How to build a personal CRM system in Orbit
A personal CRM system is a tagging scheme, a simple pipeline, reconnect cadences by relationship tier, sensible agent defaults, and a weekly review that holds it together. In Orbit you can stand the whole thing up in an afternoon. This playbook walks the five layers in order, so the system runs itself instead of becoming another thing you neglect.
What makes a personal CRM a system, not a list?
A contact list is names. A personal CRM is names plus a way to know who to reach out to, when, and why. The difference is structure: tags that mean something, stages that move, cadences that fire, and a review that resets the whole machine each week.
Build it in layers. Each layer is useless without the one before it, so do them in order. Skip ahead and you get a pretty database nobody uses.
The five-layer build
An afternoon of setup buys you a system that keeps your relationships warm for years.
- 1Layer 1, tags. Tag every contact by relationship type and source: client, prospect, partner, friend, "met at X". Tag at the point of entry, including from the Chrome extension, so smart views stay accurate.
- 2Layer 2, pipeline stages. Build one simple pipeline: lead, conversation, proposal, won, lost. Five stages beat fifteen. You can clone the pipeline later for a second deal type.
- 3Layer 3, reconnect cadences by tier. Decide how often each tier hears from you (the A/B/C system below). This is the engine that keeps relationships from fading.
- 4Layer 4, agent defaults. Turn on Tess for inbox follow-up, June for relationship check-ins, Sam for data hygiene, and Ava for the Monday briefing. Leave voice off until you want it.
- 5Layer 5, the weekly review. Block 20 minutes every Friday to clear follow-ups, close stale deals, and reset tasks. This is what keeps the first four layers alive: see the weekly review routine.
The A/B/C three-tier system: A contacts (top clients, key partners) hear from you monthly. B contacts (good relationships, warm prospects) quarterly. C contacts (everyone else worth keeping) twice a year. Tag the tier, set the cadence, let June draft the touches.
How do the tiers and agents work together?
Once contacts are tagged A, B, or C, the cadence becomes automatic. June watches last-touched dates and drafts a check-in when someone is due, based on their tier. You approve, edit, or dismiss. The system remembers so you do not have to.
Smart views make the tiers visible. Build one view per tier filtered by tag and last-touched date, and your weekly review becomes a three-minute scan: who in tier A is overdue, who in tier B is slipping. The cadence is the rule; the smart view is the dashboard.
This same structure scales from a freelancer's network to a small book of clients. It is the backbone of every good sales routine for solopreneurs, because it turns "I should stay in touch" into a thing that actually happens on schedule.
Pro tips
- Keep tags few and meaningful. Twenty tags you use beat a hundred you forget. Prune them in your weekly review.
- Start with one pipeline. Clone it only when a genuinely different deal type appears. Premature complexity kills CRMs.
- Set the tier the moment you save a contact, even if it is a guess. You can change it later; a blank tier never gets reviewed.
- Let agent defaults run a week before tuning. You need real cards to know what to adjust.
- Protect the Friday review like a client meeting. The system is only as alive as the review that resets it.
Keep exploring
Frequently asked questions
How do I build a personal CRM system from scratch?+
Work in five layers: tag your contacts by type and source, build one simple pipeline, set reconnect cadences by relationship tier, turn on sensible agent defaults, and run a weekly review. Do them in order, since each layer depends on the one before it. In Orbit the whole setup takes an afternoon.
What is the A/B/C relationship tier system?+
You sort contacts into three tiers and give each a reach-out cadence. A contacts, your top clients and key partners, hear from you monthly. B contacts, good relationships and warm prospects, quarterly. C contacts, everyone else worth keeping, twice a year. Tag the tier and let June draft the check-ins when each is due.
How many pipeline stages should a personal CRM have?+
Start with about five: lead, conversation, proposal, won, lost. Five stages are easy to keep accurate and honest, which is what makes a pipeline useful. You can clone the pipeline for a second deal type later, but resist adding stages until a real gap forces it.
Which Orbit agents should I turn on first?+
For a personal CRM, start with Tess for inbox follow-up, June for relationship check-ins, Sam for data hygiene, and Ava for the Monday briefing. Those four cover follow-up, relationships, clean data, and visibility. Leave the voice agents off until you specifically want calls handled.
How do I keep my personal CRM from going stale?+
The weekly review is the answer. Block 20 minutes every Friday to clear overdue follow-ups, close stale deals, prune tags, and reset your tasks. A CRM dies from neglect, not from bad setup. The review is the ritual that keeps tags, tiers, and cadences honest week after week.
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