The Daily Basics

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After this lesson you'll be able to do the daily CRM tasks that keep the business moving: create records, find accounts, update stages, add notes, manage follow-up, and keep your work visible to the team.

These ten moves are the whole day-to-day. Master them and the CRM stops being a chore and becomes the fastest way to know where anything stands — an arena renewal, a stadium display bid, a service escalation. Skip them and the record of a multi-year venue relationship lives in your inbox, which helps nobody at proposal time.

Every task below is shown two ways. Use whichever feels easier — both get you to the same result.

That list above is where most days start. Everything below is just acting on it.

Daily rhythm

Use this rhythm at the start and end of the day:

1. Open your main view.
2. Check what changed since yesterday.
3. Update records you own.
4. Add notes for meaningful conversations.
5. Confirm next steps and dates.
6. Review anything due this week.
7. Ask the assistant for anything missing, stale, or overdue.

1. Create an opportunity

• Click it: open Opportunities → press New record (top right) → fill in the name, account, owner, amount, stage, close date, and business unit → it saves automatically.
• Or just ask:

Good record check: a new opportunity should not be just a name. It should have the account, owner, stage, date, and enough context for another person to understand it. The business unit matters more than it looks — it decides which vertical (Technology, Venue Services, or Media/Sponsorship) the deal reports under.

2. Find a record

• Click it: use the search bar at the top — type a company name, contact, opportunity name, venue, team, or opportunity number.
• Or just ask:

If the search returns more than one possible match, open the account with the right relationship, recent activity, owner, or linked opportunity. Do not create a new record until you check for duplicates.

3. Open an account

• Click it: go to Companies → click the company → its page shows every opportunity, contact, ticket, and note in one place.
• Or just ask:

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Make this your reflex before any client conversation: two minutes on the Company page tells you every open deal, the last note, and any open service ticket — so you never walk into a call blind on something another team is handling.

4. Update a stage or status

• Click it: open the opportunity → change the Stage field to the new step.
• Or just ask:

When you change a stage, update the next step at the same time. Stage tells the team where the deal sits; next step tells them what happens next. On bid work, keep Bid Status current too — win/loss reporting is built from it.

5. Edit a field

• Click it: open the record → click straight into the field you want (close date, amount, etc.) → type → it saves.
• Or just ask:

For financial or client-facing fields, verify the source before changing the value. If the amount came from a proposal, bid tab, contract, or client message, make sure the CRM value matches it.

6. Save to favorites

• Click it: open a record or view → click the star → it pins to the top of your menu.
• Or just ask:

7. Switch between views

• Click it: at the top of any list, open the view dropdown (e.g. "All Opportunities") and pick a saved view — Pipeline, Backlog, and others.
• Or just ask:

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8. See only your accounts

• Click it: open a list → add a filter for owner = you → save it as your own view. Now you only see your accounts, not everyone's.
• Or just ask:

9. Add a useful note

• Click it: open the account or opportunity → add a note with what happened, who was involved, and what happens next.
• Or just ask:

Use this structure:

What happened:
Current status:
Next step:
Owner:
Due date:
Risk or blocker:

10. Review what is stale

• Click it: open your pipeline view → sort by last activity or close date → open anything that looks old, overdue, or missing next step.
• Or just ask:

Stale records are not harmless. They distort the forecast, create surprise follow-up, and make handoffs harder.

Common mistakes

What good looks like

Your daily basics are solid when: your open opportunities all have a current stage, a next step, and a realistic date; every meaningful conversation from this week has a note; your main view is starred and you start the day from it; and you can do any task on this page both ways — clicking and asking — without looking it up.

Now you try →

Pick five from this list and do them in the real CRM. Do at least two by clicking and at least two by asking the assistant. Finish by updating one note or next step on a real record you own.

👉 Open the CRM

Related lessons: Meet the Assistant · Finding Anything Fast · Working Standard