The Plight of the Bad CRM

The more I talk to enterprise businesses, the more that I realize essentially all of them are working with a really bad CRM instance.

The problem is, even when a CRM is optimized from a workflow standpoint, the underlying data just rots until the entire system has turned into a useless rock.

Two stats that I called out in a post of mine this week:

📉 15–20% of CRM records are duplicates (thanks, Experian)
📉 Data decays at around 30% per year

Just let that sink in for a second.

That means within 12 months, nearly a third of your CRM becomes stale.

 And yet… most enterprise GTM teams are still laser-focused on adding more contacts, more accounts, more enrichment sources—without stopping to clean or maintain what’s already there.

Its a fundamental flaw in most companies go to market strategy.

The fallout?

❌ Reps chasing leads that left the company 6 months ago
❌ Marketing sending sequences to people who don’t exist
❌ RevOps building board decks on totally unreliable reporting

And this isn’t a fringe problem. 

This is what’s happening inside the best-known B2B brands right now.

This is also why we’re so bullish on Clay.

Clay isn’t just a lead gen tool (although its hyper effective for this use case)

When you step back, you start to realize that it’s actually something bigger—Clay is becoming the data operating system for modern GTM.

Here’s what that looks like tactically:

🔁 Continuous Enrichment

Clay connects directly to your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, whatever) and automatically syncs every contact and account into a Clay table. From there, you can:

• Layer live data from dozens of providers (Clearbit, People Data Labs, Apollo, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, etc.)
  

• Set enrichment rules by segment—so execs get titles from LinkedIn, while SMB records get phone numbers from Apollo
  

• Re-enrich on a schedule (weekly, monthly, etc.) to keep info fresh as people change jobs or companies
  

🧼 Deduplication Across Sources

CRMs get messy fast. Especially if you’re syncing leads from inbound, outbound, events, and a dozen other sources.

Clay lets you:

• Identify duplicates based on fuzzy matching (e.g., same domain, same name, similar emails)

• Compare fields across versions side-by-side before merging

• Automatically tag, merge, or route records based on logic you define
  

🧠 Automated Data Hygiene

Once you’ve enriched and cleaned your data, the question becomes: how do you keep it clean?

Clay lets you build automated workflows that:

• Flag outdated job titles or bounced emails

• Reassign ownership based on territory or segment logic

• Update lead statuses and lifecycle stages dynamically

You can even trigger actions in other tools—like alerting reps in Slack when a decision-maker changes jobs, or updating Salesforce when new funding is detected.

The result?

✅ Reps work off reliable data
✅ Marketing campaigns hit the right people
✅ RevOps has a crystal-clear view of the pipeline

And more importantly, you’re not wasting budget on tools or workflows that are built on top of bad data.

That’s why Clay isn’t just a lead gen tool. It’s the infrastructure layer that keeps the rest of your GTM machine running.

Once you see it this way, it’s hard to unsee.

I didn’t just want to make this newsletter about high level theory, though, so I’m going to attach some great resources on how Clay can help you unstick your CRM:

Free Clay course on CRM enrichment → link here

High level on how Clay integrates with your CRM → link here

How to import SFDC records into Clay to create a live stream → link here

Basic CRM Enrichment template → link here