If you’re on a B2B sales team that’s scaling up, you probably feel like you’re spending more time wrangling spreadsheets and chasing down data than actually selling. Tools promise “seamless automation,” but most just pile on more dashboards and busywork. This guide is for you if you want to stop copy-pasting leads, cut repetitive tasks, and actually get time back. Here’s how Bardeen can help—and where it won’t.
Why B2B Sales Teams Get Stuck in Manual Work
Let’s be honest: sales teams love process, but hate unnecessary steps. Growth means more leads, more follow-ups, more apps. Suddenly, your reps are:
- Copying LinkedIn profiles into CRMs by hand
- Updating spreadsheets because two systems don’t talk to each other
- Sending the same intro email 30 times a day
- Missing follow-ups because reminders are scattered everywhere
Most “sales automation” platforms want you to overhaul your whole stack or sign up for another monthly fee. Bardeen takes a different tack—more like plumbing for your existing tools.
What Does Bardeen Actually Do?
Bardeen isn’t another CRM, and it’s not a silver bullet for everything wrong with sales. At its core, it’s an automation tool that connects the apps you already use—think Gmail, LinkedIn, Salesforce, Slack, Notion, and Google Sheets—so you can build workflows that save time.
You set up “playbooks”—chains of actions triggered by something you do (like clicking a button, getting an email, or opening a page). The kicker: It’s meant to be dead simple, and you don’t need to code.
You can:
- Pull lead data from LinkedIn into your CRM with one click
- Auto-create tasks in your project manager when you get a new inbound
- Send reminders to Slack when deals go stale
- Sync meeting notes from Notion to your pipeline
But let’s get practical. Here’s how you’d actually use Bardeen to get rid of your daily busywork.
Step-by-Step: How to Streamline Sales Workflows with Bardeen
1. Map Out Your Time Drains
Before you start automating, figure out where your team is stuck. Don’t automate just for the sake of it—focus on what’s annoying right now.
Common culprits: - Copy-pasting lead info from LinkedIn to CRM - Sending repetitive “thanks for booking” or follow-up emails - Updating deal status in multiple places - Setting up meeting records across tools
Pro tip: Ask your team, “What’s one task you’d pay not to do again?” That’s your candidate.
2. Pick One Workflow to Automate
Don’t try to automate everything at once. Start with one. Let’s walk through a typical example: Enriching and saving new LinkedIn leads into your CRM.
What you’ll need:
- A CRM that Bardeen connects to (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, etc.)
- LinkedIn (the regular website, not Sales Navigator)
- Bardeen browser extension (it’s free to start)
The old way:
- You find a promising lead on LinkedIn.
- Open your CRM in another tab.
- Copy their name, title, company, email (if you can find it), and paste it all in.
- Maybe add a note about how you found them.
- Repeat 20 times.
The Bardeen way:
- Open a LinkedIn profile.
- Click your Bardeen extension.
- Run a playbook: “Save LinkedIn profile to [Your CRM].”
- Bardeen grabs the info, fills out the CRM fields, and can even add a note or trigger a follow-up reminder.
Does it work every time? Mostly, yes. Sometimes LinkedIn changes their page layout, which can break scraping, but Bardeen updates regularly.
3. Customize (Don’t Over-Engineer)
Bardeen comes with templates (“playbooks”) for the most common sales tasks. You can use them as-is or tweak them.
- Add steps: Want to send a Slack notification when a new lead is saved? Add it.
- Conditional logic: Only save leads from certain industries? Easy enough.
- Chain actions: After saving to CRM, automatically create a follow-up task in Asana or a row in Google Sheets.
What to skip: Don’t try to map every possible scenario or edge case. If a workflow takes longer to automate than to just do manually, skip it for now.
4. Test and Share with Your Team
Run your workflow a few times. Check that the data ends up where you want it. Look out for:
- Fields not matching up (e.g., “Title” going into “Notes”)
- Duplicate entries
- Permissions issues (some CRMs are picky about integrations)
Once it works, share the playbook link with your team. They can run it with one click—no setup required on their end.
Pro tip: Have a “sandbox” lead or test record, so you’re not spamming your real pipeline.
5. Automate Follow-Ups (Without Spamming)
Scheduling and sending follow-ups eats up a lot of time. Bardeen can help, but use it wisely—nobody likes a robot-sounding email.
- Trigger a follow-up reminder in your calendar or task manager after a call
- Pre-draft (but don’t auto-send) follow-up emails for review
- Move deals to “stale” if there’s no activity after X days, and ping the owner
What not to do: Resist the urge to blast out canned emails. Bardeen can fill in templates, but make sure a human reviews before sending.
6. Keep an Eye on What’s Working (And What’s Not)
Automations aren’t “set and forget.” Check in every couple of weeks:
- Are reps actually using the playbooks?
- Are you seeing fewer manual errors?
- Is anything breaking after a tool updates?
If something’s not working, don’t force it. Kill the automation or tweak the steps.
What Bardeen Does Well (And Where It Falls Short)
Where Bardeen Shines
- No-code setup: If you can use Zapier or build a filter in Gmail, you’ll be fine.
- Real-time scraping: Grabs info directly from web pages you’re looking at.
- Works with tons of tools: Google Workspace, Notion, Slack, CRMs, etc.
- Shareable playbooks: Once you build a workflow, your whole team benefits.
Where It’s Not Magic
- Web scraping can break: If LinkedIn or another site changes its layout, the playbook may need tweaking.
- Not a full-fledged sales platform: Doesn’t do pipeline management or reporting—use your CRM for that.
- Limited to browser actions: If your workflow needs deep backend integration or works outside Chrome, look elsewhere.
Bottom line: Bardeen cuts out the boring stuff between your apps. It won’t replace your CRM or make your emails close deals for you.
Ignore the Hype, Focus on What Actually Saves Time
You’ll see vendors promising “automated sales at scale” or “AI-driven everything.” In reality, good automation is about getting rid of the tasks you hate, not replacing your whole process with a black box.
With Bardeen, start simple:
- Pick one workflow that’s genuinely annoying
- Get it running
- Share with your team
- Improve as you go
Don’t overthink it. Automate the busywork, stay hands-on with the rest, and keep iterating as your team grows. That’s how you actually get more time to sell—and less time cursing at spreadsheets.