Notes for owners · CRM, automation and RevOps
Which fields a CRM for advisers, agents and loan consultants must have
The twelve fields an adviser, agent or loan consultant needs in a CRM, what to leave out, and how to keep client data inside the consent the client gave.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
Rules for this trade differ by state and professional body, and they change. Check the current position with your own council or adviser before you act on anything here.
On this page
- Why does a generic pipeline fail here?
- Which twelve fields does every client record need?
- How do you keep the data inside the client's consent?
- What belongs outside the record?
- What did a missing field cost a consultancy in Indore?
- How do you fill the record without turning the meeting into a form?
- When is a CRM not worth it?
- Fill the twelve for the next five clients
A phone shop can live with "new, contacted, won". An adviser, agent or loan consultant cannot, because the sale is not the end. The same family comes back after a marriage, a house purchase or a retirement, and the record must remember what you learnt last time. Twelve fields do most of the work. Three of them must never be blank: the client's goal in their own words, their consent, and the next step with a date.
Why does a generic pipeline fail here?
A mutual fund distributor wins a client once and serves them for a decade. A loan consultant may meet the same family for a home loan, then a vehicle loan, then a business loan. A pipeline that closes the deal and moves on throws away the thing that makes the next deal easy.
There is a second failure. Standard CRMs are built around a company and a contact. Your client is a person with a spouse, parents, children and a business, and the decision often belongs to more than one of them. With one name and one phone number on the record, you forget who else has to agree.
If you are still choosing a tool, read how to choose the right CRM for a small business first. This post covers what goes into whichever one you pick.
Which twelve fields does every client record need?
| Field | Why it is there |
|---|---|
| Name, phone, WhatsApp number | Check both numbers; they are often different |
| Source | Who referred the client or which channel brought them; it shows where to spend time |
| Goal, in their words | "Child's college in four years", not "wealth creation" |
| Family and decision-makers | Spouse, parents, children, anyone who must agree |
| Stage of life | Salaried, self-employed, nearing retirement, new parent |
| Products held with you | With renewal or review dates |
| Products held elsewhere | Only what the client told you and agreed you may note |
| Documents held | What you have and what is missing, not the scans |
| Consent | What they agreed to be contacted about, on which channel, and the date |
| Last contact | One line each time |
| Next step and its date | The field that stops clients being forgotten |
| Owner | Who in your team is responsible |
Make three compulsory: goal, consent, next step with a date. With those filled, the record is useful even when everything else is blank.
How do you keep the data inside the client's consent?
Treat consent as a field and not a feeling. When a client gives you details to process a loan, they have not agreed to promotional messages about something else. Write the consent in the client's words the first time, with the date and channel: "Happy to get WhatsApp reminders for renewals. Not for offers." Before any bulk message, filter by that field. If it is empty, do not send.
Rules on storing and using personal and financial data differ by trade and change, so check with your own adviser or the regulator. A CRM does not make you compliant. It gives you somewhere to record what you decided.
What belongs outside the record?
Identity and bank account numbers, which do not go into free-text notes, where they get searched, exported and shared by accident. Any guess at net worth or income, since an inferred number gets read as a fact. And opinions about the person. "Difficult" is read by whoever inherits the client, and a client may one day ask to see what you hold on them.
Keep the pipeline to five stages: enquiry, meeting, documents, active, review. More stages become a place to hide files.
What did a missing field cost a consultancy in Indore?
Here is an invented case. A two-person consultancy in Indore helps small traders with home and business loans, and keeps everything in WhatsApp chats and a notebook. A trader whose business loan they arranged two years ago rang about a home loan. Neither partner remembered that the trader's spouse ran a separate cloth business with its own income, which would have changed the application. The file went to the lender without it, and the lender asked for more papers later. The trader felt they had explained themselves twice.
They moved to a simple CRM with the twelve fields. Filling in old clients took the partners several evenings, and about half the old records stayed thin because nobody remembered the details. At first they also added a "net worth" field. Staff left it blank or guessed, so they deleted it and relied on "decision-makers", which got used daily.
The first real test came when a relative of that trader asked about a vehicle loan. The consultant opened the record, saw the family note and the consent line ("fine to call about loans, not insurance"), and made the call with context, asking in the same conversation for two documents still missing from the earlier file.
How do you fill the record without turning the meeting into a form?
Do not read the table aloud. Fill goal, family and decision-makers during the conversation, in the client's own words, and leave documents and products held for afterwards. Write consent last, by saying it back: "I will message you on WhatsApp about renewals only. Is that right?" The client's yes goes into the field with the date.
Review the record before every meeting and again straight after. Two minutes before tells you what you promised last time. Two minutes after is when the next step and its date are still accurate. If a record has no next step with a date, assume it is already being forgotten.
When is a CRM not worth it?
With fewer than thirty active clients and one person handling all of them, a clean spreadsheet with these twelve columns will do. Move when you miss a follow-up, when two people need the same record, or when you want to send a reminder to a filtered group.
Whichever tool you use, adoption is the real problem. Why employees do not use the CRM is worth reading before you roll it out.
Fill the twelve for the next five clients
Set up the fields in a sheet today and fill them for the next five clients you speak to, including the consent line. Note which fields you skip, and ask why. The wider picture for your trade is on our financial services page. If you want a hand choosing or configuring a tool, CRM consulting and selection is that work, and tell us what you need is the way in.
