Making the Move to Attio: Your Strategic Guide To Building A High-Impact Sales Setup

Considering Attio? Unlock its full power without the pitfalls. This guide reveals the critical steps, hidden complexities, and best-practice strategies for a seamless implementation that maximises you

Introduction

By now you’ve surely heard of Attio CRM. Maybe you’ve tried it, tested it. It’s likely you love the design, you understand the value, you’re excited about the potential. So far so good.

But in reality, making the move to a new CRM is an undeniably significant endeavour. If your team is larger than a few people, and if you’ve been using other systems (Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot, AirTable) for even a few years, the idea of changing systems can feel like a significant hurdle.

What Attio represents is a modern, AI-native, user-friendly proposition. A rapidly-expanding user base is discovering how the CRM can adapt brilliantly to their bespoke business setup whilst keeping things simple for its users. Unlike many of the big-name legacy systems, it’s been built with agile business in mind.

The question is; does the potential of Attio CRM outweigh the costs of making the move?

In this guide, I’ll provide two answers to this:

1. First, why Attio CRM really is worth moving to, and what the ‘prize’ is in terms of improved sales performance as well as cost reductions - a sound strategic decision.

2. Second, why actually making the move may be easier than you think, if managed carefully.

We’ll look at the technological elements involved, but also - importantly - the strategic planning and human factors that contribute significantly to the ultimate success of moving CRMs.

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Why Attio Is The Right Move

Attio’s Key Benefits
Exceptional UI interface
AI-native functionality
Highly flexible data model
Cost-effective pricing
Strong API integrations
Fast-evolving roadmap

Ultimately, the role of a CRM is to capture key business relationships and communications, and utilise them to maximise sales. Attio was built to make all of these goals easier.

What Attio Offers

A properly built Attio workspace can provide:

• Ease of use day-to-day:
  Attio is designed with modern users in mind. It’s ‘Notion-like’ UI is intuitive and user-friendly. Features like the native LinkedIn Chrome extension and automatic enrichment cut back manual labour significantly. All this allows for far greater focus on relationships and core sales activity.

• Single source of truth:
  However complicated your sales technology ecosystem, Attio is built to work as your central dataset and source of truth. It’s possible to link all of your tools and get visibility and control within one platform.

• Advanced data interrogation:
  Attio was built from the ground up to provide a highly-flexible data setup including custom objects, attributes and relationships. The simple interfact allows both admins and users to interrogate the data and surface the insights that best support their work.

• Communications hub:
  With Attio, it’s easy to create highly-personalised communication flows - whether that’s automated sequences, messaging to key target audiences or personalised communications using templates. You can also record all interactions seamlessly, as well as easily integrating with other tools.

• Clear management reporting:
  Any CRM system you use needs to provide the maximum amount of clarity for senior business leaders. With Attio, you get a fully reporting suite that includes a wide array of reports and huge flexibility on how data is sourced and presented.

All well and good.

But if you’re on another system, perhaps you already have many of those features available. So, why else would you make the switch?

Warning Signs Your Existing System Isn’t Working…

I believe there are three key ‘warning signs’:

1. Your team are not using existing systems properly: This is a huge red-flag that you’re not maximising sales potential. Moving to Attio offers the chance to provide a system that actually gets used.

2. You’re spending significant amounts on unused features: This is typical when you have contracts with the big legacy systems. In contrast, Attio offers clear user-based pricing that usually represents a significant saving.

3. You feel like there’s money being left on the table: As a business leader, it’s likely you’ve got an intuition when sales aren’t where they should be. Moving to Attio presents an opportunity to make a proactive change to fix this.

Admittedly, moving CRM’s - and, specifically, to Attio - is not always the right move. As with any major business decision, you need to balance priorities and ensure you have the resources to invest. There are risks associated with any change to core systems, and these shouldn’t be taken lightly.

The benefits, though, are significant. Whilst moving to Attio may require investment and carry some risk, the potential positive impact on your business is sizable, both in the short-term and for many years to come.

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The Three Phases Of Moving To Attio CRM

If you’re deciding that Attio may be the right move for your business, the next logical step is to consider how you would achieve that goal.

Getting started on Attio as an individual user is impressively simple. You can start with a completely free workspace, link your email and calendar to automatically pull in a full set of your contacts and interactions and begin using the tool straight away.

To fully utilise Attio, though, particularly if your team is any larger than a few people, there’s a lot more involved…

We’ll need to consider:

• Designing your workspace to match your unique business setup

• Migrating data from existing platforms or other sources

• Onboarding your team, including different user types

• Setting up key integrations and workflows

• Ensuring ongoing usage and optimisation

A significant percentage of CRM implementations fail because they do not properly consider all of these factors. Projects are then liable to overrun. The worst outcome, though, is that the new system fails to meet the needs of the business, or to achieve the sales performance goals that it sought to achieve.

So, let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.

I recommend breaking down a move to Attio CRM into three phases.

Let’s look at each one...

Phase 1: The Strategic Blueprint & Data Audit

Strategy and business goals are the fundamental starting point. Attio isn’t just a ‘new toy’ - it’s going to become a central component within your business that will be critical to ensuring sales success. So what are your key business goals, and how will Attio help you achieve them? This is a non-negotiable first step.

We then need to involve all key stakeholders. We share the headline plans, and ask for their input. What do they need to achieve their own goals? What are the key features they need? What are their concerns? Addressing all of these elements early ensures the final phase (adoption) will be significantly smoother.

Next is a review of existing systems and data sources. If your business has been operating for any more than a year or two, it’s likely you’ve amassed a significant quantity of data. This could include prospects, leads, customers, deals, communications, users or more. It could live in a legacy CRM system, spreadsheets or other tools. If you’re using other tools within your sales technology stack, these need to be factored in too. We need to review all of this strategically, assessing what provides value and what will not be worth migrating.

Finally we use all these inputs to create a ‘Blueprint’ of your new Attio setup. What plan do you need to be on? What will your core objects be? What attributes to do we need to build in? What lists, views and reports will be required for each user type? We get all this down into a clear document that can be amended and signed off before any production begins.

In summary:

• Start with core business strategy, and the key outcomes that the new Attio setup should provide

• Involve key stakeholders early to seek input and ensure needs are met

• Review existing data with a strategic focus on which elements will provide most value

• Factor in other sales technology tools, deciding how they will fit in the new setup

• Create a clear ‘Blueprint’ of the new setup for clarity and signoff

Phase 2: The Build, Configure, & Integrate

The ‘Blueprint’ created in Phase 1 provides a clear instruction manual for moving into the build phase. However, depending on the size and complexity of your setup, this phase still needs to be carefully managed to ensure success.

At this phase, it’s usually best to assign a project management lead and defined team with clear roles. This team can work through the details, whilst also keeping the wider organisation informed of progress.

Timing is important. Whilst much of the migration can happen ‘in the background’, if you’re migrating live data, there will often be a period of “down-time” required whilst making the final switch. This is where project management timelines become important, and the plans should be clearly communicated with all relevant stakeholders.

Within Attio itself, the core configuration involves setup of: custom objects; custom attributes; record configuration; workflows; sequences; lists; and reports. This should all have been scoped within the ‘Blueprint’.

Attio offers a built-in data migration tool - via Import2 - that can bring in data from other systems such as HubSpot, Zoho, Salesforce and Pipedive (as well as many others.) This often works well for smaller systems, however in reality, your migration may require much more bespoke imports via CSV or other data tools. It’s usually also advisable to take this opportunity to cleanse, prioritise and transform your data so that it is most usable.

Finally you’ll want to connect your Attio workspace to other tools that are identified as valuable within your technology stack. This may include data enrichment, email communications, prospecting tools, data warehouses, forms, etc. These can be built either in Attio’s workflows or via 3rd party tools like Zapier, Make or n8n.

In summary:

• Use your ‘Blueprint’ to create a project management plan

• Allocate a project manager and team with clearly-defined roles

• Consider the timing of the project to minimise disruption

• Configure your core setup within Attio

• Import data, using automated, manual or a blended approach

• Connect your Attio system to relevant tools in your stack

Phase 3: User Adoption & Ongoing Optimisation

Your new Attio setup is now ready for use - but the work definitely doesn’t end here.

Onboarding and training users is absolutely critical to an effective implementation. In Phase 1, we made sure to consult all key users to ensure the new Attio setup would meet their requirements. Now that it’s built, we can show them how the system will help them achieve their goals.

Training is usually best conducted in small groups, or even 1-to-1 sessions. Users rarely need to know the full extent of the build; they simply want to be shown how to do their job, focusing on the features that really matter to them.

Attio users often find that the system offers far greater flexibility than tools they’ve used previously. Once we’ve explained the core functionality they need, we can also empower users to utilise Attio to its full potential; perhaps by building their own views, lists or even workflows.

Your project manager and lead can remain in role following the initial build in order to provide a clear point of contact for users with questions or requests for amendments. Even the best-scoped project is unlikely to cover every individual use case and requirement - so providing an element of ongoing optimisation is highly valuable.

In summary:

• Place a high-priority on onboarding and training new users

• Conduct training in focused groups to ensure clarity on specific use cases

• Empower users to understand the bespoke capabilities of Attio

• Evolve your Attio setup based on new input from users in the first few months

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Avoiding Common Attio Implementation Pitfalls

By following the phases outlined above, your move to Attio has every chance of being simple and successful.

However, there are definitely some common pitfalls. Let’s consider those:

1. ‘Tool First’ Not ‘Strategy First’:
   Attio’s potential is undeniably exciting, but beware of getting swept up and implementing with too little thought. You shouldn’t move to Attio just because you like it - you should move to Attio because it represents an opportunity to better achieve your goals. Think strategically before you embark on a change that - to be clear - involves both investment and risk.

2. Over-Estimating Data Quality:
   Many businesses feel like they are sitting on a wealth of valuable customer data. This may be true, but in the vast majority of cases, the data quality does not match the expectations of business leaders. Even a tool like Attio which includes enrichment capability won’t necessarily uncover all data value - this is where a strategic focus and data transformation effort becomes extremely important.

3. Ignoring User Adoption & Change Management:
   A technically perfect Attio setup will fail completely if it is not properly utilised by your team. In business, the spectre of an “under-utilised CRM” is widespread. Whilst Attio’s user-friendly UI and quality of model improves the potential of utilisation, you still need to manage user adoption carefully, and to consider resistance to change, to avoid wasting your investment.

4. DIY Complex Integrations:
   Custom integrations without expertise can create more headaches than they solve. It’s easier than ever to adopt new tools and integrate them with no-code tools like Zapier. But it’s only with proper planning and system design that your setup will deliver proper value, sustainably, for years to come. Quick-fixes work temporarily but carry significant hidden costs over their lifetime.

5. Lack of Holistic Planning Upfront:
   Probably the #1 failing of businesses moving to a new CRM like Attio is a lack of strategic project planning. It’s all too easy to focus on a few specific features, or one element of the move, without properly considering the ‘big picture’. As I discussed above in Phase 1, starting with a clear strategic goal is critical. It’s then important to map out the full implementation plan, enabling properly-informed decision making.

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Conclusion: Make Your Move. Seamlessly. Strategically.

Hopefully Attio’s potential excites you, as it’s doing for a fast-growing community of businesses around the world. It’s a genuinely innovative solution to an timeless business problem (“increasing sales.”) It likely offers huge potential for your business.

Increased revenue, greater efficiency, happier salespeople - all these benefits are there for the taking.

Moving to Attio doesn’t need to be complex, but it does need to be well managed. As with any CRM implementation project, moving to Attio represents a strategic decision that involves both investment and risk. You should go into it with your eyes open, and with commitment to make the project a real success.

In this guide I’ve sought to provide guidance on how you can make a move to Attio as successful as possible. We’ve looked at the reasons for moving, the 3 phases of a successful move and some common pitfalls to avoid.

If you’ve found this useful and want to discuss how Sideways can help, get in touch for a free initial consultation today…

Book A Free Initial Consultation

Want to learn more about making the move to Attio? Book a free 30-minute consultation with me today. We can discuss your key business goals, ambitions for Attio and ways in which Sideways could support you.