Chapter 12 of 39 · Grow
CRM: activities, reports and automations
The Insights part of the CRM menu helps you stay on top of things. Contacts lists everyone by person or by company. Activities is your task list and a feed of everything that's happened. Reports shows where your deals stand and why some are lost. Automations are simple rules (when this happens, do that) that save you remembering the next step.
How it works
What you can do here
- See every contact, by person or grouped by company
- Work through overdue, today's and upcoming tasks
- See pipeline by stage, forecast by close date, leads by source and lost reasons
- Turn on ready-made automations, or build your own
1. Contacts
- 1
Open Contacts
Everyone in your CRM, by person or by company.
- 2
Search
Use Search contacts to find anyone by name, company or email.
- 3
Import or export
Import a spreadsheet here too, or export your contacts.
2. Activities and tasks
- 1
Open Activities
Your tasks are at the top, sorted into Overdue, Today, Upcoming and No date.
- 2
Add a task
Give it a due date, the customer it's about, and who it's for.
- 3
See everyone's tasks
Use Whose tasks to switch between yours and the whole team's.
- 4
Tick it off
Mark tasks done as you go. When the list is empty you'll see "Nothing to do. Nicely done."
- 5
Read the recent activity
Below, calls, notes and changes show as they happen. Tasks created by Winston AI or by an automation say so.
3. Reports
- 1
Pipeline by stage
How many deals, and how much money, sit in each stage.
- 2
Forecast by expected close
What's likely to close and when, from each deal's expected close date.
- 3
Leads by source
Which channels bring in customers.
- 4
Team
How each owner is doing.
- 5
Why deals were lost
The reasons you gave when moving deals to Lost. Look for patterns.
4. Automations
An automation is a sentence: when something happens, Winston does the next step. They run on customers from anywhere: added by hand, imported, from Pipelines or from chat.
- 1
Start from a recipe
Pick one, such as Call new leads within a day, Chase proposals after 3 days, Qualified leads are hot, Ask won customers for a review, Tag won deals as customers, or Send a welcome email. Press Turn it on.
- 2
Or build your own
Under Build your own, choose the trigger (a customer is added, or a deal moves to a stage), where from, and the action: add a task due in so many days, add a tag, mark them hot, warm or cold, or assign them to someone.
- 3
See what's running
Your automations are listed at the top. Delete any you no longer want.
Try it yourself
Doing is the fastest way to learn. Open the tab and try these:
- Turn on Chase proposals after 3 days.
- Open Reports and find your biggest source of leads.