crm

name

crm

description

Use this skill whenever Shaw mentions leads, contacts, sales pipeline activity, or anything CRM-related — even casually. Triggers include: "check my CRM", "update the CRM", "any updates on leads?", "add this person to the CRM", "review my pipeline", "follow up with X", "anyone worth following up with", "check active campaigns", "did anyone respond?", "cross-reference Gmail", "ABA contact form", or any mention of a specific lead's name in a sales context. Also triggers when Shaw shares new contact form submissions or inbound emails that look like potential leads. Also triggers for client/nurture activity: "check on my clients", "any clients due for check-ins", "move this lead to clients", "nurture review", or any mention of existing clients and expansion opportunities. Also triggers when a discovery call is booked — directly or surfaced during a sync. Follow-up reviews cover Active Leads, Clients (Nurture), AND any active campaign trackers linked from the CRM page.

CRM Skill

Shaw runs a B2B AI enablement sales pipeline and client nurture system. This skill governs how to read, update, and act on his CRM in Notion — both the Active Leads pipeline and the Clients (Nurture) database. It covers cross-referencing Gmail for new activity, checking call notes in Notion, adding new leads, moving closed deals to the client database, and proactively managing follow-ups across both tables.

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Key Locations

CRM-specific sub-databases (sub-pages of the CRM page, not in the main database catalog):

Resource	Location
CRM page	Notion page ID: [page-id]
Active Leads database	Data source: collection://[database-id]
Clients (Nurture) database	Data source: collection://[database-id]
🧊 Archived Leads database	Data source: collection://[database-id] (parent: CRM page)
Partners database	Data source: collection://[database-id] (parent: ABA (Master) page) — non-lead network: partners, affiliates, subcontractors, peers

For ABA Calls (sales calls), ABA Trainings (delivery sessions: 1:1 workshops, trainings, ongoing engagements), and ABA (tasks, launches, events, outreach) — see the canonical catalog in notion-helper/SKILL.md → "Main Databases." Event-type SOPs (Discovery Call, Check-in Call and its spokes, Wrap-up Call, 1:1 Claude Workshop) are discovered at runtime by notion-helper — it fetches the SOPs page and matches by title rather than relying on hardcoded IDs.

Gmail account: [e-mail] (all outbound sales activity lives here) Google Calendar: Available via the gcal_list_events tool — use as an additional signal for recent meetings

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Active Leads Database Schema

Field	Type	Notes
Name	Title	Full name
Email	Text	Email address
Source	Multi-select	LinkedIn, YouTube, Personal, Referral, ABB, ABA Contact, ABA Discovery Call, Homepage Contact. Referral = warm intro from an existing client, partner, or other contact (e.g., a current client introduces Shaw to an investor or peer). ABA Contact = aibuilder.academy contact form. ABA Discovery Call = direct Calendly booking on aibuilder.academy (no contact form first — they jumped straight to scheduling). Homepage Contact = shawhintalebi.com contact form.
Status	Multi-select	Pending Call, Booked Call, Outline Sent, Closed, Lost, Disqualified
Last Contact?	Date	Date of most recent touchpoint
Next Contact	Date	Date of next planned touchpoint. Structured replacement for "FU in April"-style notes. Workflow 1 uses this to surface what's due. See references/follow-up-guidance.md for cadence defaults by situation.
Notes	Text	Short chronological log (see format below)

Notes Format

Short, comma-separated, date-stamped pipeline actions only. Never write full sentences. Notes should record what happened in the sales process — not details about the lead's business, team, tech stack, budget, or call content. That context lives in the ABA Calls page and doesn't need to be duplicated here.

Good examples:

• Warm outreach (3/4). FU (3/11). Asked about individual training (3/12). Replied about ABA (3/13).
• ABA contact form (3/16). Replied, offered call (3/16).
• Call on 3/13. Not right now.
• Call w/ [Lead Name] & [Lead Name] (3/27). Sending proposal (3/28).
• Booked ABA Intro Call 6/2 (5/31). (first entry on a new lead — just the trigger)
• [Lead Name] (CFO/COO, [email]) replied accepting, sent next steps (6/1). Closed (6/1). (multi-person reply compressed to the lead actor)

Bad examples:

• Call w/ [Lead Name] & [Lead Name] (3/27). [Company] growth analytics, small team, already using MCP + agents. $2k L&D budget/person. Sending proposal (3/28). (business context belongs in the ABA Calls page, not Notes)
• Booked ABA Intro Call 6/2 4pm CT (5/31). Saw Cowork for Execs video. Owns business, already using Claude. At [Company] ([linkedin-url] — AI solutions exec). (everything after the booking line is background — that belongs in the page body's Context section)
• [Lead Name] (CFO/COO, [email]) replied for [Lead Name] — accepted, moving forward w/ 4 participants ([Lead Name], [Lead Name], [Lead Name], [Lead Name]). cc'd [email] + [email] (6/1). Replied w/ next steps: kickoff email + invoice (6/1). Closed (6/1). (too verbose — don't list every cc'd person or unpack what "next steps" included)

Rules:

• Always append new entries; never overwrite existing notes
• Use (M/D) date format
• Common shorthands: FU = follow up, BAMFAM = book a meeting, from a meeting, ABA = AI Builder Academy, ABB = AI Builders Bootcamp
• Only include: outreach actions, call dates, proposal/outline sent, follow-ups, responses, status changes
• Do NOT include: company details, team size, tech stack, budget info, call discussion topics, lead role/title, intake form answers, how they heard about Shaw, links to their LinkedIn or website. All of that lives in the page body's Context section.
• First Notes entry on a new lead is just the trigger. A new Active Lead's first entry logs only the pipeline action that created the record (e.g. Booked ABA Intro Call 6/2 (5/31)., ABA contact form (3/16). Replied, offered call (3/16)., Warm outreach DM (3/4).). Background, role, company, and intake answers go in the Context section of the page body, not Notes.
• Compress multi-person replies. When several stakeholders get cc'd in a single reply, log who acted and what happened — not every cc'd address, and not what was inside "next steps." Use shorter form: [Lead Name] (CFO/COO) replied accepting, sent next steps (6/1). Reserve full email addresses for the page body's Context/stakeholders list (and add them there once, the first time they appear).
• Do NOT include future-FU markers (e.g., "FU in April", "BAMFAM 4/30"). Those belong in the Next Contact field. Notes log what happened; Next Contact tracks what's next.
• When other stakeholders are involved in a deal (e.g. a second contact on the thread), mention them by name so future sessions have context without re-reading the full email chain. Example: [Person] ([email]) responded, evaluating proposals (3/17).

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Sales Pipeline Stages

Contact → Book Call → Attend Call → Send Outline/Proposal → Closed

Status should reflect the furthest confirmed stage reached:

• Pending Call — call link sent or time proposed, awaiting confirmation
• Booked Call — call confirmed on calendar
• Outline Sent — proposal/outline sent after call
• Closed — deal won
• Lost — explicitly not moving forward (but may circle back later — set Next Contact to the re-engagement date)
• Disqualified — not a fit at all (wrong audience, wrong ask, low-quality inbound). No re-engagement — leave Next Contact blank. Can be dual-tagged with Lost for view tidiness; the sync ignores them either way because their Next Contact is blank.

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Lead Archiving

The 🧊 Archived Leads database (sub-page of the CRM page) holds Lost and Disqualified leads that have aged out — Shaw periodically batch-moves them out of Active Leads to keep the working pipeline focused. Same schema as Active Leads minus formula columns; Next Contact is blank on every archived record (terminal, no re-engagement planned from this table — true re-engagements get re-added to Active Leads).

Archived Leads are a historical record, not a working queue. Don't draft follow-ups against them, don't auto-fill Next Contact, and don't surface them in syncs as "due" or "worth reviewing". Do treat them as known not-orphans when reconciling ABA Calls — see Workflow 1.

Lifecycle: Active Leads (working pipeline) → status changes to Lost / Disqualified → stays in Active Leads with a re-engagement date or blank Next Contact → moved to Archived Leads manually when the re-engagement window has clearly closed.

Archiving is a manual batch operation — no dedicated workflow.

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Clients (Nurture) Database Schema

This table holds people who have paid Shaw — the goal is to nurture clients for expansion and to constantly hear their problems to inform marketing and new offers.

Field	Type	Notes
Name	Title	Full name
Email	Text	Email address
Source	Multi-select	LinkedIn, YouTube, Personal, Referral, ABB, ABA Contact, ABA Discovery Call, Homepage Contact. Mirrors Active Leads — source carries over when a lead graduates to a client.
Status	Multi-select	Active, Nurturing, Expansion, Churned
Last Contact?	Date	Date of most recent touchpoint
Next Contact	Date	Date of next planned touchpoint — same field as Active Leads. See "Next Contact semantics" below for how its meaning shifts by status.
Engagement Type	Multi-select	1:1, Workshop, Bootcamp, Ad Hoc Advisory
Notes	Text	Short chronological log (see Client Notes Format below)

Next Contact semantics

Next Contact is a catch-all for the next planned touchpoint of any kind. Most often it's a follow-up message; sometimes it's a scheduled call. The type of touchpoint is read from the linked pages on the CRM record, not from a separate field — if there's an ABA Calls or ABA Trainings page dated Next Contact, the touchpoint is a call. Otherwise assume a follow-up message.

This is the same field on both Active Leads and Clients. Workflow 1 sorts on Next Contact <= today for both tables.

Point-person anchoring (multi-person accounts)

When an engagement spans several people at one organization — a champion plus the teammates who attend sessions — the CRM holds a single record for the account, anchored on the point person: the buyer/champion Shaw negotiates with and stays in relationship with. Only that person's touchpoints move Last Contact? and Next Contact.

Teammate sessions, replies, and scheduling are real activity — link their session pages on the account record so the history is one click away — but they do not advance the account's cadence dates. Per the client-notes philosophy, those linked pages are the record of the sessions; only add a Notes line when a teammate touchpoint surfaces something relationship-level (an expansion signal, a problem worth remembering). The point is to keep the sync anchored on the relationship that actually drives the account, rather than resetting the dates every time a teammate's session lands.

Last Contact? is the most recent direct touchpoint with the point person (e.g., their last email or a call they were on); Next Contact is the next planned touchpoint with them. When a teammate touchpoint is the only recent activity, leave the point person's dates where the last point-person touchpoint put them.

Example: for the [Company] account, only [Person] (CEO/champion) carries the dates — his teammates' sessions are captured by their linked session pages, and never reset his dates.

Client Lifecycle Stages

Active → Nurturing → Expansion → (back to Nurturing or Churned)

• Active — currently in an engagement (delivering workshops, consulting, etc.). No nurture outreach needed because Shaw is already talking to them regularly. Next Contact mirrors the date of the next scheduled session — the linked ABA Trainings page is what makes it legible as a session rather than a message.
• Nurturing — engagement is complete; now in the quarterly check-in rhythm. The default state for most clients. Stay close, hear their problems, inform marketing and new offers. Next Contact holds a forward-looking outreach date (~3 months out by default) — typically a check-in message.
• Expansion — a nurture conversation has surfaced a new opportunity. They're back in a "buying" mode but warmer than a new lead because of existing trust and context. This is the highest-leverage sales motion in the CRM.
• Churned — gone quiet, stopped responding to check-ins, or explicitly said they're not interested in further engagement.

Client Notes Format

Client Notes are a high-signal relationship log, not a per-touchpoint diary. This is the biggest break from Active Leads: once someone is a client, the routine play-by-play stops earning a Notes line. The cadence dates (Last Contact? / Next Contact) plus the linked call and session pages already capture the routine — a session that happened, a follow-up that went out, an agenda confirmed, a check-in sent. Re-logging those in Notes only duplicates what the dates and linked pages already say.

Reserve Notes for things that change the relationship, or that the dates can't convey:

• Status transitions (Active → Nurturing, Nurturing → Expansion, etc.)
• Expansion conversations and new opportunities surfaced
• Engagement milestones (engagement started, wrapped, re-up)
• Durable context worth remembering (a referral made, a notable outcome, why they paused)

When a routine touchpoint happens, move the dates and leave Notes alone. When something relationship-level happens, add a short dated line.

Good examples:

• Moved from Active Leads (4/1). Workshop engagement.
• Exploring data team training (1/20). Sent proposal (1/22).
• Hired full-time AI trainer, pausing 1:1s — moved to Nurturing (4/28).

Rules:

• Same mechanics as Active Leads notes: append only, (M/D) date format, use shorthands
• Log relationship-level events, not routine touchpoints — the dates and linked pages carry those
• Do NOT duplicate business context that belongs in the page body

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Workflows

Read the relevant workflow file before executing. Each contains step-by-step instructions.

Workflow	Trigger	File
1. Three-Source Sync (Gmail ↔ ABA Calls ↔ CRM)	Shaw asks to review, sync, or audit the CRM — covers both Active Leads and Clients in a single pass	workflows/workflow-1-sync.md
2. Update a Lead	Shaw shares new info about a single lead out-of-band (reply received, call happened, proposal sent)	workflows/workflow-2-update.md
3. Add a New Lead	Shaw shares a new contact form submission, inbound email, or new lead	workflows/workflow-3-add-lead.md
4. Link Call Notes to CRM Lead Page	Connecting (or refreshing) the full list of call-note links on a lead/client page	workflows/workflow-4-link-calls.md
5. Move Lead to Clients	A deal closes and the lead needs to graduate to Clients (Nurture)	workflows/workflow-5-move-to-clients.md
6. Onboard Workshop Participant	A new participant is accepted for a free 1:1 Claude Workshop and needs CRM + ABA Trainings setup	workflows/workflow-6-onboard-workshop.md
7. Discovery Call Intake	A discovery call is booked — detected during a Workflow 1 sync, or Shaw mentions in chat that one was booked. Orchestrates CRM resolution, the ABA Calls page + brief, the FU task, and the confirmation email	workflows/workflow-7-discovery-intake.md

Client/nurture review is handled by Workflow 1, which syncs Active Leads and Clients in the same pass. Nurture-specific guidance (check-in cadence buckets, expansion signals, check-in email tone) lives in references/follow-up-guidance.md.

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References

Read these when the workflow requires follow-up assessment or email drafting.

Reference	Contents	File
Follow-Up Guidance	Follow-up cadences, drafting rules, tone guidance, lead source context	references/follow-up-guidance.md

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Three Databases Show Up During CRM Work

Shaw's leads and clients leave a trail across three databases. Keeping them straight matters because the sync workflow treats each one differently.

• ABA Calls — lead and client 1:1 conversations. Discovery, follow-up, proposal review, research chats, and check-ins — check-ins follow the base Check-in Call SOP plus one of three spokes: Check-in Call (1:1 Claude Workshop) (post-session 4Rs), Check-in Call (Client Nurture) (periodic client nurture), and Check-in Call (Lead Nurture) (warm-but-not-converted lead, no 4Rs). Workflow 1 reconciles this against the CRM in both directions, and Workflow 3 creates new entries when a brand-new sales call shows up in Gmail.
• ABA Trainings — delivery sessions only. 1:1 workshops, trainings, ongoing engagements. Shaw creates these when an engagement is scheduled (or Workflow 6 does it on onboarding); the sync workflow does NOT auto-create them.
• ABA — tasks and events. Launches, outreach, partnerships, follow-up task pages, and events. Not a lead-facing database; rarely linked on CRM pages directly.

Linking rule for CRM page bodies: ABA Calls and ABA Trainings pages both belong linked on a lead or client's CRM page. Use Workflow 4's full-rewrite rule. A lead typically accumulates sales calls (ABA Calls) before conversion and delivery sessions (ABA Trainings) after — both belong on the CRM page so the full history is one click away. ABA task/event pages are generally not linked unless a specific event is directly relevant.

Page body structure: the ## Calls section always sits at the bottom of a CRM page. Anything else — ## Context (engagement details, stakeholders, blockers, campaign tracker links), scratchwork, ad hoc sections — goes above it. Calls is a growing trail of historical links; pinning it to the bottom keeps the durable signal Shaw scans first from getting buried.

Search behavior: when fetching context for a lead, search ABA Calls and ABA Trainings by name, email, company name, and email domain — pages are sometimes filed under company name, and stakeholders get cc'd from the same domain.

To reconcile ABA Calls against the CRM in both directions during a sync, see Workflow 1.

Do-not-flag contacts (calendar audit)

Peers, partners, affiliates, and subcontractors intentionally have no ABA Calls page, so the Workflow 1 calendar audit must never surface their meetings as "unlogged." The source of truth for who they are is the Partners database (collection://[database-id], under ABA (Master)) — one row per contact, Type = Partner / Affiliate / Subcontractor / Peer.

The audit skips any calendar attendee that matches a Partners row by email, or by email domain. Domain matching is deliberate: one row (e.g. [Person] / [company-domain]) covers everyone at that org, not just the named person. This is why it's a database and not a static roster in this file — when a new peer/partner surfaces, add a Partners row and every future sync skips them automatically, with no skill edit or repackage.

When the audit hits an ambiguous meeting that turns out to be a partner/peer rather than a lead, the fix is to file them in Partners — not to hand-maintain an exclusion list here.

Active Campaigns

The CRM page has an Active Campaigns section that links to currently-running outreach campaigns (e.g., "Sell 1:1 Claude Workshops"). Each linked campaign page contains its own outreach tracker — an inline Notion database with Name, Contact, Status, Last Contact, Next Contact, Notes, and Segment columns. These trackers are created and structurally owned by the outreach skill; the CRM skill only reads them.

Why this matters: active campaign contacts are not in Active Leads. They're prospects in the middle of a structured outreach push. If you only check Active Leads + Clients during a follow-up review, you'll miss everyone Shaw is currently working on a campaign.

Behavior during follow-up reviews: any time Shaw asks "anyone worth following up with", "check the CRM", "review my pipeline", or any equivalent — fetch the Active Campaigns list off the CRM page first, then for each linked campaign:

1. Open the campaign page and find its outreach tracker (inline database).
2. Query the tracker for contacts where Next Contact <= today. Only surface contacts with an explicit due date. Blank Next Contact on campaign contacts is intentional (no follow-up planned) — never flag it or backfill it.
3. Cross-reference Gmail (or LinkedIn for LinkedIn-only contacts) for replies since Last Contact, exactly as you would for an Active Lead.
4. Surface contacts that are due, replied, or have stale Next Contact dates in the summary.

Keep tracker updates light. When a reply or status change comes in, append a dated note and bump Last Contact / Next Contact — same conventions as Active Leads notes. Don't restructure the tracker; that's the outreach skill's job.

Promotion to main CRM

When a campaign contact graduates to the main CRM (Active Leads or Clients) — typically after they reply with intent and Workflow 3 creates a lead record — mark them Added to CRM in the campaign tracker and clear their Next Contact field. From that point on:

• All future updates (Notes, Last Contact, Next Contact, Status) happen only in the main CRM record
• The campaign tracker entry remains as a historical breadcrumb showing where the lead originated
• Workflow 1's active campaign sweep skips Added to CRM contacts — they're already covered by the Active Leads / Clients filter

This prevents two records from drifting apart and avoids duplicate cadences (one from the tracker, one from the CRM). If a campaign tracker doesn't have Added to CRM as a Status option yet, add it (orange or pink works well for visual distinction from active statuses).

Gmail & Calendly Signals

All outbound sales activity lives in Gmail at [e-mail]. Two patterns to know:

• Direct thread activity — search from:<email> OR to:<email>
• Calendly bookings — land in the inbox from [e-mail] with subject "New Event: <name> - <time> - <event type>". The invitee email in the notification body may differ from the CRM email on file (e.g., a lead can book with a personal email even when their CRM entry has a work email). Match Calendly bookings by name, not email.

This is the canonical detection path for new bookings. A global scan for from:[e-mail] subject:"New Event" after:<last-sync-date> catches brand-new leads who booked without an existing CRM entry.

Discovery-call bookings route to Workflow 7. When a detected Calendly booking is a discovery call (event types per the Discovery Call SOP — ABA Intro Call, AI Transformation, 1:1 Claude Workshop (Discovery)), hand it to Workflow 7 (Discovery Call Intake) rather than processing it piecemeal. Workflow 7 orchestrates CRM resolution, the ABA Calls page and brief, the FU task, and the confirmation email in one pass.

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Key Principles

• Always read before writing — fetch the lead's current Notion page before making any updates
• Append, never overwrite — notes are a chronological log; always add to the end
• Match Shaw's voice — short, direct, friendly; no corporate filler
• Don't over-follow-up — respect the cadence limits; after FU #2 on contact form leads, stop
• Blank Next Contact is assumed intentional — not every lead needs an active follow-up date. Next Contact is the structured signal Workflow 1 sorts on, and Shaw leaves it blank deliberately when no follow-up is planned. If context strongly suggests a miss (e.g., an active lead with recent activity but no date), flag it in the summary as "worth reviewing" — but never auto-fill without Shaw's approval.
• Drafts aren't touchpoints — only sent is. A drafted email sitting in Gmail is not a touchpoint until Shaw sends it. Update Status, Last Contact?, and Next Contact based only on actions that have actually happened — calls that took place, emails confirmed sent. When a workflow drafts a follow-up email in the same run as a CRM update, only update CRM for the action that actually occurred (e.g., the call). Leave email-dependent state changes (like advancing to Outline Sent, or the +2-day post-outline FU date) for a later update once Shaw confirms send — the next sync will pick up the send via Gmail signal anyway.
• Default to action — when follow-ups are due, create Gmail drafts directly rather than presenting options. For LinkedIn-only leads, flag them in the summary for DM follow-up instead
• Always invoke email-helper before drafting an email — every Gmail draft created during a CRM workflow goes through email-helper first. Skills compose: CRM owns the who/when/why of the follow-up; email-helper owns the voice, threading, and Gmail mechanics. The failure mode to watch for is batching: once a workflow has several writes lined up (CRM record, ABA Calls page, FU task, then draft), the draft starts to feel like one more parallel tool call and gets composed inline. That's how off-template drafts, missed em-dash rules, and snippet-driven follow-ups slip through. The discipline isn't "remember the rule" — it's "if the next tool call is create_draft and email-helper isn't loaded in this turn, stop." This applies in Workflow 1's step 6, Workflow 2 follow-ups, Workflow 7's confirmation email, and any other CRM step that creates a draft.
• Every call deserves a follow-up email — whenever a call or meeting is logged (via Workflow 2) or detected (via Workflow 1), check whether a follow-up email was sent. If not, prompt Shaw or flag it. Sources to check: ABA Calls, ABA Trainings, CRM notes, and Google Calendar
• Verify a page is live before writing to it — before editing a Notion page that an SOP names or a search surfaces — especially anything that looks like a "parent" or "index" page — confirm it's current by checking its date and surrounding context. Stale one-off pages (a past cohort, an old campaign round) can look like living indexes but aren't; appending new records to them is noise. If a workflow instruction points you at a specific page that turns out to be stale, treat that as a skill bug to flag — not a step to force through.