For investment sales teams, the CRM should be the single source of truth for relationships, activity, and pipeline. Yet in many firms, it still feels like a system of record rather than a system of action. When that happens, adoption drops, data quality erodes, and leadership loses visibility into what’s really happening across the sales organization.
In 2025, the firms getting the most out of their CRM were treating it differently. They are no longer asking salespeople to “work for the CRM.” Instead, they are making the CRM work for their salespeople.
When implemented and integrated properly, your CRM becomes the most-used asset in your organization — the place where sellers plan their day, prioritize outreach, track momentum, and uncover new opportunities. In return, leadership gains cleaner data, better forecasting, and a scalable growth engine.
If your CRM still feels disconnected from your sales workflow, book a demo of the Marketplace for Salesforce App to see how investment sales teams embed fresh, relevant data directly into Salesforce.
Why CRM Usage Still Breaks Down
Most CRM adoption problems don’t stem from resistance to technology. They stem from friction. Salespeople disengage when data is outdated or unreliable, when information lives across too many systems, when updates feel manual or duplicative, and when insights arrive too late to influence action. When a CRM feels like an administrative burden rather than a revenue driver, usage becomes reactive… updated after meetings, at month-end, or just before management reviews.
This dynamic leads to reporting-driven usage instead of activity and pipeline execution. If your team is still toggling between CRM and external investor data sources, a demo of the Marketplace for Salesforce App can show how a single integrated experience changes that equation.
How to Make Your CRM Your Most Used Asset
1. Treat CRM as Intelligence, Not Storage
Modern CRMs, especially Salesforce, are evolving quickly. The focus is no longer just tracking activity, but embedding intelligence directly into the sales workflow. High-performing CRM environments automate data capture, surface contextual insights at the account and contact level, and provide signals that guide next-best actions… all without forcing sellers to leave the system.
Adoption follows value: when salespeople log in and immediately see information that helps them prioritize their day, CRM usage becomes habitual rather than forced.
To visualize how an integration like Marketplace for Salesforce makes your CRM smarter and more actionable, book a demo and see the data inside Salesforce.
2. Make CRM the Starting Point of the Sales Day
To become the most-used asset in your organization, your CRM must answer the questions salespeople care about most: who to contact today, what changed since the last touchpoint, and where momentum is building or stalling in the pipeline. Answering those questions requires live, actionable data embedded directly into Salesforce so sellers can plan, prioritize, and execute without switching tools.
Seeing this workflow in action is powerful, and a demo of the Marketplace for Salesforce App shows how real-time investor data, job changes, and fundraising updates appear where sellers already work.
3. Embed Data Directly Into Salesforce
This is where the Marketplace for Salesforce App changes the equation. Instead of forcing sales teams to research outside the CRM and manually update records, this app embeds Dakota Marketplace data directly into your Salesforce instance. That means you get up-to-date accounts, contacts, metro areas, investments, job and role changes, fundraising news, and more, all inside your CRM.
When this information lives in the place sellers already use, Salesforce stops being a burden and becomes the natural place to work.
If your team still jumps between platforms for data, book a demo to see how this integration makes Salesforce the single source of truth.
4. Eliminate Manual Friction and Build Trust
One of the biggest drivers of CRM underuse is a lack of trust in the data. When salespeople don’t trust what they see, they stop relying on the system. Automated data updates solve this problem by keeping investor information current inside Salesforce, reducing manual entry and improving consistency across teams. As trust increases, so does usage.
To explore how real-time syncing and automation support cleaner, up-to-date data that your team actually wants to use, book a demo of the Marketplace for Salesforce App.
What You Get in Return: Real ROI From CRM Adoption
When CRM becomes part of daily workflow, the benefits compound. Sales execution improves because teams have clearer visibility into relationships and opportunities. Forecasting becomes more reliable because pipeline data reflects real activity. New hires ramp faster because Salesforce becomes the only system they need to learn… enriched with embedded, institutional-quality data.
Most importantly, your CRM investment begins to pay off. The value of Salesforce isn’t the license fees, it’s the decisions and revenue it enables.
Seeing this ROI firsthand is easier when you see the integration in context.
Book a demo of the Marketplace for Salesforce App to understand how your CRM can start driving real value from day one.
Adoption Is Earned, Not Enforced
You can’t mandate CRM usage into existence. You earn it by delivering value every time someone logs in.
When Salesforce is enriched with timely, relevant investor intelligence (and when manual work is replaced with automation) CRM stops being a system salespeople tolerate and becomes one they rely on.
That’s when your CRM becomes your most-used asset, and your most valuable one.
If you want to see how the Marketplace for Salesforce App fits into your existing Salesforce environment, book a demo to learn how investment sales teams are driving CRM adoption, efficiency, and growth.
