Working Standard
The baseline rules for clean CRM records, reliable dashboards, and useful handoffs.
After this lesson you will know the minimum standard every record should meet before you rely on it, share it, forecast from it, or hand it to another team.
The CRM is only useful when the next person can trust what they see. This standard keeps the system clean enough for sales follow-up, service work, sponsorship reporting, bid references, leadership dashboards, and account history.
Here's the stakes in ANC terms. A single stadium project passes through many hands: the account executive who opened the conversation, the estimator who priced the display, the proposal lead who packaged the bid, the operations team who installs and services it. Each handoff runs on what the previous person left in the record. Leadership reads the same records rolled up into forecast and performance dashboards — and pipeline reporting works off probability and stage, so one stale field quietly reshapes the number the whole company plans around. The working standard isn't bureaucracy; it's what makes the handoffs and the numbers real.
The handoff test
Situation
You won a display deal at an MLS venue and you are going on leave. A teammate picks up the account cold on Monday.
Goal
They open the record and know the value, the stage, the client contact, the next step, and what was promised — without calling you.
Proof
The record passes the checklist below with nothing missing and no duplicate account splitting the story.
Minimum standard before you trust a record
- No obvious duplicate Company or person record.
- Owner, stage/status, next step, and date are clear.
- Notes explain what changed and who owns the next action.
- Important numbers match the source record or attachment.
1. Search before you create
Before creating a company, person, opportunity, placement, or service item, search for the existing record.
Use at least two searches:
- Search the exact name.
- Search a shortened name, common abbreviation, or venue/team name.
Examples:
- Search Madison Square Garden, then MSG.
- Search New York Knicks, then Knicks.
- Search Fenway Sports Group, then Red Sox if the work is tied to the venue or team.
Sports accounts are especially duplicate-prone because the same organization has several legitimate names — the team, the venue, the ownership group, the operating entity. Pick the existing record even if its name isn't the one you'd have chosen; a rename later is trivial, a merge is work.
Duplicate check before creating
Why this matters
Duplicate records split the history. One person sees the contract, another sees the service ticket, and leadership sees incomplete numbers. Searching first prevents that.
2. Keep ownership obvious
Every important record should make it clear who owns the next action.
Check these fields whenever you open a record:
- Owner — who is accountable for the record.
- Stage or status — where the work stands now.
- Next step — what has to happen next.
- Due date or close date — when the next decision or deliverable is expected.
- Amount or value — the current best known value, if the record is financial.
If one of these is missing, fill it in or ask the owner before using the record in a report. A record with no owner is a record nobody is accountable for — and it will sit untouched until a client asks why.
Find your ownership gaps
3. Write notes for the next person
A good note is short, but complete. It should answer:
- What happened?
- Who was involved?
- What changed?
- What happens next?
- Is there a deadline or risk?
Use this format when you are unsure:
Met with [client/contact] about [topic].
Current status: [what changed].
Next step: [who does what by when].
Risk or note: [anything leadership/service/sales should know].The test of a note is simple: could someone who wasn't on the call act on it? "Good call, they're interested" fails the test. "They want revised pricing on the ribbon boards by Friday; Sarah owns the revision; decision expected at their board meeting on the 20th" passes it.
Turn a call into a clean note
4. Update the source record, not only the report
Dashboards are summaries. They are not where the truth begins.
If a dashboard looks wrong, go back to the source record and check the fields driving it:
- Opportunity stage
- Bid Status
- Close date
- Amount
- Business unit
- Account relationship
- Owner
- Placement or verification status
- Service ticket status
The business-unit field deserves a special mention: ANC reports revenue in three verticals — Technology, Venue Services, and Media/Sponsorship — and leadership reads performance broken out that way. A deal filed under the wrong vertical is invisible in the report where people are looking for it.
Trace a number to its fields
5. Use views as working queues
Saved views are how the CRM becomes daily work, not just a database.
Use views for:
- Deals you own
- Deals due this week
- Open service tickets
- Sponsor placements needing review
- Missing close dates
- Stale opportunities
- Won deals needing handoff
- Accounts with no recent activity
Several of these already exist as shared views — the proposal team runs its week out of a pipeline view sorted by proposal due date, and there are dedicated views for backlog and win/loss review. Check the view dropdown before building your own.
If you find yourself exporting the same spreadsheet every week, that probably belongs as a saved view.
Turn a repeated export into a view
6. Verify important numbers
The assistant can find and summarize fast, but important numbers still need a source check.
Always verify before sending or presenting:
- Revenue totals
- Contract values
- Forecast numbers
- Win/loss counts
- Bid references
- Nielsen or sponsorship verification details
- Client-facing dates
- Service commitments
Use the assistant to get to the answer, then click into the records behind it.
Verify before you quote
What good looks like
A clean record is not perfect. It is usable.
Before you move on, make sure the record has:
- A clear name
- The right company/account attached
- The right owner
- A current status or stage
- A realistic date
- A useful next step
- Notes that explain the last meaningful activity
- No obvious duplicate sitting nearby
Hold yourself to this bar every time you touch a record and you will never have to do a painful cleanup later — the standard maintains itself in thirty-second increments.
Now you try
Open one account you use often and review it against the standard above. Fix one missing field, add one useful note, and check whether a duplicate exists.
Related lessons: The Daily Basics · Cleaning Up Accounts · Asking the CRM for Numbers
Key takeaways
- Search twice before creating anything — exact name, then abbreviation or team/venue name.
- Owner, stage, next step, date, value: if one is missing, the record is not ready to be trusted.
- Notes are for the next person — status, next step, and risk they can act on without calling you.
- Fix source records, not dashboards; verify any number before it goes in front of someone.
Check yourself
You need to log a new opportunity for work at Madison Square Garden. What is the correct first move?