sales-ops

What this skill does

# Sales operations and CRM workflows

Set up and run sales operations workflows in Airtable — pipeline, accounts, renewals, deal desk, RFP tracking, partner CRMs, vertical sales-shaped systems. Adapts to team size, existing CRM, and industry. Ask scope before scaffolding; the same trigger can mean a 3-table pipeline for a 5-person team, a Salesforce-augmenting deal desk for a 200-person enterprise sales org, or a vertical-specific CRM for a mortgage broker / real estate firm / public-works contractor.

## Who this serves and what they're solving for

Sales operations spans more roles and verticals than the "VP Sales running Salesforce" stereotype.

-   **Revenue leaders** (CRO / VP Sales / RevOps / sales-ops manager) — pipeline coverage, forecast accuracy, segment visibility, lead-to-revenue efficiency. _"Broken"_ means _"I can't trust the numbers."_
-   **Daily operators** (AE / SDR / BDR / account manager) — prospect context at the point of contact, fast inbound routing, deal-stage clarity, low-friction logging. _"Broken"_ means _"I'm pasting between five tabs to send one email."_
-   **Cross-functional support** (deal desk, sales engineering, sales-ops analysts) — approval routing with audit trail, capacity vs. demand, technical-fit scoring, exception triage. Distinct product surface from the CRM itself.
-   **Partner / channel managers** — partner-led pipeline rollups, deal registration with anti-conflict rules, joint account planning, MDF tracking.
-   **Vertical operators** — mortgage loan officers, real-estate brokers, capture managers (public works / AEC), donor relations leads, capital-markets desk operators — sales-shaped workflows with industry-specific vocabulary, regulators, and integrations.

Cross-cutting problems: the existing CRM is usually staying but bleeds into spreadsheets where work actually happens (_"swivel-chair work,"_ _"single source of truth"_); per-seat licensing pushes stakeholders out of the system, so visibility breaks; the modern sales-tech stack (Outreach / Salesloft / Apollo / Gong / CaptivateIQ) is often _absent_ in non-tech and mid-market footprints; AI-forward teams want an open data substrate to build Clay-equivalent enrichment + AI-drafted outbound + conversation-intel ingestion _on_, not a CRM with AI bolted on.

## Before scaffolding: ask scope

Sales operations spans more industries and shapes than most categories — most customers running sales workflows in Airtable are NOT tech-SaaS GTM teams. Real estate brokerages, mortgage operations, insurance carriers, capital markets desks, public-works contractors, nonprofits managing donors, education institutions managing partnerships, talent agencies tracking deals — all run "sales ops in Airtable" with different schemas and workflows. Lead with three scope questions; branch from there.

1. **Team size and shape.** Solo / small (under 10) / mid (10–50) / large (50+) / enterprise (multi-team / multi-base). Determines schema-shape default — a 5-person team building their first CRM and a 200-person sales org augmenting Salesforce don't want the same scaffolding.
2. **Existing CRM (or deliberate absence of one).** _"Do you have a CRM today (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, smaller / vertical CRM, none yet, 'Salesforce that everyone hates', or are you building an AI-native stack without a traditional CRM)?"_ Single most load-bearing question for this skill. Pulls the augment-vs-replace-vs-build-from-scratch decision into the open. **Frame the consolidation value-prop and let the user choose**: full migration (Airtable replaces the CRM — common at smaller scale or non-tech verticals), augmentation (Airtable as agile UI / staging / pre-CRM / post-CRM layer above the CRM as system of record — dominant at scale), license-reduction (Airtable as read-mostly UI for stakeholders who can't justify CRM seats), lightweight CRM for a sub-team while the main CRM stays as SoR, or **AI-native lean stack** (Airtable as the data substrate for AI-forward startups that may never adopt a traditional CRM — Clay-style enrichment + AI account briefs + AI-assisted outbound layered on Airtable's typed records, AI Field Agents, and REST API). All five are valid; don't push any single shape as a directive. See `references/integrations.md` for per-CRM and AI-stack integration mechanics.
3. **Primary sub-workflow.** _"Pipeline management, account management, renewal motion, deal desk, RFP / tender pipeline, partner / channel CRM, or vertical-specific (mortgage, real estate, brokerage, etc.)?"_ Determines which Work-mode playbook and which schema shape to lead with. Most users want one of these first, not all of them.

Branch into these when relevant — only when relevant:

-   **Industry / vertical signal.** When the user's language signals it (_"broker"_, _"tender"_, _"loan"_, _"underwriting"_, _"property"_, _"donor"_), confirm the vertical and load the vertical schema. Vertical schemas don't generalize cleanly across industries — a mortgage CRM and a public-works tender pipeline share almost nothing operationally.
-   **License-reduction motive** when the user has Salesforce + a small team (under 20 reps) or a budget-constrained scenario. Surfaces the "Airtable as read-mostly UI layer above SFDC" pattern instead of full replacement.
-   **AI vendor constraints** — when AI workflows surface, ask about approved-vendor LLM constraints (Gemini-only, no third-party LLMs). Real pattern in regulated enterprises.
-   **External-facing surface needed?** _"Branded partner / vendor / contractor portal? Public partner registration? Embedded inside an existing product? Slack / WhatsApp / Teams bot?"_ Two viable paths — surface both and let the user choose. **Airtable Portals** is the first-party branded external-collaborator surface (Interface-based with custom sign-in / logo / background; paid add-on starting at Team-tier pricing per portal seat) — fastest to set up, fits when Interface Designer's component set covers the workflow. **Custom UI on Vercel / etc.** is the right call when the user wants full design control, has budget concerns about the Portal add-on, needs UX beyond Interface Designer's component set, needs server-side compute, wants to embed inside an existing product, or wants a chat-driven channel. Both are legitimate; the user's call.

Three lead questions usually clarify the scaffold in one round. Don't impose a framework before listening.

## Two modes

### Setup mode: scaffold a base

When the user asks _"set up a CRM"_ / _"build me a sales pipeline"_ / _"track deals"_ / _"build a partner registration system"_, scaffold the schema via the MCP after scope is clear.

1. **Scope questions** (above). Read the answers. A 5-minute scope conversation beats a wrong-shape rebuild — especially across the industry diversity this category covers.
2. **Pick a schema shape** matching team size, CRM presence, and vertical. Five lead shapes the skill body names inline; vertical and specialized shapes available on demand via `references/vertical-shapes.md` and `references/schema-shapes.md`.
3. **Build the schema via MCP** — base, typed fields, linked records, formulas, rollups, sample / seed data. The schema is the foundation everything else builds on. Spend the agent's effort on richer typed fields, status `singleSelect`s with thoughtful stage colors, linked-record relationships with rollup counts (e.g., `Opportunities.Amount × Probability` rolled up to Account-level expected revenue).
4. **Hand off UI configuration** — views (Kanban on Opportunities by Stage, calendar on next-action dates, gallery on Accounts), Interface pages, Automations, Forms, sync wizards (Salesforce / HubSpot / Slack / Jira). See "Build-plan output" below.
5. **Build any external-facing surfaces the user wants** — for partner / vendor / contractor / client portals, mention that Airtable Portals (paid add-on, Interface-based, branded sign-in) is one option, and a custom Vercel app reading Airtable via REST API is another. Build