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Managing client relationships and leads can often feel like a juggling act—endless calls, manual tasks, and the constant concern of missing a vital detail. If you’re seeking a streamlined solution for your CRM, look no further.
In this video, I dive into how ClickUp can be transformed into a CRM (Client Retention Management) system that aids in maintaining robust client relations and ensuring no lead falls through the cracks.
Whether you’re considering building a sophisticated system or seeking a simple yet effective client database, this guide is for you. With the right setup, ClickUp can become more than just a task manager; it can function as a full-scale CRM that keeps your client interactions seamless, your data organized, and your workflow efficient. Let’s dive into how you can build a structured and automated ClickUp CRM to take your client management to the next level.
What Is a CRM and Why Does It Matter?
A CRM (Client Relationship Management System) is designed to help businesses organize, track, and enhance client interactions. Traditionally, businesses rely on complex CRMs like Salesforce or HubSpot, but ClickUp offers a powerful alternative with automation, organization, and customization—all in one place.
For freelancers, small businesses, and agencies, ClickUp can function as:
- A basic client database for tracking client details
- A comprehensive CRM with automations, task tracking, and communication tools
- A lead management system that ensures no potential client is overlooked
How to Set Up Your CRM in ClickUp
To transform ClickUp into a fully functional CRM, follow these steps:
1. Create a CRM Space in ClickUp
Start by setting up a dedicated space for client management. Within this space, create different Lists based on client stages:
- Leads List – Track potential clients and their inquiries
- Active Clients List – Monitor ongoing projects and tasks
- Past Clients List – Maintain records for re-engagement opportunities
Consider adding a Services List to document your offerings and assign services to clients for a more structured approach.
2. Organize Client Data Efficiently
To maximize your CRM’s efficiency, integrate multiple contact management features within ClickUp:
- Link multiple contacts to a single company without excessive custom fields
- Create a Contacts List and connect it to a Company List for better relationship tracking
- Use custom fields for quick access to client details, such as email, phone number, and status
3. Track Leads and Automate Workflows
A well-structured CRM workflow makes it easy to move leads through different stages. Use a dropdown field to categorize leads:
- Inquiry Received
- Follow-Up Scheduled
- Proposal Sent
- Contract Signed
Once a lead becomes a client, automate follow-up emails, assign tasks to team members, and set reminders to ensure seamless onboarding.
4. Automate Client Communication
A ClickUp CRM can eliminate repetitive tasks with automation:
- Auto-assign team members when a client reaches a certain stage
- Send automated email reminders for follow-ups and check-ins
- Trigger notifications for upcoming deadlines or renewals
5. Integrate ClickUp with Google Calendar for Scheduling
Managing client meetings is crucial in any CRM system. ClickUp’s Calendar View allows you to:
- Sync appointments with Google Calendar
- Send calendar invites directly from ClickUp
- Integrate video conferencing tools like Zoom or Google Meet
This integration ensures all client interactions stay organized and accessible within your CRM.
Grab Your CRM Template here: https://askyvi.tips/CUCRM
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Video Transcription:
Yvonne Heimann [00:00:00]:
Are you feeling overwhelmed by endless client calls and manual tasks and all the things that go on when managing leads to turn into clients, to turn into referral business and all the things that come about when you are running the admin work of managing clients? If your answer is yes, today’s video is just for you. We are going to transform your ClickUp into a CRM and client happiness machine. If you’re new here, I’m Yvonne Heimann. I am a business efficiency consultant and ClickUp verified consultant since 2018. And yes, we can use ClickUp as a CRM. Now first off, let’s talk about what CRM stands for. In this case, CRM stands for Client Retention Management System. It’s a fancy word of saying.
Yvonne Heimann [00:00:55]:
It helps you take care of your leads and clients and make sure nobody falls through the cracks. You have the information at your fingertip and you know exactly what’s happening with your clients. Now secondary, let’s talk about who this setup is right for. There’s a lot of solutions out there for CRMs. There is solutions out there that are so much overkill for a lot of us like Salesforce. When it comes to the debate of should I use ClickUp as a CRM or not? I invite you to to think about what do you need? Do you need a full on Salesforce setup that does calls and messages and text messages and this data in here and there and all of this? Or do you simply need a fancy version of a client database? Do you just need a nicely organized and somewhat automated space that can easily tell you where in your sales and work process your clients are? If you say Yvi, I really just need a one stop shop that tells me where are my clients at, where are my leads at, where in the process are they at, what are they supposed to be getting and when is our next call? Let me show you. Today we’re going to build out the CRM and I’m going to show you exactly how you can run a really simple version of this and how you can upgrade that and automate it too. And no worries, by the end we got the template for you too so you don’t have to manually build all of that.
Yvonne Heimann [00:02:29]:
Now let’s take a look at the setup and how we use the features and hierarchy within ClickUp to build the CRM right here in ClickUp. First off, what we’re going to do is you want to have a space that is specifically focused on your customer support. You might have other things in there where you’re collecting feedback and support tickets and that kind of thing. For this specific use case, we have a a folder within our customer support space that we called CRM. And as you can see already here, we have multiple lists in this CRM folder. One for leads, meaning these are not client yet. These are people and companies that have reached out to you that say, hey, I’m interested in working with you. Then we have our active clients.
Yvonne Heimann [00:03:21]:
Those are the ones we are actively working with right now. And then we have past clients. Now you might be like Yvi. Why? Why would I have a list of past clients? And my ClickUp CRM, simply when you are growing your business and you’re scaling your business, yes, you can keep a client list and have your inactive clients in there too. But chances are you might actually want to see them and not archive them and not mark them as closed. You can. We have found, however, that it makes it easier, easier and visually more appealing to have an active client list and have a past client list. Now what you also can see in this list is that we have within our CRM folder here and ClickUp a list called Services.
Yvonne Heimann [00:04:07]:
This is where you collect your services. Service one, service two, the value behind it. And I’ll show you why here in just a second. We also have a list for contacts, meaning you might work with a company that has multiple different contacts, which is one company. Right. So we want to be able to connect that data without having to have a whole bunch of different custom fields. And then you have a list with companies. So as you can see right here already we have Ask Yvi with the website, the address, the phone number.
Yvonne Heimann [00:04:40]:
So that’s the company information. And now I can go into contacts and say, awesome, let’s do a, a relationship field from a specific list that is in our CRM and companies. Perfect. With that, we now build a company list relationship field. And I can say within this personal data contacts list, we have a company that is supposed to be company, not campany. Fortunately, we can edit everything. And now we easily can assign one company to multiple different contact records. Now let’s look deeper into the leads list.
Yvonne Heimann [00:05:29]:
As you can see, we have multiple leads in here. We have specific assignees that take care of that account and that lead. You also have your contact already in here. Same thing as we just set up. This relationship field is connected to the contacts list and all the contacts that are in there can easily be pulled towards this lead account. Now we also have a dropdown field in here specific to lead stages. So what are those stages each lead goes through? In our case, we sent the Initial email, we do a potential no reply follow up. We have a magic email that says hey actually talk to us or do you want to leave you alone? We can do that too.
Yvonne Heimann [00:06:13]:
Did they schedule a discovery call? Did we win them? Did we refer them to somebody else? Are they not ready yet and just want to stay in that warm lead or they simply didn’t fit? Not only that, we also already have the client stage in here which becomes more interesting and more needed in the active client list right here in our ClickUp CRM. What we have in here is on their way to be a client. We scheduled the discovery call, we have our strategy session. They might want to schedule a pick my brain call or did they come in for monthly consultant? What is the way they want to work with us as well as having a dropdown field again right here and click up that tells us where they came from. And yes you can connect all of this to a ClickUp form form and have them apply to work with you through a ClickUp form and they can fill in all of this information and any kind of other information you might want to collect right here in your ClickUp CRM. Now in the active client list you’re going to see more information. I don’t need to necessarily have all of the how are we working with them? What was their lead flow? When did they sign up? I really just need to know what are the services they are getting. And again this is exactly the same type of relationship field that we did with all the other information.
Yvonne Heimann [00:07:36]:
It’s simply connected to our services list that we set up and with that you can choose one or two services that they signed up for right in here. And as you can see it automatically also updates the value field. Now looking at the value field it pulls those value numbers from your services field and it automatically adds it up. We set it to our US dollar, it’s a money field and we built the calculation behind it for it to calculate out the value of this client. Now I mentioned earlier that with some quite nice updates that ClickUp has rolled out, we now also can easily manage all of our client calls. With that we head on over to the calendar. Now in our new calendar view you gonna be able to set up an appointment, invite certain people, add call details and all the things. Now we need to set up certain integrations here in ClickUp before you are able to do this.
Yvonne Heimann [00:08:52]:
So let’s head on back and make sure all of the integrations are there. Go up to your avatar icon and go into your settings in Settings you will find first of all your calendar menu item. Make sure your calendar is connected. Now this new calendar setup right now only works with Google Calendar. However you should have gotten a little pop up that says hey, connect your Google Calendar to the new ClickUp calendar. You can do all the things if you are using Outlook Calendar, sign up for the waitlist. So for everybody using Google Calendar, make sure you have that green dot and everything is connected. Now the other thing we also need if you want to use Zoom is ensure that your Zoom app is connected to now through the Google connection.
Yvonne Heimann [00:09:42]:
You also can use Google Hangouts and ClickUp works with that too. Now that we ensured all of these integrations and connections are done, you can go in here, set up a test call, invite participants. You will be able to see team members from you. So you easily can choose a team member in here. You also can easily invite members with their email and send those out. You can already see Zoom link will be added. You can pop that down. It also can give you the possibility to do Google Hangouts in there.
Yvonne Heimann [00:10:19]:
It knows I like my Zoom meetings. Choose the time and date you need for that. You can add your description and you can add a task to this. Now Steve is an awesome guy, is one of my data points in the CRM and we are doing a task call. And now you can see the event right here with joining the Zoom meeting and all the things available to you. Now once you give it a second and you have access to the AI note taker, not only have you now integrated that calendar entry and the call with your CRM lead right here in ClickUp, you also can turn on the AI note taker to record the call for you, take notes and generate your call summary right here in ClickUp. And there you have it, a fully functioning CRM right here in ClickUp. Now there is more automations you can do behind it.
Yvonne Heimann [00:11:28]:
You can integrate it with email automation so that when you change a stage of your lead, emails automatically go out. So pop in the comment section. How else would you want to automate your CRM setup right here in ClickUp? Let me know and I’ll do a video on it. And if you haven’t watched it yet, I have a video on the new ClickUp and Google Calendar integration and all the updates that ClickUp has built for us. I’ll see you in the next video.
