7-Day CRM Trial Checklist for Consulting Firms

A CRM trial should answer one question: can your team run the next client-facing action more reliably than it can today?

This checklist is for solo consultants and small B2B service teams comparing CRM software. Use it with the CRM Evaluation Scorecard.

Download the 7-Day CRM Trial Checklist (CSV)

Before you start

Choose two or three CRM candidates, not ten.
Use five real or realistic active opportunities.
Write the one workflow failure you want to stop: missed follow-up, unclear ownership, proposal delay, or weak handoff.
Record the plan, seat count, trial end date, and any usage-based charge before enabling features.

Day 1: Lead capture and ownership

Create five contacts and opportunities.
Record lead source, owner, pipeline stage, next action, and next action date.
Check whether another teammate can see the same information without asking for a spreadsheet.

Day 2: Follow-up discipline

Assign an overdue task and a future task.
Check how the system surfaces missed follow-up.
Verify whether reminders are native, integration-based, or plan-limited.

Day 3: Communication context

Connect or simulate the Gmail/Outlook workflow you actually use.
Log a sample email, meeting, or call against an opportunity.
Check permissions, sync direction, and whether the history remains useful to another owner.

Day 4: Pipeline and proposal

Move one opportunity from qualification to proposal.
Record expected value, decision date, and next action.
Test whether the quote, proposal, contract, or invoice step is native, integrated, or not verified.

Day 5: Handoff

Mark an opportunity won.
Ask a delivery teammate to find the agreed scope, key contacts, and last sales context.
List what was missing or required manual copying.

Day 6: Cost and risk

Confirm plan, seat, usage, integration, and add-on costs.
Check export, import, retention, and cancellation terms relevant to your business.
Write one reason not to choose each candidate.

Day 7: Decide

Complete the CRM Evaluation Scorecard.
Reject any candidate that fails a must-have workflow, even if it has the highest feature count.
Keep your evidence notes and links to official documentation.

Related guides

Disclosure: Sorai may earn a commission from approved affiliate links. This checklist is designed to help readers run their own trial; commercial relationships do not determine the checklist or its conclusions.

Last reviewed: August 22, 2026

Use the CRM Trial Decision Record to keep evidence, risks, and the final choice after your trial.