=admin ddev drush php:script scripts/import-demo-content.php ```sh 

Conventions I started with:

• ddev is optional, anything else is fine, I just saw it being used as kinda base
• All config changes go through drush config:export and get committed to config/sync, so site:install --existing-config rebuilds the exact site.
• Repeatable setup steps (text formats, module wiring) live as drush php:script files in scripts/, not as one-off UI actions.
• Demo content ships as a recipe (recipes/<name>/content YAML) and is imported with core's DefaultContent at build time, instead of committing a database dump. (I plan to use sqllite for these demos for simplicity).
• Secrets and endpoints come only from env vars read in settings.php, the file itself is committed.

Where it hurts/"not sure about" parts

1. drush site:install --existing-config crashes in the installer's configure-form step ("Field user_picture is unknown") after config import already succeeded. A fresh bootstrap of the same DB is fine, so it looks like a stale field-map cache inside the installer process. I currently tolerate the exit code and finish the installer work (user 1, site name) via drush. Anyone hit this / know the issue number?
2. drupal/core-recipe-unpack removes recipes from composer.lock after unpacking, so composer install can't restore them and I have to commit the recipes directory. Is committing unpacked recipes the intended workflow?
3. Keeping license keys out of config/sync: I inject all CKEditor Premium Features credentials (license key, and for the self-hosted stack the websocket + API URLs) as runtime $config overrides from env vars in settings.php. Nothing is ever saved through the module's settings form, so config/sync stays secret-free. It works, but the admin form at /admin/config/ckeditor5-premium-features/settings renders completely empty, because Drupal forms only show stored config, not overrides. So the site is fully configured and the form says otherwise. Worse, if someone "helpfully" fills it in, those values get saved to the DB and either shadowed by the overrides or accidentally exported later. Is there an established pattern here: Key module support, a config_exclude approach, or modules showing an "overridden by settings.php" hint on the form? Or is an empty-but-overridden form just the accepted price of env-driven config?

How do you find it? Would you change something? Anything completely wrong?