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

Jump to: 

• Add new companies
• Add new people
• Add new leads
• FAQ

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.

You can also add a new company in Nutshell directly on an existing person page.

Information you can store on a company

• Company name
• Company description
• Company email addresses (We recommend storing generic company contact info on the company page, instead of email addresses that go directly to a known individual or contact at the company. Use the company page to track email addresses like accountspayable@companyname.com or info@companyname.com. If you have an email address for a specific contact, create a person to track that!)
• Company addresses (You can add custom labels to each address, such as "Billing" or "Main office")
• Company URL(s)
• Company type
• Industry
• Owner (which of your team members is assigned to the company account)
• Territory
• Company tags
• File attachments
• Company custom fields

Create people

People represent individuals. They can be created via the  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.

Information you can store on a person

• Person name
• Person description
• Person email address(es)
• Person addresses (You can add custom labels to each address, such as "Office" or "Home")
• Person URLs (You can include and label things like their website, social media accounts, Twitter, etc)
• Person owner (Which of your team members is assigned to this person in Nutshell)
• Territory
• File attachments
• Person tags
• Person custom fields 

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. Your full sales process from discovery to closing will all be followed on a single lead record.

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 team member is responsible for the lead.

A lead can also be added directly from a company or person page, if a contact has become a business opportunity. This is a great way to open leads and add them into a renewals or re-ordering pipeline!

Lead priority

Nutshell will assist you in prioritizing your most important leads. You can mark a lead Hot if you need to prioritize it and Nutshell will fire it up everywhere you can view a lead in Nutshell: your dashboard, your lead board, lead list, activities/tasks panel, from company and person pages, and in search results.

Click here to learn more about prioritizing hot leads. 

Products and competitors

You can add products to a lead when you create it or add them later, but keep in mind that leads only have value if they have a product. Administrators can create products in company settings.

Competitors can be created on-the-fly or pre-defined in your Nutshell company settings, 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 to measure the effectiveness of your prospecting and/or marketing efforts. Sources must be created by an administrator in the company settings before you can start adding them to leads. Learn more about lead sources in Nutshell.

Lead name 

All leads are given a lead number, which is a unique identifier that cannot be changed. You can also add a description or name to your leads when you add them to Nutshell. If you leave the name field blank, the lead will automatically get the name of the first company you add to the lead. If you don't add a company, the lead gets the name of the first person you add. 

Your lead name appears at the top of the lead page:

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.

Lead assignment

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

What's the best way to add an address? 

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 "220 E. Huron Street., Ann Arbor, MI 48104," each section will automatically appear in the appropriate field:

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") if the address is located outside of your default country.

If the address is not parsing into the correct fields for street name/number, city, state, or postal code, please check that your address includes commas in the standard locations. 

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!