Written by Mike Hurley, founder of WarmUp. This is the layout our own pipeline runs on.

One layer decides · one remembers · one records · one touches

Read the board left to right, following the numbers: where signals start, the router, the layer that decides, the layer that remembers, and the two layers a person sees (the record and the touch). Each card lists what that part reads, what it writes, and the one thing it never does. The strip under the legend follows one signal through. Click the board to open it full size.

Why it helps

Most teams I talk to own the tools: a CRM, a data tool, a sender or three. What they do not have is an answer to a plain question: when two of those tools disagree about a company, which one is right? Without an answer, every new tool adds another copy of the truth, and the rep ends up checking three places before a call.

This layout answers it by giving each layer one job. One layer decides what a signal means. One remembers everything, in a database you own. One records what happened, where the team already works. One touches the buyer. The three guides before this one (the map, the hiring feed and the social play) are all parts of the first two layers.

The tools in the last column are the ones we use today, and they are not the ones on the first drawing of this board. We changed senders in September 2026. That is the kind of change the layout is meant to absorb, and it is why the tools are named as examples and the layers are not.

Why we built it this way

• One router, not one workflow per source. Every signal, warm or cold or dug out of old CRM history, is matched to a company and a person and put in one shape before anything acts on it. A new source is a new input to the router and nothing else.
• Fit and timing are two numbers. Fit belongs to the account and changes when a fact does. Timing belongs to the signal and fades. A signal moves an account up inside its tier and never changes the tier.
• Your database is the truth; the CRM gets views of it. We ruled this in August 2026. The CRM is where people work, so it shows the ranked list with reasons. It is never the only copy.
• One queue. Everything upstream exists to produce one ordered list a rep can finish in a morning, with the reason to call beside each name.
• One sender per channel, one blocklist writer. Email, LinkedIn and calling each have one tool. One sync tool keeps do-not-contact identical in all of them and writes their activity back to the CRM.
• Automation prepares, people send. Nothing creates a deal and nothing starts a campaign on its own. Every write leaves a record of what was checked and what it cost.
• Replies come back in at the left. A reply, a question on a call or new engagement is a fresh signal. The loop is the same router, so nothing is rebuilt to close it.

How to build it

1. Name your four layers before you name a tool. Write one line each: what decides, what remembers, what records, what touches. If one tool is doing two of these, write down which copy wins.
2. Stand up the memory first. One database you own, with three tables to start: companies keyed on domain, people keyed on profile address or work email, and signals you only ever add to.
3. Build one router. Every source posts to it. It looks the company and the person up, fills in what is missing, and writes one event in one shape.