Building a Contact Database That Never Goes Stale

Your contact database is your most valuable business asset

Every company you admire — from the VC-backed startup to the 30-year-old family business — has one thing in common: an obsessively maintained list of the people they serve and want to serve. Companies get acquired for their contact databases. Sales teams are inherited with their CRM data. Your database outlasts your best salesperson, your biggest year, and your product pivot.

Contact statuses in Proactiq CRM

Every contact has a status that tells you exactly where they are in your relationship:

• Lead — You have their details but haven't qualified them yet. They might be a fit, they might not be.
• Prospect — Qualified. They have the problem you solve, the budget to pay, and the authority to decide.
• Customer — Currently paying you. They need different treatment than a prospect — more nurturing, less selling.
• Churned — Was a customer, no longer active. Keep them in the system — re-engagement campaigns often convert churned customers at 3x the rate of cold leads.

Three ways to build your database fast

Go to CRM → Contacts:

• Manual entry — Click New contact. Enter name, email, phone, company, and status. Use this for individual high-value prospects you're actively pursuing.
• CSV import — Click Import. Upload a spreadsheet from your old CRM, a LinkedIn export, or a business card scanning app. Proactiq maps columns automatically — review the mapping before confirming.
• API integration — Connect your website's lead form directly to Proactiq via the API. Every form submission creates a CRM contact automatically, with status set to Lead.

Linking contacts to companies

On any contact's profile, you can link them to a Company record. This creates a two-way relationship: the contact's profile shows which company they work for, and the company's profile shows all contacts at that organisation. When you're selling to a 50-person company, you might have 5 contacts there — the initial contact, the technical evaluator, the finance approver, the CEO sponsor, and the project manager. They should all be linked to the same company record.