Morning (09:00–11:00) — fast diagnostics to find the three blockers
Start the day by naming an operations owner (someone in Fareham/Hampshire who can make quick decisions) and opening your CRM, a spreadsheet and a chat channel. The aim is to surface the three highest‑impact failures: lifecycle/ownership mismatches, source/attribution inconsistencies, and duplicate/consent blockers.
Run three short checks: a) lifecycle vs owner: find records with a sales‑facing lifecycle stage but no owner or an owner outside the right team; b) source inconsistencies: find records where source, campaign or UTM fields are empty or contradictory; c) duplicate & consent blockers: spot identical emails across companies or contacts with missing opt‑in flags. Example saves: HubSpot list “MQLs without owner”, Salesforce report “Leads: lifecycle = SQL and Owner is blank”, Marketo Smart List “Source missing”.
Keep each check to 20 minutes. Capture the top 10 problem records for each failure type into a single sheet (one row per record, include id, email, lifecycle, owner, source, consent). This snapshot is your safety export if you need to roll changes back later.
Midday (11:00–14:00) — quick fixes you can finish before lunch
- Standardise lifecycle and ownership: pick the minimal mapping (e.g. Marketing Lead → MQL → Sales Accepted → Opportunity), create a brief field‑map and apply a single workflow/automation to align records that are clearly wrong; in Salesforce that might be a validation rule or a quick Flow, in HubSpot a one‑step workflow that sets owner when lifecycle becomes Sales‑Accepted. Take a CSV snapshot before running.
- Add a canonical_source/provenance field and backfill: create one canonical_source property and copy the best available source (form, campaign, UTM first) into it. In Marketo use a Smart Campaign to set a field; in Pardot use an automation rule. Keep the old fields but use canonical_source to gate automations. Link this to a simple rule in your workflows so automations read canonical_source first. If you prefer hands‑on support, book marketing automation support.
- Apply lightweight duplicate and consent rules: set a simple merge/ignore rule (email = primary key) and mark ambiguous pairs into a manual review queue. Add a do_not_automate boolean on records that are uncertain or lack consent and backfill consent where you have proof (past opt‑in, previous transactions). Implement a quick rollback pattern: before any batch change export the affected records and create a processing_state flag (e.g. staging → changed → verified) so you can pause automations while edits happen.
Afternoon (14:00–17:00) — smoke tests, 30‑minute handoff drill and manager checklist
- Smoke tests: create 3 canary records (marketing form, manual import, API sample). Watch them through your pipelines for 30–60 minutes and confirm: lifecycle advances as expected, owner assignment happens within SLA timers, canonical_source is used, no duplicate merges occurred, and no marketing emails are sent to unconsented contacts. Test examples across systems: submit a HubSpot form, create a Lead in Salesforce, and run a Marketo test lead through to sales assignment.
- 30‑minute handoff drill: with the team (marketing, sales, ops) agree one lead to flow from capture → assignment → sales contact within 30 minutes. Each step checks: record has canonical_source, owner assigned, SLA timer started, and the do_not_automate flag is clear. If anything fails, flip the kill‑switch: either toggle the processing_state/do_not_automate flag or temporarily deactivate the offending workflow (platforms: pause HubSpot workflow, deactivate Salesforce Flow, or stop Marketo smart campaign).
- Manager booking checklist (use this to book the day with your local operations owner): confirm date and 4‑hour blocks, name an owner with CRM admin rights, export snapshot of affected records, open a shared sheet and chat channel, agree success criteria (e.g. no unassigned MQLs, canonical_source populated for 90% of new records, duplicates reduced), and schedule a 30‑minute review at 16:30. If you want someone to run the day and hand the notes back, Optira can help as a practical, on‑the‑day operator.