The cards all move from left to right, but deals that fall through skip to the end into the Lost or Dead stack. At each stage, different data is entered into the card that later helps Josh learn where they can improve:

This kanban view serves as an overview of the entire state of business this year. Other views in this Projects table allow Josh to locate issues, troubleshoot, and improve the three aspects of the business that depend on this CRM. Additionally, the other tables are dynamically linked to the data found in this overview.

Here’s how Planetary uses Airtable to improve sales, manage projects more efficiently, and set business growth goals.

Improve prospecting based on missed opportunities

Planetary often takes on big projects spanning anywhere between six to eight months to complete. This means that rather than filling the sales pipeline with as many leads as possible, they focus all their efforts on getting a few high-quality leads who are likely to convert.

This approach differs from the traditional sales pipeline, because it means a lot of upfront work is done to ensure that a company is a great fit for their services. They need to weed out mismatches before the proposal is sent, rather than during the sales process. With this in mind, Josh strives to keep their win rate consistently above 40 percent.

To achieve this goal, he needs as much data as possible on prior sales, so that he has more criteria for finding great prospects. The starting point for improving the sales process is at the end of the pipeline — the two stacks for leads who don’t sign: