# CRM Hygiene Checklist for Small Teams

Use this checklist to quickly clean up the most common pipeline and follow-up problems before they turn into bigger process debt.

## Quick CRM hygiene checklist

### Record ownership
- [ ] every active lead has a clear owner
- [ ] nobody assumes someone else is handling the next step

### Stage clarity
- [ ] every active lead has a current stage
- [ ] stage names mean something concrete
- [ ] dead and active opportunities are not mixed together

### Next-step discipline
- [ ] every active lead has a next action
- [ ] every waiting lead has a next follow-up date
- [ ] overdue follow-ups are visible, not hidden

### Notes and context
- [ ] recent meaningful context is logged
- [ ] important decisions are not trapped only in email or DMs
- [ ] anyone reviewing the record can tell what should happen next

### Pipeline cleanup
- [ ] duplicate records are cleaned up
- [ ] stale leads are reclassified or closed
- [ ] “misc” or catch-all stages are not hiding confusion

## Use this checklist in order

1. fix owner fields
2. fix stages
3. fix next follow-up dates
4. clean stale or duplicate records
5. improve notes only after the basics are fixed

## Rule

If a lead record does not tell you the next move, it is not clean enough.

## Next step

If this checklist is useful and your process needs more structure, the AI Sales Automation Starter Pack gives you the full workflow system behind it.