Build a CRM around how you sell, not around the SaaS logo

A CRM that does not match the sales call will be bypassed by week three. People are not lazy. They are protecting the deal from a tool that asks for “lead score” when the real question was “did they ask for a French contract.”

AERVIO builds CRM pipelines that follow the conversation you already have. Sometimes that is a small desk next to WordPress. Sometimes it is Salesforce or HubSpot with the junk fields hidden. The logo is not the strategy.

Start from the last ten deals, not from a template

Bring the last ten wins and the last ten losses — emails, not a dashboard. We highlight the nouns:

• What did they buy (a site, a retainer, a machine, a mandate)
• Who had to say yes (champion vs economic buyer)
• Which language the file lived in
• Where the work actually got logged (inbox, Excel, WhatsApp)

If six of ten deals never entered the CRM, the CRM is unofficial. Automating it will automate fiction.

Spreadsheet vs product vs custom

Custom in our mouth means your stages and your objects, not “we wrote a database because it is cooler.” If HubSpot’s deal pipeline can be made to look like your call, we use it. If every extra field is a tax, we build the desk.

The hand-off from the website

This is where the site and the CRM must be one system. A “Contact us” form with Name / Email / Message is a postcard. A useful form asks for the minimum that creates the object:

• Company and city (Montreal vs rest of Canada changes language and travel)
• What they think they are buying (we map their words to your offers)
• How they found you (Maps, referral, search — not 12 UTMs)

The record should appear where sales already looks. Email-only hand-off is how leads die in Promotions. We would rather post to the CRM and ping one human in Montreal hours.

Automation that earns its keep

We automate the skips, not the relationship:

• Create the record (once)
• Assign an owner (named person, not a round-robin into the void)
• Remind if nobody touched it in one business day
• Sync the “won” flag back so marketing stops pretending the campaign is a mystery

We do not automate a 17-step nurture on a rented list. That is a CASL problem and a reputation problem. First touches from AERVIO are written by a person. The systems we build for you should be able to say the same.

Law 25 is a data map, not a banner

Quebec’s privacy regime (Law 25) wants you to know what you collect, why, where it goes, and how long you keep it. A CRM project that adds another US processor “because the Zap looked easy” is how you fail a questionnaire from a bigger buyer.

We write a one-page map: form fields → CRM fields → email vendor → backups. If we cannot explain a field, we delete it. That also makes the UI faster, which is how you get adoption.

PIPEDA still matters for Canadian interprovincial work. We do not pretend a cookie banner is a program.

Reporting that a founder will open

Founders do not want 14 dashboards. They want:

• How many conversations started this week
• How many are stuck more than five business days
• Which offer page they came from
• What was won, in dollars they believe

If the CRM cannot answer those without an analyst, we built the wrong objects. SEO/GEO then has nothing true to attribute.

Integrations we actually do

Site, CRM, mailbox, calendar, invoices when they are already in one product (often Microsoft 365). Azure / 365 workplace is frequently the identity layer — which is why IT and CRM are not separate religions here.

APIs and webhooks, not a spaghetti of three Zapier accounts. If a spreadsheet is the integration, we say so and schedule its funeral.

What implementation looks like

Discovery call. We watch one seller work, with permission. Then a written schema: objects, stages, required fields (few), permissions. Then a staging desk with their real (anonymised) last deals. Then cutover on a Monday, not a Friday.

Retainers after that are hygiene: duplicates, dead stages, the new offer page that nobody added to the picklist. The stack stays yours — exports included.

If you already hate your CRM, send two screenshots and a sentence about the last deal that never got logged. hello@aervio.io is enough to start.

When the founder is the CRM

If every deal still lives in one person’s head, a tool will not save you. We still build a desk, but the first automation is a same-day note: after a call, three fields, or it did not happen. Founders hate this until they get sick. Then they want history.

We do not start with lead scoring. We start with “next step + date.” If that exists, you have a CRM even in Apple Notes. If it does not, Salesforce is a very expensive Notes app.

Duplicates and the merge you postpone

Canadian B2B is small. The same buyer will submit the form, email `info@`, and message someone on LinkedIn. If those are three records, reporting is fiction.

Rules we like:

• Email is unique unless you have a reason (a shared inbox is not a person)
• Company + domain is a second key
• Merges are a monthly 20-minute job, not a project

This is unglamorous. It is how SEO attribution becomes possible.

Implied consent is not a CRM feature

CASL lives in the CRM as fields: what they asked for, when, and whether they said yes to a list. A tag named `newsletter` that was bulk-applied in 2019 is not consent. We will not connect an ESP until you can explain the tag. Counsel draws the legal line; we refuse to automate a story you cannot tell.

Permissions so sales cannot delete the company

Not everyone should export the database. Not everyone should change stages backwards from Won to Lead to “clean up.” We use two or three roles, named. When a contractor leaves, Hands-off IT or your admins kill the seat the same day. A CRM full of ex-employees is a Law 25 incident waiting for a questionnaire.

A 14-day implementation shape

Days 1–3: watch selling, dump fields you do not fill. Days 4–8: staging with last deals imported. Days 9–11: form live to staging. Day 12: cutover. Days 13–14: sit with the first real lead. If nobody uses it by day 14, we scheduled the funeral too late — we shrink fields again, not add training PDFs.

Two screenshots and one skipped deal is still the best brief.

Questions

Do you replace Salesforce?

Only if the team is already paying for seats they do not open. If Salesforce is the system of record, we integrate the site and reporting into it.

Can you start from our spreadsheet?

Yes. Spreadsheets are honest. We import the columns you actually fill, not a 90-field schema from a template.

Where does personal information live?

Wherever we can name a processor and a retention rule that survives a Law 25 question. That is decided before the first Zap.