Your sales team lives in a spreadsheet. Not because they're lazy or resistant—because the spreadsheet actually works for them. It's fast, it's visible, and it doesn't require a license or training. But it's also a data graveyard: inconsistent formats, stale phone numbers, deals that live in email, forecasts that nobody trusts, and zero visibility into what your team is actually doing. You've bought a CRM. Now comes the hard part: moving without breaking revenue for seven days. This is not a "best practices" guide. It's a realistic week-by-week playbook for what to move first, what to leave behind, and which mistakes kill deals. Day 1: Audit what you actually have (and stop pretending it's clean) Before you touch the CRM, get honest about your data. Open that spreadsheet. Look at it. How many rows? If it's over 1,000 and it hasn't been cleaned in 6 months, assume 30% is junk. How many columns? Not all of them matter. You'll probably have 5–8 columns you actually use, and 12 you inherited from someone who left. What's in there? Contacts, companies, deal stage, deal value, last touch date, owner, notes, sometimes email, sometimes phone (sometimes both, sometimes neither). What's incomplete? Phone numbers? Email addresses? Company names spelled three different ways? Note these. You'll handle them later. Action: Export your spreadsheet to CSV. Open it in a text editor and count the fields. Identify which ones map to your new CRM (contact name, email, phone, company, deal stage, deal value, owner). Mark the rest for review. Time: 30 minutes. Outcome: One clean export file and a realistic count of what you're moving. Day 2: Set up the CRM with only the fields you'll actually use This is where teams fail. They map every column from the spreadsheet into the CRM, duplicate logic, and end up with a system that's just as messy as the spreadsheet but harder to use. Don't do that. Instead, map only the essential fields: Contact first name, last name, email, phone Company name Deal name (or opportunity name) Deal value Deal stage (Prospect, Qualified, Proposal, Negotiation, Won, Lost) Deal owner (which rep owns it) Next action or next step Last contact date That's it. Eight fields. Your reps already understand these. You're not adding complexity; you're removing it. If your spreadsheet has 20 columns and your CRM has 8 fields, you haven't lost data—you've clarified what matters. The other 12 columns were either duplicates or admin overhead. If you have custom fields that genuinely drive your sales process (contract value vs. deal value, or SLA tier, or decision date), add those. But stop there. You can add fields later. You cannot easily remove them. Action: In your CRM, create one standard list of fields. Test it with a dummy deal and three dummy contacts. Make sure your sales manager can see the deal stage, value, and owner without scrolling. Time: 1–2 hours. Outcome: A CRM structure that mirrors how your team actually sells, not how you think they should. Day 3: Import the clean data (and accept what you're leaving behind) Now you import. But not all of it. Most teams waste Day 3 trying to migrate every row. That's a mistake. Instead: Import only open deals. If a deal closed six months ago, it's historical. You don't need it in the active CRM. (Put closed deals in a spreadsheet archive or separate folder for reference.) Import only active contacts. If you haven't touched a contact in a year, don't import it. You'll add them back when they matter. Clean as you go. Before import, remove duplicates, fix obvious email typos, and standardize company names. If it's incomplete, flag it—don't guess. Missing phone number? Leave it blank. Don't invent one. Missing deal value? Leave it blank. Your reps will fill it in when they have actual information. This feels like you're throwing data away. You're not. You're prioritizing current revenue over historical clutter . Action: Do a test import of 50 rows first. Check that company names, deal stages, and deal values came through correctly. Then import the full set in batches (500 at a time if your CRM supports it). Time: 2–3 hours. Outcome: Your CRM now has real, current deals that your team can actually work. Day 4: Assign ownership and set up the first real workflow Your data is in. Now make it work. Deals need owners. Contacts need next steps. Your team needs to know what to do Monday morning. Assign every open deal to a rep. If a deal has no clear owner, assign it to your sales manager for triage. Do not leave deals orphaned. Set a next action for each deal. Not "follow up later." Specific: "Send proposal," "Schedule call," "Get CFO approval." This tells reps what to do when they open the CRM. Set a due date. When should that action happen? This Friday? Next week? Assign dates that are realistic and enforceable. This is the moment your team actually opens the CRM and does work in it. If the CRM is empty of next actions, they'll go back to email and spreadsheets. Action: Have you