My process in building a CRM tool using Notion
Note: This article is part of my toolkit newsletters↗️ where I share resources about building things. Join me 🙂
As a product builder↗️, I build micro tools to solve my own problems. For example article tool, event app, meal box app, finance tracker, SaaS tracker, Notion portfolio, and book reading tracker.
Building professional relationships have opened doors to many opportunities and helped me grow as an entrepreneur. Today, I will share my process of creating a CRM in Notion; and how you can use this tool to stay on top of important relationships.
1. Starting point 💡
One of my career goals is to improve professional relationship building and establish meaningful conversations. Therefore, I have developed the habit of intentional networking. My goal is to:
- Discover thoughtful people and brilliant minds who operate in product/tech
- Create high-quality conversation via email, DM, or call
- Develop long-term friendships rather than pursuing the number of “network”
- Express gratitude to people who have supported my journey
In this Notion CRM, I want to accomplish these activities:
- Keep track of my connection
- Take conversation notes
- Schedule time to re-connect
- Make an introduction if they are looking for cofounders, new hires, freelancers, or investors.
👉 CRM template & tutorial is available on Notion TrackerSuite
2. Create a CRM database ✍️
In an empty Notion page, create a contact database by adding a Table. Identify parameters you want to track for your networking activities. Here are some examples in my setup:
- Full name
- Profile photo
- Email address
- Social profile (LinkedIn, Twitter, Website URL)
- Background (founder, engineer, product, growth)
- Association (friend, acquaintance, co-worker, client)
- Rating scale
- Contact date (First contact, Last contact, and Next contact date)
- Conversation notes
- Areas I can provide help
- Status (Reconnected, To reconnect, To reach out)
Some of my Notion clients also requested to include things like: ✅ a to-do list template for each contact, 🎁 a thank-you note reminder, multiple contact list views/layouts based on different connection types, etc.
3. Style the contact list 🎨
Using Gallery view in Notion is a great way to visualize your contact list in the form of a “card” display. You can create a separate “card” view that is based on the same contact database created in Step 2.
Each view has its own purpose. For example, I prefer using Table view (see Step 2) to record, tidy up, manage, and update my contact list; Gallery view to highlight important info or reminder about that person:
To display a summary of a person, I have configured the Gallery view to include these details:
- Profile photo
- Name of the person
- Association
- Email address
- Areas they are looking for help
4. Manage connection activity 📆
One way to build professional relationships is to nurture existing networks and curate new connections. Therefore, I create a separate “Activity” view to log the status of the connection:
- To reconnect (to touch base after last contact date)
- Reconnected (recently reconnected)
- To reach out (haven’t connected)
- First-time contact (new connection is made)
Set a reminder to connect
You can also set a Date/Time reminder using Notion. Add a Date selector in the CRM tracker and set up the time accordingly:
Once I set up the reminder, Notion will prompt the notification and I will be able to see it from the left panel:
👉 CRM template & tutorial is available on Notion TrackerSuite
5. Take conversation notes 📙
I often jot down notes during the conversation whenever someone mentioned a helpful tool, a case study, a resource link, or things I learned about a person.
I also take notes on areas they are looking for help — followed by an action item I can do for that person. For example:
- Hiring a full-time Golang developer (refer someone I know)
- Looking for cofounders (make an intro between X and Y)
- Jane is an avid reader (share my book notes)
6. Notion tips and tricks 🤩
As a Notion hacker, I love using the Notion formula, filter, sort, and display settings to optimize my CRM workflow and speed up my productivity.
Helpful Notion tricks I use to organize my CRM tracker:
- As your contact list expands, organize the person’s name by ascending/descending order to easily find them
- Organize the “Last Contact Date” in ascending order to surface older contacts or people you need to reconnect
- Use ❤️ or ⭐️ emoji to indicate important people in your life or people who have supported you throughout your career
- Create a Calendar view to visualize your networking activities by month
- Use Notion formulas to calculate the year of meeting and identify the number of connections made in X year
- Learn all these tricks in the Notion video series
Want to speed up your Notion skills in 3 hours? Learn to build a perfect Notion system. Check out Notion TrackerSuite
