In Nutshell, people represent individuals, companies represent organizations, and leads represent business deals.

Companies, people, or leads can be created using the  button at the top left corner of every page in Nutshell.

Companies, people, and leads can also be created within existing profile pages, or you can import into Nutshell to add new companies, people, and/or leads in bulk.

To quickly add new companies, people, or leads, you can use a keyboard shortcut:

• Press C twice ("cc") to open the form to create a new company
• Press C then P ("cp") to open the form to create a new person
• Press C then L ("cl") to open the form to create a new lead

Create companies

All you need to include to create a new company (or person) is their name, but you can also add other contact details such as phone number, email address, mailing address, or the URL of their website.

You can add a new or existing person to your new company to easily show the relationship between these different entities in Nutshell.

To create a company while creating a person or lead, add its name to the Add a company... section on the person or lead creation pop-up. After you fill out this section, press enter or click Save.

Nutshell's address field on company and people profile pages allow you to copy and paste a full address, rather than having to add each address field separately. Just click on Add email, phone, URL, or address then add a complete address. For example, if you add "212 S. Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48104," each section will automatically appear in the appropriate field:

Best practice tip: We recommend adding the country code, rather than the full country name, to your addresses. Also, when entering a partial address, be sure to include the country (e.g. "Paris, FR").

Create people

People represent individuals. They can be created via the green +Create button, or they can be created simultaneously when a company or lead is created.

To add a person to a company or lead, click on +Add a Person. You can type-to-find an existing person or create a new person after you've typed out the name. Note that if you have added a company, you can add a new person from that company, or you can attach an existing person to that company to show that they work there. When adding a person directly to a company, you can add name, job title, phone, email, and description.

Create Leads

A lead represents a business deal or opportunity to make a sale. It can be attached to companies and/or people, which will tell you who your contacts are in regards to that opportunity.

In Nutshell, your sales are tracked as leads through the entire pipeline. There's no separate distinction between leads vs. opportunities/deals.

A lead represents a potential deal or sale between you and your customer—in other words, it is a deal between you and a person and/or company. When you create a lead, you can add companies, people, products, an expected close date, your confidence level in the deal, the market the lead is in, any competitors you know you're working against, and the lead's source. Add an assignee to designate which sales rep is responsible for the lead.

Products and competitors

You can add products to a lead when you create it or at any other time. You can specify a non-standard price for the product, or set pricing for a service.

Administrators can create products in Setup.

Competitors can be created on-the-fly, and can be helpful to remind yourself or your reps to adjust their strategy. Tracking competitors on leads is useful for reporting.

Lead sources

You can also choose to add a source to your leads. Use them with Nutshell's built-in reports. Sources must be created by an administrator in Setup before adding them to leads. Learn more about lead sources in Nutshell.

Lead description

The lead number is a unique identifier that cannot be changed, but you can add a description or name to your leads. You can search by description in the universal search bar at the top of the page. Descriptions can also be added as a column to your leads list. The lead description field will automatically become the associated company name, unless you add a custom description. 

Lead assignment

You can manually assign the lead to yourself or a specific team member.

Automatic lead assignment [Nutshell Pro]

To simplify and automate your lead management, you can set up lead distribution rules in your pipelines.

Leads can be assigned to specific users or teams based on territory, company type, market, industry, product, competitor, or source. If you auto-assign to a team, you will have the option to round-robin leads to members of the team.

Learn more about how to set up automatic lead assignment rules in this article.

FAQ

How do I add phone extensions?

Use the following formats:

• 555-555-5555 Ext. 34
• 555-555-5555 Ext.34
• 555-555-5555 Ext 34
• 555-555-5555 x 34
• 555-555-5555x34
• 555-555-5555 xt 34
• 555-555-5555 Extension 34

Ok, I've added some companies, people, and leads into Nutshell—what do I do next?

It's time to start getting in touch with your contacts and making sales!

• Schedule your next phone call, sales demo, or meeting
• Remind yourself to check in later with a task
• Set up recurring follow-up reminders
• Start using your sales process to automate your workflow!