A simpler CRM and prospecting setup for Edge of Talent
Client
Edge of Talent
Year
2025
Industry
Recruitment
Services
CRM
Automation
Tech Stack
Edge of Talent helps companies find the right people, through recruitment and consultants. They were paying for a great CRM that was too pricey for what they needed, and a prospecting tool that wasn’t paying for itself. Souk moved them to Pipedrive, migrated all their data, rebuilt the sales process around how the team actually sells, and set up Apollo.io for prospecting. From kickoff workshop to go-live in under four weeks.
Challenges
Edge of Talent sells mostly outbound: LinkedIn outreach, email sequences and partner channels. They were paying for a great CRM, but it was too pricey and too complex for a small team, with five different ways to log an activity. Their prospecting tool gave good reach on LinkedIn, but bounced a lot of emails and returned too little for what it cost.
The team didn’t want more software. They wanted one simple place to work, better follow-up after the first contact, and quotes that didn’t take an afternoon to put together.
Solutions
One workshop to map how they actually sell
We started with a kickoff workshop on what works today, what doesn’t, and how a deal really moves from first contact to signed contract. Out came a sales process map and six pipeline stages: On hold, Intro meeting, Follow-up, Proposal, Closed won and Closed lost.
Leads only when they’re worth tracking
Most of the work is outbound, so new contacts wait in Pipedrive’s Leads inbox until they’re qualified. A lead becomes a deal when the first meeting is booked. When someone says no, the reason gets logged, and an automation brings them back for follow-up after six months of silence.
Pipedrive, set up for a small team
We migrated all their data from the old CRM and prospecting tool into Pipedrive within the same four weeks: contacts, companies, deals, activities and notes. Required fields are kept to a minimum. A deal type field splits consulting from recruitment, quotes are made from templates and stored on the deal, and the pipeline is the first thing the team sees.
A prospecting tool that pays its way
In a second workshop we compared prospecting tools and chose Apollo.io. Together we designed the sequences, what syncs into Pipedrive, and which automations live in Apollo, Pipedrive or n8n.
Training and a playbook
The team got hands-on Pipedrive training on go-live day, plus an Edge of Talent Pipedrive playbook to come back to.
Result
Edge of Talent now works from one simple pipeline instead of a CRM they only half used. Every lead and deal lives in Pipedrive, follow-ups are triggered by the system instead of memory, and prospecting runs on Apollo.io with contacts flowing straight into the pipeline. And because the setup is documented and the team is trained, they run it themselves. The switch also cut their CRM costs by roughly €4,000 a year.
~€4,000
Saved per year on CRM costs
< 4 weeks
From kickoff workshop to go-live
2
Tools replaced, with all data migrated
