How to Use monday CRM: The Complete Guide for 2025

As experts in CRM and sales efficiency, we know that having a powerful tool is only half the battle. You also need to know how to use it effectively. That's why we created this guide. monday CRM is a fantastic platform for managing your entire sales cycle, but many teams still struggle with the most time-consuming part of sales: prospecting and data entry.

In this comprehensive guide, we'll walk you through everything you need to know to master monday CRM. We'll also reveal how to supercharge your workflow with modern prospecting tools that eliminate manual work and keep your pipeline full.

Getting Started with monday CRM

Initial Setup and Configuration

Getting started with monday CRM is straightforward. Once you sign up, you'll want to enable the "monday sales CRM" product from the product store. This creates a dedicated CRM workspace pre-loaded with useful boards and dashboards.

Your first steps should be:

1. Create Your Workspace: Name your workspace something intuitive, like "Sales Team" or your company name.
2. Invite Your Team: Click "Invite members" in the bottom-left corner to add your sales reps. You can assign them to specific deals and contacts later.
3. Connect Your Email: Go to your profile settings and connect your Gmail or Outlook account. This is crucial for tracking all communication in one place.

Customizing Your Dashboard

monday CRM comes with a default "Sales Dashboard," which is your command center for tracking performance. You can customize this dashboard to fit your team's needs perfectly.

• Add Widgets: Click "+ Add widget" to add visual elements like charts, funnels, and leaderboards.
• Track KPIs: Configure widgets to track key metrics such as active deals, conversion rates, and sales cycle length.
• Organize Your View: Drag and drop widgets to arrange the dashboard in a way that makes the most sense for your daily check-ins.

Managing Contacts and Leads

Adding Contacts Manually

You can always add contacts and leads manually. On the 'Leads' or 'Contacts' board, you can click the "New Lead" or "New Contact" button and fill in the fields one by one. While this works for one-off entries, it becomes a major time-sink when you're actively prospecting.

Importing Contacts Efficiently with Linkmonday

Here’s a much better way. Instead of typing out names, emails, and job titles, you can automate the entire process. Our tool, Linkmonday, is a Chrome extension that finds verified contact information on LinkedIn and adds it to your monday CRM with a single click. It's the fastest way to build your contact list without the risk of typos or incomplete data.

Organizing and Segmenting Contacts

Once your contacts are in monday CRM, organization is key. Use the 'Groups' feature within your boards to segment your contacts. For example, you can create groups for "New Leads," "Qualified Leads," or segment them by industry or region. You can also use the filter function to quickly find contacts associated with a specific account or deal.

Monday CRM LinkedIn Integration

Linkmonday is a Chrome extension that revolutionizes how sales teams add prospects to monday CRM. It was built by us at Add to CRM to solve the biggest time-waster in sales: manual prospecting and data entry. It finds verified emails and phone numbers for prospects on LinkedIn and adds them to your CRM in one click.

Getting Started with Linkmonday

It takes less than two minutes to get set up:

1. Install the Linkmonday extension from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Navigate to any LinkedIn profile you want to add as a lead.
3. Click the Linkmonday button to find their verified contact information.
4. Click "Add to monday CRM" to instantly create the contact in your account.

Linkmonday vs Traditional Prospecting

Traditional Way:

• Time per lead: 3-5 minutes
• Process: Find lead > Search for email > Copy name > Paste name > Copy title > Paste title > etc.
• Accuracy: Prone to typos and errors

The Linkmonday Way:

• Time per lead: ~5 seconds
• Process: Go to profile > Click extension > Click "Add to CRM"
• Accuracy: Automated and verified data

Sales Pipeline Management

Setting Up Your Sales Pipeline

Your sales pipeline lives in the 'Deals' board. monday CRM provides default stages, but we highly recommend customizing them to match your actual sales process.

To do this:

1. Go to the 'Deals' board.
2. Click on the 'Stage' column.
3. Select "Add/Edit Labels" to rename, reorder, or add new stages like "Discovery Call," "Proposal Sent," or "Negotiation."

Moving Deals Through Your Pipeline

One of the best features of monday CRM is the 'Pipeline' view, which turns your deals board into a visual Kanban board. You can simply drag and drop a deal card from one stage to the next as it progresses. This is an intuitive way to manage your workflow and get a quick overview of where every deal stands.

Pipeline Reporting and Analysis

monday CRM makes it easy to analyze your pipeline's health. The 'Sales Dashboard' can feature a funnel chart that visualizes how deals are moving through each stage, helping you spot bottlenecks instantly. You can also use the 'Forecast' view in your 'Deals' board to see projected revenue based on expected close dates.

Prospecting and Lead Generation

Traditional Prospecting Methods

The old way of prospecting is slow and inefficient. It involves finding a promising lead on LinkedIn, opening another tab to search for their email address with a separate tool, and then manually copying and pasting all that information into monday CRM. This process is tedious, prone to error, and takes up valuable time that could be spent selling.

Modern Prospecting with Linkmonday

This is where you can gain a serious competitive edge. Linkmonday transforms your prospecting. When you're on a LinkedIn profile, just click the extension. It finds verified contact information and displays it instantly. Click "Add to CRM," and the lead is created in monday CRM, complete with their name, company, job title, and contact details. It turns a 5-minute task into a 5-second one.

Communication and Follow-up

Email Integration and Management

With your email connected, you can send, receive, and track all emails with leads and contacts directly within monday CRM. You can even create email templates for common outreach messages to save time and ensure consistency. All correspondence is automatically logged on the contact's activity feed.

Task Management and Reminders

The 'Activities' board helps you stay on top of your follow-ups. You can create activities like calls, meetings, or custom tasks and associate them with a specific contact or deal. This ensures nothing slips through the cracks and your entire team has visibility on next steps.

Call Logging and Communication History

Every interaction should be logged. Whether it's an email, a call, or a meeting note, adding it as an activity creates a comprehensive communication history for each contact. This gives anyone on your team the full context they need before reaching out.

Reporting and Analytics

Key Metrics to Track

Your sales dashboard should be your single source of truth. Focus on tracking key metrics like:

• Number of new leads
• Lead-to-deal conversion rate
• Sales cycle length
• Average deal value
• Deals won vs. lost

Creating Custom Reports

The power of monday CRM's reporting lies in its customizable widgets. You can build reports from scratch by adding a new dashboard or customizing the existing one. Choose a chart type, select the board you want to pull data from (e.g., 'Deals'), and define your axes to visualize the data exactly how you want.

Using Data for Sales Optimization

Use your data to make smarter decisions. The leaderboard widget can foster healthy competition by showing top performers. The sales funnel chart helps identify stages where deals are stalling, so you can address the issue with coaching or process improvements.

Team Collaboration Features

User Permissions and Access Control

As an admin, you can control what each team member can see and do. You can assign owners to specific deals, contacts, and accounts, ensuring clear responsibility and accountability across the team.

Sharing and Collaboration Tools

Use the 'Updates' section on any item (a deal, a contact) to communicate with your team. You can @mention colleagues to ask questions or provide updates, keeping all conversations organized and in context.

Advanced Features and Integrations

Automation and Workflows

Automation is your best friend for saving time. monday CRM has a simple, recipe-based automation builder. A great example is: "When a deal's Stage changes to Franchisee Agreement, then notify Patty."

Third-Party Integrations

The integration center allows you to connect monday CRM with hundreds of other apps you already use, like Google Drive, Slack, and Mailchimp. This helps centralize your work and automate cross-platform workflows.

Mobile App Usage

The monday.com mobile app lets you manage your pipeline on the go. You can update deals, check on contacts, and log activities from anywhere, ensuring you're always up-to-date.

Best Practices and Common Mistakes

Data Quality Best Practices

Your CRM is only as good as the data inside it. The principle of "garbage in, garbage out" applies. To maintain clean data, ensure all fields are filled out correctly from the start. The best way to do this is by using a tool like Linkmonday, which automates data entry and eliminates human error.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. Using Default Settings: Not customizing your pipeline stages to match your process.
2. Neglecting Data Entry: Leaving fields blank or having inconsistent data.
3. Ignoring Automations: Manually doing repetitive tasks that could be automated.
4. Poor Follow-up: Not using the 'Activities' board to schedule and track tasks.

Optimization Tips

• Create email templates for your most common outreach sequences.
• Regularly review your sales dashboard to identify trends and areas for improvement.
• Use the filtering and sorting features to create focused views of your contacts and deals.

Conclusion: Maximize Your Sales Success

monday CRM is a powerful platform that can organize and streamline your entire sales operation. But to truly unlock its potential, you need to feed it high-quality leads without wasting hours on manual labor. That's the missing piece that makes a good CRM great.

Ready to stop wasting time on data entry and start closing more deals? Install Linkmonday today and see how much more efficient your sales process can be.