‘I don’t worry about the detail of our systems, that’s for one of my team to think about’ and ‘I signed off the investment and so it’s down to the team to implement’ are comments I hear regularly when I meet with business owners of growing businesses and discuss CRM implementation with them.
It is of little surprise to me, therefore when I check back in 6 months later to see how projects are going, that I am met with troubled looks and pained expressions. ‘It’s not working’ and ‘we have had several challenges’ are common phrases used and these are some of the better ones!
There is a great saying which goes ‘If you think you are too big for the small jobs then maybe you are too small for the big jobs’ and it’s so true when it comes to new CRM implementation. Most MD’s pass the job and responsibility for the project onto other leaders in the business but those who get it to work don’t.
All projects have a core business reason as to why they are being implemented, but in many cases, those reasons are flimsy and too generic. We want to ‘improve our customer satisfaction levels’ or we want to ‘increase our conversion rate’ are nice ideas to work towards but without very clear SMART goals they are fanciful dreams.
The best business owners know that for any project to be successful, very clear requirements should be defined upfront, which provide the direction for the project to travel towards. They are specific on what they want to see and what success will look like. They know the exact problem that this project is going to solve. They allow others to contribute at the start but then build collective agreement from everyone on a plan to move forward.
The key to success here is clarity on the vision of where they want to get to and what it will take to achieve this.
Those who only focus on mile 27 whilst at mile 1 rarely succeed. Those who focus on reaching milestone 1 do.
Getting any implementation right is important but in the modern business world a CRM system that works for the business rather than against it is key. It really is a key component to success and can transform both the reputation and numbers of companies when done well.
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