I just got done removing over 118k contacts from a HubSpot account.

I could do that because I know everything in that account is garbage.

So I just clicked select all 118k contacts and then clicked “delete”.

This is a simple example of everything being bad.

But…

What if it’s not so simple?

What if you open the CRM and look at the accounts and don’t really know what to remove?

What if someone is actively putting a record in?

What if someone slowly fills things out in your organization?

What exactly is bad data?

How do you know?

By deciding as a group what constitutes bad data.

By making the choices about how you as a team will function.

By setting the operating procedure for the team and then holding everyone accountable.

Once you do that, you can measure what data makes the cut.

You might have to go through every record one-by-one to make a choice…

That’s a thing.

But at least you can make a call after the decision is made.

And if that decision isn’t perfect, make a new one.

Create a new standard that replaces the old one.

It’s a lack of decision that creates the most issues.