connect claude to your crm.
A free 5-lesson course for small teams: decide whether to keep your CRM, connect Claude to it with MCP, clean your data, run a 2-minute pipeline review and get follow-up drafts you approve.
For: Owners and sales leads at 5–100 person companies using HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho, Salesforce or Twenty.
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Lesson 1 of 5: Keep your CRM or switch? · all lessons
Lesson notes
Everything in the course on one page, for reference.
1.Keep your CRM or switch?
Goal: Decide in ten minutes whether you need to migrate at all. Most teams don't. (10 min)
- Write down what your team actually uses each week: pipelines, contacts, sequences, forms, reports, quotes.
- Check what you pay per year for CRM seats and add-ons.
- Check whether your CRM has an official MCP server. HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho and Salesforce do, and Twenty includes one. If yours does, Claude can work inside it without migrating.
- Rule of thumb: if your CRM costs under about $5k a year, keep it and connect Claude. If you're on HubSpot or Salesforce Professional tiers mainly for a pipeline and a newsletter, switching may pay off.
Here is what my team uses in our CRM each week, and what we pay per year: [paste your list and costs] Tell me: 1) which paid features we're not using, 2) whether we should keep this CRM and connect AI to it or move to a cheaper one, and 3) what we'd lose by switching. Be blunt and keep it under 200 words.
Done when: You've written down "keep" or "switch", with one sentence on why.
2.Connect Claude to your CRM (MCP)
Goal: Ask Claude questions about your real pipeline and get real numbers back. (15 min)
- Find your CRM's MCP server address. HubSpot: https://mcp.hubspot.com (first create an app under Development → MCP Auth Apps in HubSpot). Twenty: https://your-workspace.twenty.com/mcp. Pipedrive, Zoho and Salesforce: see their MCP docs linked under Sources.
- In Claude, go to Customize → Connectors, click + Add, then Add custom connector. Give it a name, paste the server address, click Continue and sign in to your CRM when asked.
- On a Team or Enterprise plan, an owner adds it once under Organization settings → Connectors. Everyone else then clicks Connect.
- In a new chat, click + → Connectors and switch your CRM on.
- Start with questions only. Claude can only see and change what your own CRM login allows.
Using our CRM: how many open deals do we have, what's their total value, and which 5 deals have had no activity for the longest? Show it as a short table.
Done when: Claude answers with numbers that match what you see in your CRM.
3.Clean your data, safely
Goal: Fix duplicates, gaps and stale records in 20 minutes without risking a bad bulk edit. (20 min)
- Ask Claude to find problems and list them. Don't let it change anything yet.
- Review the list. Delete or merge duplicates yourself the first time so you see how it works.
- Then approve small batches: "fix items 1–10". Check them in the CRM before doing more.
Look through our CRM contacts and companies. List, without changing anything: 1) likely duplicates, 2) contacts with no email or no company, 3) deals with no owner, 4) deals with a close date in the past that are still open. Number every item so I can approve fixes by number.
Done when: You've approved and applied at least 10 fixes, and they look right in the CRM.
4.Your weekly pipeline review in 2 minutes
Goal: Replace the Monday spreadsheet with one prompt you reuse every week. (10 min)
- Run the prompt below. Adjust the stages and the 14-day rule to fit how you sell.
- Save it somewhere you'll reuse it, such as the instructions of a Claude Project called "Pipeline review".
- Run it every Monday and share the table with the team.
Give me this week's pipeline review from our CRM: 1. Number and value of open deals per stage 2. Deals that moved stage in the last 7 days 3. Deals with no activity for 14+ days, with owner and last note 4. The 5 biggest deals and their next step 5. Three things the team should do this week Keep it to one screen.
Done when: You've run it once and the stuck-deals list matches reality.
5.Follow-up drafts you approve
Goal: Get a ready-to-send follow-up for every stalled deal. You stay in control of what goes out. (15 min)
- Ask Claude for drafts only, based on each deal's last note. It doesn't send anything.
- Edit and send the ones you like from your own email.
- Ask Claude to log a note on each deal you followed up, after you've sent it.
For each open deal with no activity in the last 14 days, read the last note and draft a short, specific follow-up email (under 90 words, no fluff, one clear question). Don't send anything and don't change any records. List them by deal name.
Done when: You've sent 3 follow-ups that you'd actually be happy to sign.