Required field

A required field is a field on the deal card that must be filled before the deal can move forward. The CRM blocks the move until the value is there. For example, a deal cannot enter Proposal without an amount, or close as lost without a lost reason.

The point is not to collect data for its own sake. Each required field holds a fact that the next stage or a report depends on. The amount and the decision date feed the forecast. The lost reason feeds the win-loss review. The channel feeds the cost per inquiry.

For example, a seller tries to move a deal to Decision. The CRM stops them until they enter the decision date the customer named.

Tie each required field to a deal stage, not to the whole deal. At Inquiry you need the channel and a contact. At Proposal you need the amount and the decision date. Asking for everything at the start only makes sellers type rubbish to get past the form.

The head of sales chooses required fields by working back from decisions. Which report do you read every week, and which field is it built from? If no decision uses a field, it should not be required. Review the list when your weekly report changes, not on a whim.

Required fields are the cheapest part of CRM hygiene. They catch missing data at the moment the seller knows it. Later cleanup costs much more, because nobody remembers what the customer said weeks ago. The lost reason is the classic case: ask for it at closing, or it never gets written.

• Too many required fields. Every extra field slows each move and invites guessing. Start with the few that feed your weekly numbers, and add one only when a report needs it.
• Free text where a list would do. A lost reason typed freely gives dozens of spellings of "price". Use a short list of reasons plus an optional comment.
• Defaults that look like answers. A dropdown that starts on a real value fills itself without anyone choosing. Start every list with an empty option, so the seller has to pick.
• Never checking what goes in. A field can be filled and still be wrong. Once a month, read a sample of values with the team and fix the list where sellers struggle.

By Friday, the head of sales writes down the numbers they read every week and the fields each one comes from. Make those fields required at the stage where the seller first knows the value. Remove the required flag from any field that no report uses. Tell the team on Monday what changed and why.

CRM rules the team follows and a forecast review you can run every week.