Custom Objects - Tailor Your CRM to Your Business

Most startups face the same problem with their first CRM.

They sign up for a new tool, excited to finally get organized. But they quickly hit a wall. The CRM gives them a few standard boxes: "Companies," "People," and "Deals." They are forced to fit their entire, unique business into this rigid structure.

This is where the trouble begins. Your business is not standard.

What if you run a marketplace? You need to track "Buyers" and "Sellers" as separate things. What if you're a media company? You manage "Creators" and the "Contracts" you have with them. An old-school CRM doesn't understand this.

Soon, your team starts creating messy spreadsheets to track the information that doesn't fit. Your data becomes scattered, your processes break, and your CRM stops being a source of truth.

There is a better way. A modern CRM should adapt to your business. You do this by using its object model to your advantage.

What Are Standard and Custom Objects?

Think of an object as a category or a type of thing you want to track in your business.

Every modern CRM comes with standard objects. These are the built-in categories. In a platform like Attio, this includes Companies, People, Deals  as well as Users and Workspaces which you can enable. These are powerful because the CRM understands their purpose. It can enrich them with data automatically and connect them in logical ways.

But the real power comes from creating your own categories. These are called custom objects.

A custom object is a unique category you create from scratch to match your business model. It lets you build a CRM that speaks your language.

How to Build a Custom Object

Creating a custom object is simpler than you might think. It involves defining the category and the specific information you want to track within it.

1. Create the Object

First, you create the object itself. This is the main container. For example, you could create an object called "Contracts."

2. Define the Records

The items you put inside an object are called records. "Contract with Client A" would be a record inside your "Contracts" object.

3. Add Attributes

Each record holds specific pieces of information. These are called attributes. For your "Contracts" object, you could create custom attributes like "Contract Value," "Start Date," and "End Date." This allows you to store and update any kind of data your business needs.

By combining standard and custom objects, you can design a perfect-fit system.

Click here to find out more about Custom Objects.

Real-World Examples of Custom Data Models

At Novlini, we believe the CRM should be built around your process. We use a mix of standard and custom objects to create powerful, tailored systems for our clients.

Instead of just talking about theory, here are some examples of how we design custom data models for different types of startups. This is the kind of strategic work we do for our clients, including companies like Trendly, Morning, and Anker Capital.

For a Media Startup

Let's say you're a media company. Your business revolves around tracking complex relationships with creators, including the specific contracts and social media channels involved. A standard CRM can't handle this.

To solve this, you need a few custom objects:

• A "Contracts" custom object: This allows your team to track every detail of your agreements. You can add custom attributes for "Start Date," "End Date," and "Revenue Share."

• A "Channels" custom object: This lets you track every social media channel, like YouTube or TikTok, associated with a creator.

• Relationships: Finally, you use relationships to link everything together. A "Creator" record can be linked to multiple "Contracts," and each "Contract" can be linked to multiple "Channels."

This powerful structure gives the team a complete picture. They can view a creator and instantly see all their active contracts and channels in one place.

For an Investment Firm

Now, imagine you're an investment firm. Your workflow is centered on deals, mandates, and the investors participating in them. Confidentiality between your brokers is also critical.

To build a CRM for this, you would need:

• A "Mandates" custom object: This becomes the heart of your process. You can add custom attributes like "Target Investment Amount" and "Mandate Status."

• A link to the Deals object: You would use the standard "Deals" object to track investment opportunities and link each one back to the parent "Mandate."

• A custom "Assigned Broker" attribute: This is a critical step for security. By adding this attribute to your records, you can control data visibility and protect broker confidentiality.

For more information check out this case study.

For a Business with Complex Sales

Finally, think about a business with multiple sales teams, like a real estate company. They often struggle with scattered data across different tools like Pipedrive and Asana.

To unify their operations, you would build:

• A custom "Visits" object: This allows the real estate team to track property viewings with clients. This is a core process that was probably managed outside of the CRM before.

• A custom "Contracts" object: This standardizes the closing process across all of the different sales teams.

By creating these custom objects, you can bring all of a company's teams together into one system. This gives them a single source of truth for the first time.

Conclusion - Build the CRM Your Business Deserves

You should not have to change your business to fit your software. Your software should change to fit your business.

Custom objects are the key to unlocking this power. They allow you to move beyond the limitations of a standard CRM and build a tool that is perfectly tailored to your needs.

When you build your CRM around your own business model, you get:

• Cleaner Data: Everyone on your team knows exactly where to find and store information.

• Simpler Processes: Your workflows become more intuitive because the CRM speaks your language.

• A True Source of Truth: Your CRM finally becomes the central hub for all your customer data.

At Novlini, we help startups build these custom systems from the ground up. If you're tired of fighting with a CRM that doesn't understand your business.

Book a free 30-minute call with our team today here. We'll help you design and build the CRM you've always needed.