How to Build a Free Sales CRM in Notion and Enhance It with AI

Step 1. Create a new page for your CRM

• Open Notion and sign in to your account.
• In the left panel, click "+ New Page" at the bottom of the sidebar.
• Give the page a name, such as “Sales CRM” or “My Sales Pipeline.”
• When Notion asks you what type of content you want to add, ignore the options and continue to the next step.

Step 2. Create your database

• Inside your new page, type `/` in the body of the document. This opens the Notion blocks menu.
• Type "table" and select the "Database - Table (full)" option.
• This will create a table that lives on its own page, allowing you to add multiple views later.
• Notion will automatically create a table for you with a name column. That's where your CRM begins.

Step 3. Configure the stages of your pipeline

The stages are the phases that a lead goes through from when you meet them until they close or are lost. To configure them:

• Click the "+" button to the right of the last column to add a new property.
• Select the "Selection" type, not "Multiple Selection."
• Name it "Stage."
• Click on that property and add the following options one by one:

• Prospect
• Contacted
• Scheduled meeting
• Proposal sent
• Negotiation
• Closed Won
• Closed Lost

Assign a different color to each stage to identify them at a glance: green for “Closed Won,” red for “Closed Lost,” and shades in between for the rest.

Step 4. Add essential fields

Repeat the previous process, clicking "+", to add these properties. The type of each is indicated in parentheses:

• Company → Text The lead company.
• Source channel → Select How it came to you: LinkedIn, referral, event, inbound, outbound or other.
• Last contact date → Date type Use this date to see which leads are active and which may be going cold.
• Next action → type Text What you have to do: send proposal, call or follow up.
• Next action deadline → type Date When the next action is due.
• Estimated value of the deal → type Number In euros, what that client could be worth.
• ICP → Select The ideal customer profile that the lead matches. If you only have one ICP, you can add this field later.
• Key notes → Text A free-text field for notes from your last conversation.

Step 5. Add reminders so no lead goes cold

Each row in your CRM is actually a Notion page. This means that you can add dated tasks and reminders to each lead’s page.

• Click a lead’s name to open its page.
• Inside that page, type `/` and select "Reminder."
• Write what you have to do and select the date and time you want Notion to notify you.
• Notion will send you a notification in the app and by email when that time arrives.

Set a reminder whenever you agree to follow up or need to reconnect on a specific date. It is a simple habit that keeps opportunities from slipping through the cracks.

Step 6. Create your three views

Views are the most powerful part of the CRM in Notion. With the same database, you can view the information in completely different ways depending on what you need at any given time.

You now have a free, functional CRM for managing your pipeline—as long as you keep it up to date. As meetings increase, manual updates can quickly fall to the bottom of the list.

That's why Level 2 exists.

Step 1. Set up the Notion integration with Claude

In order for Claude to write in your Notion, you need to connect both tools. This is done from the Claude interface:

• Go to `claude.ai` and access your Pro account.
• In the left side panel, look for the "Connectors" or "Integrations" section.
• Find Notion in the list of available integrations and click "Connect."
• A Notion authorization window will open. Sign in if you haven't already and select the pages you want Claude to have access to. Select your CRM.
• Confirm the connection. Claude can now read and write to your Notion database.

Step 2. Connect your meeting transcription tool

If you use Google Meet and recordings are automatically saved to your Google Drive, Claude can access them directly.

• In the same Claude integrations panel, search for Google Drive and connect it following the same authorization process.
• Make sure your meeting recordings are saved to a specific Drive folder.
• If they don't already do this automatically, create a folder called "Meeting Transcripts" and move them there.
• When Google Meet generates a transcript, it saves it to Drive as a text document linked to the recording. Those documents are the ones Claude is going to read.

If you use another transcription tool, such as Otter.ai or Fireflies, check whether it can export or share transcripts to Drive or integrate directly with Claude.

Step 3. Connect your email

• In Claude's integrations panel, search for Gmail, or whatever email client you use, and connect it.
• Claude can read emails in your inbox when you ask it to, or automatically if you configure it in the next step.

Step 4. Create your CRM update prompt

This is the most important step. Give Claude clear instructions on what to do with the information it finds. Save this prompt somewhere easy to access, such as in Notion, so you can reuse it:

You are my business assistant. You have access to my CRM in Notion
and to my meeting transcripts on Google Drive.

When prompted, access the most recent transcript in
[folder or specific name], extract the following information
and update the corresponding record in my CRM:

- Name of the lead and company (if they appear)
- Current stage of the deal according to what was discussed
- Date of meeting (= date of last contact)
- Next agreed action and deadline if mentioned
- Summary of 2-3 lines with the most relevant points
  of the conversation for the "Key Notes" field

If the lead does not yet exist in the CRM, create a new row
with this information. If it already exists, update the relevant
fields without deleting any existing information.

You can customize this prompt with the exact name of your Drive folder, your CRM-specific fields, and any additional instructions you need.

Step 5. Use it after each meeting

The workflow at this level is like this:

• You end a meeting with a lead.
• You wait a few minutes for Google Meet to generate and save the transcript to Drive.
• You open Claude and type: "Update my CRM with the transcript of today's meeting."
• Claude logs into Drive, reads the transcript, extracts the relevant information, and updates the record in Notion.
• You review the changes in your CRM and correct any details if necessary.

Update my CRM with the transcript of today's meeting.

You can do the same with emails: "Check the email I received today from [name] and update their record in the CRM."

Check the email I received today from [name] and update their record in the CRM.

It still takes a little effort, but it reduces 10–15 minutes of manual updates to less than 2 minutes of review.

If you want to go one step further and have the system work completely autonomously, without you having to ask Claude for anything, that's Level 3.

Option A. Claude Cowork, the simplest

This is how it works:

• Download and install Claude Cowork on your computer from the official Anthropic website.
• Open Cowork and create a new workflow by clicking "New Flow."
• Give it a name: "CRM Update."
• In the instructions section, paste the prompt you created in Level 2 and adapt it so Claude runs it automatically without needing a prompt each time.
• In the frequency section, set how often you want it to run.

• Every hour, if you have frequent meetings and need the CRM kept up to date.
• Once a day at a set time, such as 8:00 p.m., so the CRM is up to date the next morning.
• Whenever a new file appears in Drive. If your transcription tool supports this, it is the most efficient option because the workflow runs only when there is something new to process.

Save the flow and activate it. From there, Cowork checks Drive at the intervals you set, detects new transcripts, processes them, and updates Notion. Without you doing anything.

Option B. n8n, more flexible and somewhat more technical

What you need: An n8n account, with a free plan with limitations or payment plans from €20/month, and access to the Claude, Notion and Google Drive API.

Who is this option for: If you want to integrate more tools into the flow, if you want to customize exactly when and how each step is executed, or if you already have some experience with automation tools like Zapier or Make.

At a high level, n8n is a visual automation tool where you connect blocks to create workflows. For this use case, the basic workflow has four blocks.

{
  "lead_name": "María García",
  "company": "TechStartup SL",
  "stage": "Proposal submitted",
  "last_contact_date": "2026-05-20",
  "next_action": "Send revised contract",
  "deadline_date": "2026-05-25",
  "notes": "Interested in the annual plan. Needs partner approval. Confirmed budget: €4,800/year"
}

To have Claude return clean JSON without additional text, add this instruction to the end of your prompt:

Respond only with JSON. No explanations, no additional text, no blocks of code.

Block 4. Update Notion. n8n takes the JSON returned by Claude and checks whether the lead already exists in your Notion CRM. If it does, n8n updates the relevant fields. If not, it creates a new row.

To connect n8n with Notion you will need a Notion API key, which you get at `notion.so/my-integrations` in less than 5 minutes.