From Spreadsheets to a CRM in One Weekend

Friday export, Saturday import and cleanup, Sunday feeds and automation, Monday the floor works from the CRM: the exact screens in LeadLocate CRM for a store leaving a spreadsheet behind.

The spreadsheet at a small store is usually better than outsiders assume. A row per customer, a column for the phone, one for the email, one for the vehicle of interest, one for the status, a notes column that has become a diary, and a tab per salesperson. It stops working for reasons that have nothing to do with the data. Nobody can text from it. Nobody knows whether the number in row 212 still rings. The status column means something different to each person who edits it. When a lead comes in from the website at nine at night, it is in an inbox, not in the sheet, until someone remembers to paste it. And when the salesperson who kept the sheet leaves, the sheet leaves with them.

The weekend below moves that sheet into LeadLocate CRM without losing what was good about it. The columns become fields, the status column becomes custom lead statuses, the tabs become users, the notes column becomes the communications log, and the website inbox becomes a feed. The LeadLocate CRM page describes every module; this page uses only the ones a migration touches, in the order you touch them.

Export the sheet as a CSV, one file or one per tab, and stop editing the original. Columns can be in any order and the headers can be whatever you called them, because the import detects headers automatically. Keep the notes column; it comes along as a field on the record. If the store keeps a separate do not call list, export that as its own CSV too, because it goes into a different place.

Then create the people. User Management under the Billing and Admin menu takes each salesperson, manager and administrator as a User, a Manager or a Master Administrator, with per user notification toggles, a Quick Access PIN for the phone app and default file folders. One login carries each person into LeadLocate CRM, SecureWebX, Inventory Link and the My LeadLocate account portal, so this is the only user list you will make. Have everyone install the LeadLocate app on their phone before Saturday, because the first thing they will want to do on Monday is text from it.

Leave your number and a lead specialist calls you back to answer your questions about pricing, coverage, and setup. Mon - Sat, 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM Pacific.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.

Open Contacts and go to the Import Contacts page. Choose the CSV, name the list, and upload. Headers are detected and columns map in any order, so the spreadsheet loads without being reformatted first. The contact import page walks the screen. If you exported a tab per salesperson, import each as its own list and assign it to that person, or import the whole store as one list and let the CRM assign it round robin across the floor. Lists can be renamed later and are what Bulk Texting and Bulk Email draw on, so the names you give them now are the names you will campaign to.

While the import runs, set up the vocabulary. Custom lead statuses per store replace the status column with a fixed set everyone uses, row colors make the pipeline readable at a glance, and tags carry the things the sheet used to keep in the notes column, like cash buyer or trade pending. The lost reason popup captures why a lead was marked lost from the first week, which the sheet never asked. The statuses and tags page shows where these live.

A spreadsheet never told you a number was disconnected. The Phone Validator and the Email Validator do, and the result shows as validity dots on each lead, so before the first campaign the floor knows which rows are worth a text and which need a call to get a new number. Merge duplicates finds the customer who was on two tabs and joins the records into one, with one owner.

Then the compliance step, and it is not optional. Open the DNC Blacklist page and import the do not call list the store kept. Blacklisted numbers are blocked in both directions, so a text to them never leaves and an inbound from a blocked number is treated as spam, and a live do not call lookup checks any number on demand. Doing this on Saturday means the Monday campaign goes out to a list that respects every customer who asked to be left alone, which the sheet enforced only by memory.

This is the step that makes the migration stick, because a CRM that only holds old contacts becomes a second spreadsheet. In Lead Feeds Manager, every source the store has becomes a feed: the website form, the third party listing that emails leads, the walk in log. Each feed gets a label, an intake method (a lead email address, a lead form, a webhook or a CSV upload), an assignment rule, notification settings and an optional first message. From Monday, a lead that arrives at nine at night lands in the Leads view instantly, assigned round robin or to one person, with a notification on the emails and numbers that person chose, and nobody pastes anything.

Then the follow up the sheet could never do. Automated Templates give each feed a first response, and Follow Up Processes run a multi step drip per lead type, with restore defaults for the manager who experiments too far. Each salesperson opens Calendar Settings and gets a booking link and booking hours for their calendar, and Quick Schedule on the phone mirrors it. If the store has inventory, connect the feed your provider produces in Inventory Link, import inventory from your website when there is no feed, or add vehicles by hand; the vehicle button in every text and email composer will attach them from Monday. An inventory feed and DMS access are not required.

Everyone opens the Workspace, which gathers appointments, reminders and to-dos with snooze and bulk clear, and the Leads menu, where the imported contacts sit with their statuses, tags and validity dots. Send a Text opens the texting inbox with delivery status on every bubble; Make a Call dials through the browser softphone or triggers the desk phone, with the call recorded and transcribed; Send an Email goes out from the store's own domain once email domain authentication is set. On the phone, the LeadLocate app dock is Text, Call, New Lead, Email and Team. The mobile app page shows the whole phone side.

The first campaign is a good Monday afternoon job. Bulk Texting to the imported list, with the DNC Blacklist already in force and the validity dots telling you which numbers to skip, and the AI writing assistant drafting the message if nobody wants to. Trackable short links report who clicked. Every reply lands in the inbox against the right record, and the notes column the store used to keep by hand is now the communications log, filling itself.

The customer notices that the store started answering faster and stopped asking twice. A text arrives from a number that belongs to the store, with the vehicle they asked about attached as photos and a price, and a booking link that opens the salesperson's calendar in the store's hours. A reply reaches the same salesperson rather than whoever checks the inbox. Later, the deal they agree to shows up as a customer deal page branded to the store, with a PIN and an e-signature. None of it looks like a migration to them, which is the goal.

The Reports dashboard on the dock shows activity reporting on what each salesperson did, company reporting on the store as a whole, and management reporting for the decisions made from both, and it reads the activity the CRM already logs, so nothing is entered twice. The manager sees leads received by source, texts sent and delivered, calls made and recorded, appointments booked and shown, and why lost leads were lost. Every call, text, MMS, email and voicemail sits in one communications log on the record, which is the answer when a customer says they were told something different. And when a salesperson leaves, the leads, the notes and the conversations stay, because the trash bin restores anything deleted on the way out and the record was never on a personal laptop.

CRM Only starts at $199 per month for a store that already has its own lead sources and wants the software; every plan is month to month with no long term contract, and current plans and figures are on the pricing page. Training is part of the first weekend: the video training library covers each screen, Live Training runs on a schedule, and Schedule Training in the top bar books a session for the store. Jax, the AI assistant on the dock, answers a rep's questions inside the CRM in English or Spanish.

Watch the recorded demo to see the import and the inbox before you export anything, or use the contact page to have a person walk the weekend with you. If your spreadsheet holds something this page does not cover, bringing it across is available on request, our team puts it in production for your dealership.

Do I have to reformat the spreadsheet before importing it?

No. Export it as a CSV, then on the Import Contacts page choose the file, name the list and upload. Headers are detected automatically and columns can be in any order.

What happens to the notes and status columns?

Notes come across as a field on the record, and from then on the communications log fills itself with every call, text, MMS, email and voicemail. The status column becomes custom lead statuses, row colors and tags that everyone on the floor uses the same way.

How do I keep from texting people who asked not to be contacted?

Import the store's do not call list into the DNC Blacklist page. Blacklisted numbers are blocked in both directions, and a live do not call lookup checks any number on demand, so the first Bulk Texting campaign respects the list without anyone checking by hand.

Can I find out which numbers and emails are still good?

Yes. The Phone Validator and Email Validator check contact information and show the result as validity dots on each lead, which tells the floor which rows to text and which need a call for a new number.

How do new leads get in after the migration?

Through Lead Feeds Manager. Each source becomes a feed with an intake method, an assignment rule, notifications and a first message, so a lead arrives in the Leads view instantly and assigned, and Automated Templates and Follow Up Processes take it from there.

What does the software cost for a store with its own leads?

CRM Only starts at $199 per month, month to month with no long term contract. Plans that include exclusive local leads start higher and include the full CRM. The pricing page has the current figures.

Watch the recorded demo or book a walkthrough with your own spreadsheet. CRM Only starts at $199 per month, month to month, no long term contract.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.