Personas

# Personas — SME CRM MVP

## Persona 1: Sam — Sales Rep

- **Role**: Account Executive at a 15-person B2B consulting firm
- **Age**: 28
- **Tech comfort**: Moderate. Uses Gmail, Google Sheets, Slack daily. No CRM experience.
- **Goals**: Spend less time on data entry, never lose track of a follow-up, impress manager with organized pipeline.
- **Frustrations**: Currently manages 40 contacts and 12 active deals in a shared Google Sheet. Formatting breaks when colleagues edit simultaneously. Searching for a contact's last interaction means scanning email threads.
- **CRM usage pattern**: Logs in 4–5x/day. Creates contacts after calls. Moves deals on pipeline board after meetings. Creates tasks for follow-ups. Adds notes after every client interaction.
- **Success criteria**: Can complete daily workflow (check tasks → make calls → update deals → add notes) in under 30 minutes without switching tools.

## Persona 2: Maria — Sales Manager

- **Role**: VP Sales at a 30-person SaaS company
- **Age**: 38
- **Tech comfort**: High. Has used HubSpot and Pipedrive at previous companies. Left because of cost and complexity.
- **Goals**: See pipeline health at a glance. Identify stalled deals. Forecast monthly revenue. Hold reps accountable for follow-ups.
- **Frustrations**: Currently aggregates pipeline data from 3 reps' individual spreadsheets every Monday. Takes 45 minutes. Numbers are often stale or inconsistent.
- **CRM usage pattern**: Logs in 1–2x/day. Checks dashboard first. Reviews pipeline board filtered by rep. Follows up on overdue tasks. Runs weekly pipeline review with team.
- **Success criteria**: Can see accurate pipeline value and stalled deals within 30 seconds of logging in.

## Persona 3: Alex — Admin / Owner

- **Role**: Founder/CEO of a 10-person recruitment agency
- **Age**: 45
- **Tech comfort**: Low-moderate. Uses business software but avoids configuration-heavy tools.
- **Goals**: Get the team onto a CRM without hiring an IT person. Keep costs minimal. Own the data.
- **Frustrations**: Tried Salesforce once — gave up after 3 days of configuration. HubSpot free tier worked but upgrade pressure was constant. Worried about vendor lock-in.
- **CRM usage pattern**: Sets up the system (once). Invites team. Configures pipeline stages. Imports existing contacts from CSV. Then uses it like Maria (dashboard focus) 2–3x/week.
- **Success criteria**: System is running with team data in under 15 minutes. No ongoing admin burden.