I’m surprised at how many emerging managers launch without a CRM, just a shared spreadsheet. I strongly recommend use a proper CRM from day one. For advice on which to use, see What is the Best CRM and Marketing Tech Platform for a New Private Equity/Venture Capital Fund? Your goal should be to add ALL contacts to the system, no matter how you engaged them: Whatsapp, email, meeting, Twitter, Discord, Slack, Linkedin, etc.
If you’re not using a model pre-built for investment managers, then you’ll have to configure it yourself. Ideally, you’d set up and track these data fields, at a minimum:
- Location
- Industry
- Company
- Position
- Existing investments (whatever intel you can gather)
- Areas of interest
- Estimated net worth
- Source of introduction
- Friends / mutual contacts
- Personality notes
- Preferred communication method (email, Whatsapp, etc.)
- Interests / hobbies (inc. favorite restaurant, etc.)
- Latest touch point
- Pipeline status
Assuming all the data is captured, here’s some of the basic information I’d expect to see in your sales dashboard:
- total number of leads generated by month
- total number of leads in each pipeline stage
- conversion rate (percentage of leads that commit), by source (i.e, What type of leads convert best?)
- % quota achieved
- forecast accuracy
- calls booked by month
- meetings booked by month
- average check size
- average sales cycle length
- # leads by source
