If you’ve ever worked inside a CRM that’s even a few years old, you’ve probably seen it — duplicate accounts, missing contacts, mismatched opportunities, and reports that just don’t make sense. Most of the time, it’s not that your team doesn’t care about data. It’s that the relationships between your data have gotten messy.

At Revenue Ops LLC, we spend a lot of time helping companies clean up and reconnect their data in Salesforce. And the truth is, good data relationships don’t just make your CRM prettier — they make your whole revenue engine run smoother.

Here’s how to keep those relationships in shape, avoid the usual pitfalls, and build a system that can actually keep up with your business.

1. Start With the Big Picture

Before you get into field types and schema diagrams, zoom out. Ask: What does this data represent in real life?

Salesforce calls this understanding your object relationships, and it’s worth your time. If Accounts are the companies you sell to, Contacts are the people inside them, and Opportunities are your deals — those relationships form your company’s “data family tree.”

Spend an hour mapping that tree on a whiteboard. You’ll be amazed how quickly it shows what’s missing, what’s duplicated, and what’s just confusing. Getting this clarity early saves weeks (and headaches) later.

2. Pick the Right Relationship Type

Not all relationships are created equal. Salesforce gives you a few to choose from — Lookup, Master-Detail, and Many-to-Many (through junction objects).

The quick rundown:

• Lookup relationships are like casual connections — flexible and independent.
• Master-Detail is a tighter bond. The child record’s fate is tied to the parent’s, and you can use roll-up fields to sum totals or count children.
• Many-to-Many handles complexity — think one contact tied to multiple accounts or products related to several opportunities.

The real key is this: build relationships that match your business reality, not the other way around.

3. Keep It Clean, Always

Even the smartest data model falls apart if your data hygiene isn’t there. Duplicates, incomplete records, and bad picklist values will break your reports and your trust in the system.

A few habits that make a difference:

• Use validation rules to catch errors before they happen.
• Run regular deduplication jobs — monthly if you can.
• Standardize how you name and tag things. (If one team says “Acme Corp.” and another says “ACME,” you’ll be fighting that forever.)
• Check for orphan records — contacts without accounts, opportunities without owners.

Salesforce’s data management guide covers this well, but what matters most is consistency. Someone on your team has to own data quality — otherwise, no one does.

4. Set Rules and Ownership

This is where governance comes in — not the fun part, but one of the most important. Data relationships get messy when everyone has permission to “just add a field” or “link it however works for now.”

Instead, define:

• Who owns each object. Maybe Sales Ops owns Accounts, while Marketing owns Campaigns.
• Who approves changes. No new fields or lookups without a quick review.
• Where it’s documented. Keep a shared data dictionary and relationship diagram somewhere everyone can find it.

We help clients build these playbooks so they can scale without chaos. Once governance is in place, data starts behaving again — and so do your reports.

5. Plan for Growth Before You Need It

If your company is growing, your CRM needs to grow with it. The relationships that worked when you had 200 accounts may not hold up when you hit 2,000.

A few things to think ahead on:

• Account hierarchies: If you have parent companies and subsidiaries, model that properly from the start.
• Junction objects: Don’t try to cram complex relationships into simple fields. Use proper many-to-many structures.
• System integrations: Make sure your Salesforce relationships align with external systems like your marketing automation or ERP tools.

The goal is flexibility — so when your org changes, your CRM doesn’t break.

6. Automate and Let the Data Work for You

When your data relationships are clean, you can finally trust automation. That’s when Salesforce really starts to shine.

Use roll-up summaries to show total opportunity value at the account level.
Set up Flows to alert reps when a related record changes.
Build reports that actually tell a story instead of a spreadsheet nightmare.

At the end of the day, clean relationships mean fewer manual updates and more reliable insights — which means better decisions, faster.

7. Review Regularly

Data relationships age like milk, not wine. Review them every quarter or so. Look for outdated fields, unused lookups, and reports that no longer match your current process.

Final Thoughts

Data relationships are the quiet backbone of your revenue operations. When they’re healthy, your CRM runs smoothly, your reports make sense, and your teams trust the data. When they’re not… well, you already know what that feels like.

The good news? It’s fixable. With a bit of structure, clear ownership, and regular care, your data can work for you instead of against you.

If your Salesforce org feels tangled or your reports don’t quite add up, it might be time for a fresh set of eyes. Our team at Revenue Ops LLC can help you map it out, clean it up, and rebuild a system you can actually trust.