# User Personas — SME CRM MVP

## Persona 1: Alex — Sales Representative

### Demographics
- **Role**: Sales Rep / Account Executive
- **Company size**: 15-person B2B SaaS startup
- **Tech comfort**: Moderate. Uses browser apps daily, not technical.
- **Age range**: 25-35

### Goals
- Keep track of all prospects and where each deal stands.
- Never forget a follow-up or let a lead go cold.
- Log notes after calls so the context is there next time.
- Hit monthly quota by focusing on the right opportunities.

### Pain Points
- Currently tracks deals in a personal spreadsheet that nobody else can see.
- Forgets follow-ups because tasks are scattered across sticky notes and calendar reminders.
- Wastes time re-explaining deal context to the manager in weekly syncs.
- Has used Salesforce at a previous job and found it overwhelming — too many fields, too many clicks.

### Typical Day
1. Starts the morning checking what tasks are due today.
2. Makes 8-12 calls/emails to prospects.
3. After each conversation, jots down notes and schedules next steps.
4. Moves 1-2 deals forward in the pipeline.
5. Ends the day logging new contacts discovered through referrals.

### What Alex Needs from the CRM
- Fast contact and note creation (< 3 clicks).
- A task list filtered to "my tasks, due today."
- Quick view of personal pipeline — deals by stage with dollar values.
- Search that finds a contact by name or company instantly.

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## Persona 2: Maria — Sales Manager

### Demographics
- **Role**: VP of Sales / Sales Manager
- **Company size**: 20-person professional services firm (6-person sales team)
- **Tech comfort**: Moderate-high. Comfortable with dashboards and spreadsheets.
- **Age range**: 35-50

### Goals
- See the full team pipeline at a glance — total value, stage distribution, stalled deals.
- Hold reps accountable with visibility into their activities and task completion.
- Forecast revenue for the quarter based on pipeline stages.
- Identify deals that need intervention before they die.

### Pain Points
- Currently collects pipeline data by asking each rep to update a shared Google Sheet every Friday.
- Data is always stale by the time the weekly meeting happens.
- Cannot tell which deals have had no activity in 2+ weeks.
- Spends Sunday nights manually summing pipeline numbers for the Monday leadership meeting.

### Typical Day
1. Opens the dashboard first thing to check pipeline health.
2. Reviews the pipeline board, looking for deals stuck in the same stage too long.
3. Checks task completion rates to see if reps are following up.
4. Has 1:1 meetings with reps, referencing their specific deals.
5. Updates the leadership team on pipeline total and expected close dates.

### What Maria Needs from the CRM
- Dashboard with total pipeline value, deal count by stage, and overdue tasks.
- Pipeline kanban view filterable by rep.
- Ability to drill into any deal and see its full history (notes, tasks, stage changes).
- Confidence that the numbers on the dashboard match reality.

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## Persona 3: Raj — Founder / CEO

### Demographics
- **Role**: Founder and CEO who also sells
- **Company size**: 8-person digital agency
- **Tech comfort**: High. Built the company website himself. Values efficiency.
- **Age range**: 30-45

### Goals
- Wear the sales hat part-time while running the business.
- Set up a system the team can use as the company hires its first dedicated sales rep.
- Know the health of the business pipeline without asking anyone.
- Keep overhead low — no enterprise CRM licenses at $50-80/user/month.

### Pain Points
- Tracks his own deals in Apple Notes and the company pipeline in a Notion table.
- New hires have no structured onboarding for sales process — everyone invents their own system.
- Cannot hand off a deal to someone else without a 30-minute briefing.
- Evaluated HubSpot and Pipedrive but found the setup time and feature complexity excessive for 8 people.

### Typical Day
1. Spends 2-3 hours on sales activities between operational tasks.
2. Logs into the CRM to check if any deals need attention.
3. Adds notes after client calls.
4. Reviews the dashboard before the weekly all-hands to share pipeline update.
5. Occasionally configures pipeline stages as the sales process evolves.

### What Raj Needs from the CRM
- Zero-friction onboarding: sign up, create first deal in under 5 minutes.
- Clean, simple UI that does not require training.
- Admin controls to set up pipeline stages and invite team members.
- Affordable pricing that scales with a small team.

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## Persona 4: Priya — Office Admin / Operations

### Demographics
- **Role**: Office Manager / Operations Coordinator (also handles CRM admin duties)
- **Company size**: 20-person manufacturing distributor
- **Tech comfort**: Moderate. Manages tools like QuickBooks and Google Workspace.
- **Age range**: 28-40

### Goals
- Keep contact and company data clean and consistent.
- Onboard new sales reps into the CRM with correct permissions.
- Ensure data is backed up and exportable for compliance.
- Resolve access issues quickly when reps get locked out.

### Pain Points
- Spent a full day importing messy data from a spreadsheet into the last CRM the company tried.
- Reps enter duplicate contacts because there is no easy way to check if one already exists.
- Has no visibility into who can see what data — worried about a departing rep taking client info.
- Previous CRM required a consultant to configure roles and permissions.

### Typical Day
1. Checks for duplicate contacts or companies and merges them.
2. Resets passwords or resolves login issues for team members.
3. Adds new hires to the CRM with appropriate roles.
4. Exports contact lists when marketing asks for them.
5. Backs up data monthly for the company's compliance checklist.

### What Priya Needs from the CRM
- Simple user management: invite, deactivate, assign roles.
- Duplicate detection or at least good search to prevent duplicates.
- Data export to CSV.
- Clear audit of who changed what (nice to have, post-MVP).
