Why Your Salesforce Data Is a Mess (And How to Fix It)

Here's a conversation I have a lot:

"We have Salesforce, but honestly our reps just use spreadsheets. The data in there is a mess."

It's more common than you'd think. And the problem isn't Salesforce — it's that no one set it up with data quality in mind from the start. The good news: it's fixable.

Why the Data Gets Messy in the First Place

1. No required fields. When reps can save a record without filling in key fields, they will.

2. Free-text fields where there should be picklists. "Industry" as a text field gives you "Tech", "Technology", and "SaaS" all meaning the same thing.

3. Duplicate records. Two reps create a contact for the same person. Two activity histories, nobody knows which is right.

4. No ownership of data quality. If it's nobody's job, it won't stay clean.

A Practical Cleanup Plan

Week 1: Audit

Run these reports:

• Contacts with no email address
• Opportunities with no close date
• Leads older than 90 days not converted or marked dead
• Accounts with no associated contacts

Week 2: Deduplicate

Turn on Duplicate Management under Setup — set to alert first, not block.

Week 3: Standardize

Convert free-text fields to picklists. Export, map values, reimport.

Week 4: Lock It Down

Add validation rules to keep data clean going forward.

Ongoing: Assign Ownership

One person. Monthly audit. Data quality is a habit, not a project.

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Need help? Let's talk — usually a two to three week engagement.