How to set up Close CRM from scratch for an outbound-heavy sales team

Open Close → Settings (gear icon, top-right) → Company → General.

Set Company Name, Time Zone (this is the global default — individual users can override on their own profile), Currency, and Date Format. Time Zone is the field that bites later — it controls how every Reports rollup buckets days/weeks/months and how Sequence sending windows interpret "9am-5pm."

Settings → Company → Business Hours. Set the windows reps are actually calling — Sequences and SMS only send inside these windows by default. Most teams set Mon-Fri 8am-6pm in the prospect time zone.

Settings → Company → Workspace Defaults → set default Lead Status flow (e.g., "Potential → Qualified → Bad Fit"). Lead Statuses in Close are global per workspace — not per-pipeline like HubSpot. Pick once, lock.

Settings → Numbers → Buy a Number. Filter by area code matching your top 5-10 prospect regions. Local-presence numbers (matching the prospect's area code) pick up rates are typically 2-3x higher than out-of-region or toll-free.

Buy 3-5 numbers per actively-dialing rep across the regions they call. Close rotates them automatically when you enable Local Presence in the Power Dialer.

Settings → Numbers → click each number → assign to a user or to a Group (e.g., "Eastern SDRs"). Set the Voicemail message — generic auto-attendants kill callback rates.

Settings → Numbers → SMS-enable each number you plan to text from (US/CA only). 10DLC registration is required for any business sending more than 50-100 SMS/day — start the brand + campaign registration on day 1 because approval takes 7-21 days.

Avoid the single-toll-free-for-the-team setup. Toll-free numbers ring "spam likely" on most carriers within 60 days of heavy outbound — see the call-deliverability tutorial.

Settings → Custom Fields → Leads (company-level) → Add field. Common Lead-level fields: Industry, Employee Count, Annual Revenue, ICP Tier, Lifecycle Stage, Account Owner.

Settings → Custom Fields → Contacts (person-level). Common Contact-level fields: Job Title, Seniority, LinkedIn URL, Persona, Buying Role.

Field types matter: Dropdown (locked options) beats Text for anything categorical — Industry, ICP Tier, Persona. Text fields drift within weeks ("SaaS" / "saas" / "B2B SaaS" / "Software") and reporting breaks.

Group fields into Custom Field Groups by purpose: Qualification, Enrichment, Disqualification, Account Insights. Default groupings get messy fast.

Mark required fields sparingly. Required-on-create is fine; required-everywhere blocks rep workflow and they will route around it.

Settings → Users → Invite Members. Enter email, role, and any group membership.

Roles: **Admin** (everything including billing). **Super User** (everything except billing — give to sales managers). **User** (standard rep — own leads + assigned leads + Smart Views shared with them). **Restricted User** (only sees explicitly-assigned leads — useful for contractors / outsourced SDRs you want walled off).

Close licenses are seat-based ($59-149/user/month depending on plan). Audit who actually needs a seat — admins / ops who never make calls do not need a paid seat; they can use the free Inbox-only view via Reports.

Set up Groups (Settings → Groups) matching your org: "Eastern SDRs," "AE Team," "Account Management." Groups drive number assignment, Sequence membership, and round-robin lead routing.

Send invites. New users receive an email and must accept within 7 days. Stale invites do not consume a seat.

Leads (top-nav) → click the filter icon → build a filter → click "Save as Smart View." Name it something action-oriented: "My SQLs to Call Today," not "Sales Qualified Leads."

Build the 5 default Smart Views every SDR needs: (1) "My Hot Leads" — Lead Status = Qualified, Owner = me. (2) "Owed a Callback" — Last call result = "Left voicemail" within last 7 days. (3) "Dial Queue Today" — assigned to me + status = New + no activity in 3+ days. (4) "Demos Booked This Week" — Opportunity = Demo Booked, Created within 7 days. (5) "Stale Open Opps" — Opportunity status = Active, no activity in 14+ days.

Each Smart View has a "Power Dialer" button at the top. Reps load the view and click into the Power Dialer queue — no copy-pasting numbers, no spreadsheets.

Share Smart Views via Settings → Smart Views → Share with workspace / specific groups. Build them once at the workspace level; do not let every rep build their own variant of "My SQLs."

Settings → Email → Connect Email Account → choose Gmail or Outlook → authorize. Two-way sync: every email reps send from Close logs in their inbox; every email from a prospect logs back into the Close Lead automatically.

Set the Email Signature per user (Settings → Profile → Email Signature) — used in 1:1 emails and Sequence steps. HTML signatures with image logos work but image hosting has to be on a public URL.

Settings → Calendar → Connect Calendar (Google or Microsoft). Required for the Meeting Scheduler links and for Tasks to render as calendar events.

Authenticate your sending domain via SPF + DKIM (Settings → Email → Domain Authentication). Without this, Sequence emails land in spam within 2-4 weeks.

Settings → Integrations → install only what your stack uses today. Common: Zapier, HubSpot (if you run marketing automation upstream), Apollo (for enrichment), Lemlist (for cold email pre-Close), Slack (notifications), Calendly, Drift / Intercom.

For lead enrichment from Apollo / ZoomInfo / Clearbit: install the integration, but turn off "auto-enrich every lead" — it burns enrichment credits and writes data on leads you will never call.

For marketing-handoff (HubSpot Marketing → Close): use the native HubSpot integration or a Zapier zap with explicit search-then-create logic. Never blindly create new Leads — always search by email first to prevent duplicates.

Document every integration in a shared doc: what it writes, where the credentials live, who set it up. In 12 months when something writes a junk field on every lead, you will not remember which integration did it.