How do you manage deals that are related to multiple higher level organizations?

Erik Lindholm

Somewhat difficult to explain in a short paragraph. We are a construction company, but others likely run into the same scenario.

Owners often hire consultants or management companies to solicit bids from us. The "deals" or contracts are with the owners so they should be linked to the deals. However, the management company is really where the work comes from, so we like to link the deal with the management company, but this completely leaves out the owner. I have tried linking the deal to the owner, and have the owner listed as a "daughter" related org to the management company (so all represented owners show up in the "parent's" profile, but then all owners that are managed by the same company show up as "sister" orgs and they should not be related at all. I have tried linking them as just "related", but then there is no way to differentiate between the management company offices and the lower level property owners - it's just a huge mess of all of the related organizations and property owners together as equals. I have also tried creating (yet another) custom field in the org page called "Managed by" (org name). This sort of works, but (1) it is limited to only 1 org name in the custom field, and (2) there is no way to see what owners the management co. or consultant represent in the org's profile page (although I should be able to create a custom filter which would be tedious).

If anyone has any experience or suggestions with this, I would greatly appreciate the feedback.

Thank you!

Pipedrive User 164

As a landscape maintenance company this is what we did.

The company record that will have the deal(s) related to it should be the actual site where the work will be done. Name the Company record: Management Company Name - Site Name. Example: Colliers - 423 Main Street or CBRE - Manchester Apartments.

Only contacts that work at the site should be listed as contacts in that company record.

If you are working with a property manager that works at a management company office that is not the site that should have a separate company record: 'Colliers Corporate'.

Going back to the property work site record create a custom details field on that company record. The one that allows you to reference a person in your pipedrive database. Name it something like 'Key Contact' this will be to pull the property manager that is your key contact from the management company that works out of 'Colliers Corporate'

If you want to track the owner of the properties info that contact should be listed in a separate company record. Wherever their mailing address (office) is located.

Pipedrive User 164

I had played around with it quite a bit and can tell you initially what I did was add an address field to deal details and then each property was a deal. So for example lets say you have a management or development company that has 5 properties around town that you are bidding on. We would create the company record for ABC Property Management company and then put the separate properties as deals under that company. That was NOT the way to do it and it was a lot of work to change course. But it was worth it. I recommend creating a new company/organization record for each physical location and recommend putting the contacts inside the company/organization record related to where they "office".

Management Company Name - Property 1 Name

Management Company Name - Property 2 Name

Management Company Name - Corporate or Parent (This record would be for the corporate office)

I really think this is the way to go. We don't even bother linking the records as the effort brings little value.

In the case of a company that has multiple sites and isn't necessarily professionally managed here is an example of what we do with separate company records:

Harley Davidson - Juneau Ave (Main)

Harley Davidson - Research Center

Harley Davidson - 4235 N. 58th

Now you put any contacts related specific to that site under each location. if there is a "Main" type location that label it as such above. Create a "Key Contact" field in the company details area that allows you to reference a contact in the database. If Bob Smith is your main contact that works out of the Juneau location put him under that record. Then use the key contact field on the other two records to display a hyperlink to his record.

Erik Lindholm

Thanks for the insight, Brad.

Interesting, so you're creating a new company for each location that is related to the "manager". I can see how this would let you drill down and see all of the times you've been on a particular site. Do you think it's worth the extra effort creating additional company records?