I have been working in the BDC department for a year, this is my very first dealer/BDC job. I have a coworker who has been here for around 3 months now and i noticed that she has been messing with the vinsolution CRM. one of the things being her messing with the advanced settings putting her name on all of the sticky round robin, giving her a BIG advantage on our leads even when she is not there. I just want to see if there is anything else I should be on the look out for or any advice. she did mention her previous manager was teaching her some advantages on the web, but now i’m starting to think there is more to it

Is there some other "basic" plan/feature I can subscribe to that will accomplish the following:

• Contact list (CRM)
• Marketing Emails (manual)
• A few automated Workflows
• Meta ad integration

I don't need Ticketing (anymore), Deals, Tasks, AEO, Websites, Blogs, Prospecting, Revenue, Sales features.

Hubspot is getting to be too complex & overpriced.

Recently, our IT team rolled out an AI CRM, but adoption has been slower than we had anticipated. All departments within the business have different needs. Sales hopes to use the tool for predictive analytics, customer service wants automated reports, the management team is looking for forecasting upgrades, and the department responsible for compliance wants assurance that the customers' private data is being handled in the right way.

The technology itself was not the biggest challenge. We had more problems than expected with synchronizing the governance scheme, security, quality of the data, and users' expectations from different departments. Several senior managers are worried that it makes no sense to proceed with the rollout. If you have implemented AI CRM before, what worked in your case?

The sales department is looking to change its CRM, and I can see from watching the demos that the platforms available would enhance the way they work. My main worry is what happens to the processes and departments connected to the CRM. At the moment customer data goes through finance, customer service, marketing, data warehouse and some internal systems. I have a bad feeling that we are going to repeat the mistakes of the past once again.

To those who have recently implemented sales management systems, what integrations were essential for you? I can guess the features are going to include identity, email/calendar, accounting/billing, marketing technology and BI, but I am also interested to know about unexpected dependencies that occurred during implementation process. Moreover, did you make the CRM system the system of record for the customer data, or do you store it somewhere else?

One thing we’ve run into quite a few times during CRM cleanup projects is a field that nobody really knows the purpose of anymore.

Someone created it for a specific reason a few years ago. Then a workflow started using it. Later, a report depended on it. Eventually nobody remembers why it was there, but deleting it feels risky.

We’ve had cases where a field looked completely unused until we traced the workflows, reports and integrations connected to it.

So when we clean up a CRM, we don’t start by deleting everything that looks old. We first check where the field is being used and what depends on it. Some things can be removed safely; others just need to be replaced properly first.

It’s a small thing, but it has saved us from breaking parts of a CRM that looked unrelated to the cleanup.

What’s the most unexpected dependency you’ve found while cleaning up a CRM?

we've had the same linkedin extension for sales for like 2 years now and its starting to fell clunky. the UI hasnt been updated in forever and it crashes on every other profile. right now im using sales nativator + LeadIQ for contact finding but LeadIQ is getting expensive for what it does.

but im wondering what else is out there. what linkedin chrome extension are you all running these days? looking for something that:

• doesnt crash every 5 minutes
• finds verified emails (not just guesses)
• ideally has mobile numbers too
• plays nice with Salesforce

im in SaaS, team of 8 SDRs, doung about 200 prospects per day across the team. price isnt a huge issue if the data quality is there. my manager keeps asking why our bounce rates are so high and honestly i think its the tools and not us lol

Is there one (or a few) CRMs that are best for realtors in the US, in 2026?

I'm looking for one and wondering which ones are most recommended, and why.

Is there a particular CRM that has been a game changer for you, as a realtor?

I run a small freight forwarding company. Our customer history was a mailbox: who asked for 700 pallets, where a thread went quiet, which company bought three times and has not written since spring. Every CRM I tried wanted me to type all of that in by hand, so none of them lasted a month.

So I spent the last months building one that reads the mailbox instead. It connects over IMAP, Gmail or Microsoft 365, reads the history once, keeps it in sync, and remembers what each thread was about: deals closed, inquiries left open, quantities, products. From that it builds one list of companies worth another try.

On my own install: 13,688 conversations read, 181 companies enriched, 178 people with a real reason to call again.

Some notes for this sub specifically:

Everything runs on your machine. Postgres, the API, the app and the agent, four containers, one command to start. About 430 MB to pull, amd64 and arm64, runs fine on a 4 GB VPS.

The AI part is optional and it is yours. You paste an OpenRouter, OpenAI or Anthropic key, or you paste nothing and keep a normal CRM without summaries. Without a key nothing leaves the machine.

License is AGPL-3.0. Docs are at reloopcrm. com/docs, install is documented, and there is a rollback path in there too.

What it is not: it is early, I am the main user, there is no mobile app, no import from another CRM yet, and the win-back ranking is my own scoring, not something proven on other businesses.

Repo: github. com/reloopcrm/reloop

If you self-host something with a mailbox in it, I would like to hear where this breaks for you.

I just got asked to "do" CRM setup. I worked with the founder previously and they want me to come on to do something I honestly haven't done. They know this and said "just give it a try" lol.

The company has like 4 pieces of software that different teams are using to manage their departments (apartment renting software (pipedrive), some vacation rentals (cloudbeds), gym software (trybe), cafe software (sevenrooms), conference room booking, and events), it's a luxury apartment compex. I have set up a customer support CRM in the past and sales CRM in salesforce, but I am just lost. Nothing reliably feeds into their central CRM except the conference room bookings, but it's one way.

Would anyone lend me their time or advice on how to set this up? I can chat whenever, if you can warn me of pitfalls lmk.

Basically we have a TON of data in the cafe about the persona and each person bc they research people and tag them, so that's an interesting piece.

Right now I am making sure

1. All the tags / classifications are uniform across the systems
2. All the tags have a home in hubspot and are organized
3. The de-duping is working in the CDP (customer data platform)
4. And most of all, our CRM is midway through an integration sevenrooms (cafe) and trybe (gym), but management is getting impatient. Should I try to build something with Zapier...? Or just leave it and upload manually in the meantime to make sure my framework makes sense...?

The conference room data and events has no integration slated

I just got asked to "do" CRM setup. I worked with the founder previously and they want me to come on to do something I honestly haven't done. They know this and said "just give it a try" lol.

The company has like 4 pieces of software that different teams are using to manage their departments (apartment renting software (pipedrive), some vacation rentals (cloudbeds), gym software (trybe), cafe software (sevenrooms), conference room booking, and events), it's a luxury apartment compex. I have set up a customer support CRM in the past and sales CRM in salesforce, but I am just lost. Nothing reliably feeds into their central CRM except the conference room bookings, but it's one way.

Would anyone lend me their time or advice on how to set this up? I can chat whenever, if you can warn me of pitfalls lmk.

Basically we have a TON of data in the cafe about the persona and each person bc they research people and tag them, so that's an interesting piece.

Right now I am making sure

1) All the tags / classifications are uniform across the systems

2) All the tags have a home in hubspot and are organized

3) The de-duping is working in the CDP (customer data platform)

4) And most of all, our CRM is midway through an integration sevenrooms (cafe) and trybe (gym), but management is getting impatient. Should I try to build something with Zapier...? Or just leave it and upload manually in the meantime to make sure my framework makes sense...?

The conference room data and events has no integration slated

Hi everyone,

If you're looking for something straightforward and easy to use for cold calling and cold mailing without dealing with bloated, pricey cloud software, you might want to take a look at Prospect Legend (a tool I’ve been building, currently in beta).

I used to work at a call center a while back, and when I searched for a simple solution for my own prospecting needs, I found most tools are either too expensive for my needs or packed with unnecessary features. I relied on Excel sheets for a while, but tracking data over time can get a bit messy.

So, I built a no-nonsense tool that is 100% local for Windows, designed to avoid heavy setups or account creations, for solopreneurs or very small teams :

• Direct Excel/CSV Integration: It reads and updates your local .xlsx files directly, featuring file locking and automatic backups.
• Streamlined Workflow: Includes an integrated auto-dialer, quick status logging (No answer, Subscribed, Refused), an appointment planner, and handles 4 email templates to pre-fill follow-up pipelines in one click.
• Native Protocols: Launches actions directly from your default phoning and mailing apps.
• Gamified Sessions: Features a gamified system (XP points, combos) to keep morale going during calling sessions.

FULL DISCLOSURE:

• The interface is currently in French

  (English version coming very soon)

• . Obviously, if there is enough interest from this community, I'll probably translate the whole thing into English!

• No Cloud Sync: It operates using structured local .xlsx file rather than live native syncs with tools like Salesforce or HubSpot.

I’m looking for a few people (8 – 12 ppl) to test out the beta.

If you're open to testing it during a 30-day free trial period and sharing some much-appreciated feedback, DM me and I'll send over the link to the beta test recruitment page.

Have a great day, and thanks for reading!

This is a weekly post for you to let out about something which happened this week for you in CRM that mattered: features, client requests that were either great or awful this week, and just generally chat CRM / CRM consulting chatter.

No self promo, just a place to share tales from the front-line of CRM!

I’m looking to start using aCRM for a service business with highly custom jobs. I don’t need out reach, it’s the inbound customers I want to track better. Right now I have stuff scattered and spend too much time finding contact info, paper notes, photos via text etc.

-inbound is generally phone or email, occasionally text, possibly I could get captures through a website form

-one sales person

-capture and summarize phone calls (testing Quo and it works great as a stand alone)

-turn on recorder and capture in person meetings

-one place to see this customers last contracted date, and all recent communication (email, text, meetings, phone calls)

-integrate with Quickbooks, Gmail, dropbox would be nice too

-reminders or a dashboard to see pipeline, or who I need to follow up on estimates, who I need to get estimates out to, who I’m waiting on photos or other details to prepare my estimate

-once the estimate is approved and I schedule customer I want to keep tracking phone calls bc I can capture changes to the job. we have a lot of scope creep.

-I went through a hubspot sales talk and it seems too expensive ($1k/month) and too many features for me.

Looking for advice on evaluating a migration to either Neon One or Member 365. We are a Canadian member-driven org (900 members) and are looking to move away from Wild Apricot.

I'm wondering if anyone could share the top factors they considered when making the move. I am looking to make a decision that will best set the organization up with an effective and usable tool for the next five years.

Has anyone actually managed to remove a contact from a pending Manual Call (Power Dialer) task automatically?

Setup: contact enters Stage X → Manual Call action adds them to the dialer queue. When the stage changes to Y, I want the pending call task gone.

"Remove from Workflow" doesn't seem to clear the task from Conversations > Manual Actions, and I can't find a dedicated action for it. There's an open feature request for this on the ideas board.

But someone showed me a sub-account where it apparently does work: contact moves to Hot Lead and disappears from the dialer. The workflow is locked, so I can't see how it's built.

Has anyone got this working? If so, what's the actual setup?

Thanks!

I have tried so hard. My whole life.

I have been blessed compared to most.

16 yr old mom

Alcoholic dad

But they loved me

Huge family. 33 first cousins just on my mom's side.

It all just came so easy to me.

I breezed through high school.

Went to a great college in Boston. No idea how my mom managed that.

Never had a pot to piss in, but didn't know I was really missing a pot.

Always had what I needed I guess.

BS Aerospace Engineering. Why engineering? My 10th grade architectural drawing teacher told me I'd be good at it. That was enough for me. I always seemed to take the path of least resistance.

Bought a one way plane ticket to SoCal with the first $200 I earned washing dishes at an ice cream parlor after I graduated.

Had to lie to the manager to get the job. Why would they hire a recent grad with a BS in Engineering for a dishwasher job.

I couldn't wait to leave. I don't know why. My life was nice. OK.

Like I said, never wanted for anything.

And from that point on, it all just seems to be a blur.

I packed everything I had (honestly I don't remember at all how that happened, but I am sure it was packed in an old hockey bag, and my 3 pairs of pants and few shirts)

I am 58. So that was 36 years ago.

I have 5 kids (fathered 4, 1 step).

Moved to SoCal, lived with my larger than life uncle J. Love and hate him, he was a force of nature.

Lived near the marine base at El Toro. No car.

But wtf, I was in Cali.

But, no car. Hard to apply for jobs in 1990 with no way to get to the interviews.

After a month or two, my cousin asked me to come visit NorCal, East Bay.

She was considerably older than me (like an aunt). She babysat me when I was young.

She paid for me to fly up (I had no money)

It was amazing. East Bay Cali in 1990. Beautiful weather, beautiful people.

She said I could stay and live with her and her family, my uncle Jack, and their 2 young kids.

I jumped at the chance. They had a house, food, and cars. Don't get me wrong, I loved them very much, and was very grateful. But this was a much better situation.

I remember being there for a few weeks, and having an odd feeling. I couldn't put my finger on it.

It was sunny ALL THE TIME. And hot. Boston wasn't.

And the biggest thing I think I noticed was, no fights.

None.

Never.

In Boston, you went to a bar, a party, the park. And someone was pissed at someone else for something fucking stupid and usually came to blows.

Now, I wasn't a fighter, only 1 in my life and hated it. But I was around it a lot. Too much.

My cousin had some friends that got me my first waiter job. Making pretty good $. No real bills. I was living the high life.

They even helped me get a job in the Embarcadero in SF. Nuclear Piping Analysis.

$32,600/year and a Diners Club card. Never had a credit card before.

I worked in the city for a year. Waited tables at night in the East Bay. White table cloth.

Tableside prep.

Closed the bars after work (never had $ in college, so never spent much time in bars - it was all engineering school frat parties, if that tells you anything, it was great)

The company I worked for was so big they actually had commuter vans they would let you buy seats on, that would pick you up in the East Bay and drive you to the Embarcadero. BART or the drive would have been brutal.

So I would work 7-5 in the city. Take the van back to the East Bay, it would drop me off at the restaurant, work until close, go out and spend my tips until the bar closed. Sleep til 5, and meet the van at a local bar parking lot that opened at 6 for the night crew.

The people on the van thought I was a narcoleptic. I slept every minute I was on that van. I would get on at 6am and wake up in the parking lot at 6:50. Then after work, I would be asleep by 5:10, and wake up in the parking lot of the restaurant at 6pm, work until close and then close the bars at 2am. Rinse, repeat. Oh what glorious days lol.

Looking back, that is a skill I wish the 58 year old me still had. The ability to SLEEP like you had no worries in the world. Nowhere to go and all day to get there.

I was a rockstar at both. Barely out of college working with 20 year vets on in depth nuclear platforms.

It was a blur.

I was 24. Did a couple of stints in Alabama, working on a refuel project at a nuc power plant. Made HUGE $. $100k (in 1992 - wtf). Worked 60-70 hours a week, but who cares. I was young and invincible.

And, here was a pivotal time, where some guidance in my life would have been helpful.

I was blessed (or cursed) with being attractive. Enough so that I had some modeling agencies approach me. The bright, level headed engineer would have politely discussed and declined, but the loner I was drank the koolaid.

I got paid off (temporarily, all I had to do was wait a couple months for a new project). But no, instead I took an offer to move to Dallas and model. No guarantees, no plan. $10k in the bank (I was rich as far as I had thought).

I never worried about anything. Things just always worked out.

And they did, until they didn't.

I got the entrepreneur bug when I was in Dallas. 26 yrs old. Pregnant girlfriend. No money, no family, no job.

I was always blinded by the idea that great ideas and hard work led to success.

And it did, until it didn't.

I guess that might be the biggest lesson I learned (and am still learning) in my life.

I had the pleasure and misfortune of being in Dallas in the mid 90s. Deep Ellum, AudioNet, Broadcast.com, Mark Cuban.

I was there. Touched it and tasted it.

And had some success.

And it worked out, until it didn't.

A bad partner.

A bad contract.

Bad timing.

Bad decisions.

Every great idea, great opportunity, sure thing, can't miss, all had an expiration date.

I have used a saying for a long time. I'm pushing this rock up this hill. At some point, it will level out, and the stress and strain of life will subside.

And it does, until it doesn't.

I am 58, and I'm still pushing this rock up this hill. In that time, I've had 3 patents and taken a company public. And I still think I see the plateau, the point it will all make sense.

I even had an ex wife tell me that I was unrealistically optimistic.

I took it as a compliment at the time.

But now, I'm not so sure. At 58, being optimistic seems short sighted, and even conceited.

I am fortunate (or cursed) that I still wake up every day and feel invigorated, but the pressure seems to grow every year. The guilt, the shame. For not making the right decisions. For not living up to my potential. For not being the role model and figure I think I should be for my kids.

Now my babies have babies. I have 4 (soon to be 5) grandbabies. My wife had brain surgery. My brother has cirrhosis. My mom's husband has Alzheimer's.

It all seemed so much easier before.

I wish I could tell the young me to pay more attention. To take care of the little things. Don't stress on the little things, but take care of them.

My journey is far from over. And I feel blessed because I honestly think my best days are still ahead of me.

Hi, can somebody help me find a great CRM I could use my merchant account through NMI or authorize.net. So far I found Zoho and they have too many apps for me. I really just want something simple that allows him to send contracts, manage projects, capture a lead, send invoice that connected through those gateway to connect to my merchant account.

An overdue counter can make five records look like five calls. The notes can tell a different story.

Context: one independent agent, existing enquiries, manual follow-ups. These are fictional examples. Disclosure: I build Boring CRM.

Record	Latest note
A	You promised a two-property comparison yesterday. It hasn't been sent.
B	A viewing is in two hours. The meeting point has changed.
C	The buyer asked you to pause until next month, but an old reminder is due today.
D	A new enquiry asked for the brochure 20 minutes ago.
E	The person has asked you to stop contacting them. An old follow-up task is still open.

My first step is to fix the queue. Mark E as do-not-contact and remove their pending outreach, keeping the preference recorded. Move C out of today's contact list and set an internal review in the agreed month. Neither needs a sales call today.

For the remaining three, I'd handle B → A → D:

• B: confirm the changed meeting point through the agreed channel. A time-sensitive appointment could otherwise go wrong.
• A: deliver the promised comparison. If it isn't ready, acknowledge the delay and give a realistic delivery time. Another generic check-in doesn't fulfil the promise.
• D: answer the actual request with the brochure. Don't turn a simple inbound request into a qualification interview before sending it.

That order assumes these are short actions. If A needs 30 minutes of preparation, send D the ready brochure while arranging a realistic completion time for A. The queue is a decision aid, not a rule that forbids judgment.

Copyable task format:

Person | What I owe them | Due date/time | Next concrete action | Contact preference/pause

Example: A | Two-property comparison | Yesterday | Send the comparison with the commute trade-off highlighted | Email preferred

A completed task should say what happened and what comes next, even if that next step is to stop. Otherwise the same vague "follow up" reminder just returns next week.

Where would you put the new enquiry relative to the overdue promise? What specific deadline or context would change your order?

I recently built a custom CRM for an online coaching company that was using Razorpay for payments.
The main problem was that payment data, customer information, course access, batches, emails, and WhatsApp communication were all separate.
So I built a system that connects everything together.

What it does
Razorpay → CRM: I created a webhook that receives payment data from Razorpay and automatically adds the customer and payment information to the CRM.
Automatic batch & access management: Customers are automatically organized according to the batch/course they purchased and the access they should receive.
Customer 360° view: We can see the customer’s complete history, including how many courses they purchased, payments, batch information, and other details.
Email automation: Automated emails can be triggered based on different events.
WhatsApp automation: Business WhatsApp messages can also be triggered automatically.
Revenue tracking: The dashboard shows revenue and payment-related information.
Automation monitoring: I can see whether a particular trigger/automation was executed successfully or not.
Everything in one place: Instead of switching between Razorpay, spreadsheets, email tools, WhatsApp, etc., the team can manage everything from the CRM.
The interesting part for me wasn’t just building another CRM.
It was connecting the payment → customer → course → batch → access → communication → automation flow together.

I’m curious how other people are handling this.

If you run an online coaching/course business, what does your current workflow look like? Are you using a CRM, spreadsheets, multiple SaaS tools, or something custom?

Initially, our CRM belonged to the sales department, although it has been difficult to maintain this assertion recently because automation has crossed into marketing, finance, and customer onboarding. The person responsible for understanding the process is the sales ops individual, and IT takes care of security and integrations. Meanwhile, departments are claiming that they need to run their own workflows.

There was one case where someone made an alteration to automation that caused changes in the part that does not relate to sales, making us lose information. I am dealing with the query of the governing model before it becomes even more complicated. In large organizations using highly customized workflow in CRM, could you tell me who is responsible for maintaining it? Do business units have administrative rights?

Does IT supervise the changes made? Is it reasonable to have a change management system at all?