It’s the most wonderful time of the year for your business: data is hastily being updated, effort and outcomes are being evaluated, and revenue forecasting is pivotal to understanding how attainable your goals truly are in the final hour (or quarter, so to speak).
Not coincidentally, it’s the time of the year in which I receive the most questions about CRMs. The ambitious founder, senior Operations Leader, or VP of Revenue is currently asking, “Have we outgrown our spreadsheet phase?” or “Will a CRM take my company to the next level?”
The truth is, a CRM is a vital tool and resource for any business. It powers efficiency, provides the data you need to make decisions, and harnesses the capabilities to make your most successful actions repeatable. However, the ways in which you approach a CRM (the why and the how) are the deciding factor in whether or not it will help or ultimately hinder your teams.
Ask The Right Questions: The Why & The Who
In their most recent insights, Gartner states that nearly 80% of CRM implementations miss their objectives, and 71% of these failures are adoption and not technology-related. Asking the right questions now will help you build the right objectives for your solution and plan for how to adopt. These questions include:
- What are my real problems right now? (not tomorrow’s issues; let’s focus on today)
- What jobs would your tool be doing? (essentially a feature-mapping exercise)
- Which function currently drives this work today, and what is their capacity and skills? (allows you to gauge how much team disruption you can handle)
- What company culture have we instilled within our team members? (Do we value change? Is continuous learning important? Are team members accustomed to providing candid feedback? This is not for shame; this is for planning, so be honest.)
Audit Your Current Tools: The Potential How
Find out what features your current tools offer on your current subscription tier and beyond. Your SaaS tool wants to be your partner, not just a single-use resource. Competition for your attention has led to many tools offering more comprehensive product suites that offer enhanced workflow builders, connectors/plugins to other tools, communications suites, database builders, etc. that you would previously have to buy several separate tools to obtain. The kids these days call this “reheating someone’s nachos.” Please don’t ask me why.
We move so quickly on a daily basis that we forget to be curious around what nachos our tech dollars are buying us now. Making a list of the features you have (or could have) in your tech stack could help identify the answers to the “what jobs…” question previously mentioned, and help you understand the how of accomplishing your CRM needs.
Utilize the OEM Matrix: Your Goldilocks Menu
Now that you know what problems you have, what potential features you have (or clearly do not have) in your current tools to solve them, and who would be impacted by and responsible for the implementation of your solutions, take a moment to “taste the porridge” and choose the path that your organization could accommodate and would benefit from most.
Using the Optimize, Expand, Migrate (OEM) Matrix allows you to see your clearest paths, along with the lift and considerations for each one. This helps you plan to adopt the pathway successfully. (screenshot this and apply it to your needs)
| Consideration | Optimize (Stay Put) | Expand | Migrate |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Situation | The current tool meets core business needs, and the team is mostly proficient with it. | The tool is missing features, but the gaps can efficiently be bridged with plugins, APIs, or workarounds. | The spreadsheet/database is a bottleneck, outdated, or lacks critical infrastructure for future growth. |
| The Reality | No. You don’t need a CRM. | Technically, you have CRM-like solutions. | Yes. You need to implement a CRM. |
| Primary Action | Clean up bad data, train lagging users, and optimize existing workflows. | Integrate third-party tools, upgrade tiers, or build custom automation around it. | Research CRMs, run a Proof of Concept (PoC), and plan for procurement/data migration. |
| Financial Impact | Maintenance costs only. No new licensing or implementation fees. | Low-to-medium costs for add-ons, premium tiers, or developer hours. | High immediate costs for dual-licensing, migration services, and retraining. |
| Team Disruption (for planning) | Workflow remains uninterrupted; morale stays stable. | Team must learn a few new features or overlapping interfaces. | Steeper learning curve, temporary drop in productivity, change-fatigue risks. |
| Risks (for planning) | Missing out on industry innovation. | Too many brittle workarounds are built, teams become confused, time-to-task increases. | Data loss, adoption failure, or choosing a tool with a steep learning curve |
Optimize (Stay Put)
- The Situation
- The current tool meets core business needs, and the team is mostly proficient with it.
- The Reality
- No. You don’t need a CRM.
- Primary Action
- Clean up bad data, train lagging users, and optimize existing workflows.
- Financial Impact
- Maintenance costs only. No new licensing or implementation fees.
- Team Disruption (for planning)
- Workflow remains uninterrupted; morale stays stable.
- Risks (for planning)
- Missing out on industry innovation.
Expand
- The Situation
- The tool is missing features, but the gaps can efficiently be bridged with plugins, APIs, or workarounds.
- The Reality
- Technically, you have CRM-like solutions.
- Primary Action
- Integrate third-party tools, upgrade tiers, or build custom automation around it.
- Financial Impact
- Low-to-medium costs for add-ons, premium tiers, or developer hours.
- Team Disruption (for planning)
- Team must learn a few new features or overlapping interfaces.
- Risks (for planning)
- Too many brittle workarounds are built, teams become confused, time-to-task increases.
Migrate
- The Situation
- The spreadsheet/database is a bottleneck, outdated, or lacks critical infrastructure for future growth.
- The Reality
- Yes. You need to implement a CRM.
- Primary Action
- Research CRMs, run a Proof of Concept (PoC), and plan for procurement/data migration.
- Financial Impact
- High immediate costs for dual-licensing, migration services, and retraining.
- Team Disruption (for planning)
- Steeper learning curve, temporary drop in productivity, change-fatigue risks.
- Risks (for planning)
- Data loss, adoption failure, or choosing a tool with a steep learning curve
How to Read Your Answers
You’re probably in Optimize if… your real problem is messy data, inconsistent usage, or a process nobody follows, and your audit shows the tool can already do the job. The tool isn’t failing you. The habits around it are.
You’re probably in Expand if… your problem is a specific missing capability, like automated follow-ups, pipeline reporting, or a clean handoff between sales and service, and your audit turned up a plugin, a higher tier, or an integration that closes the gap without a rebuild.
You’re probably in Migrate if… your problem is structural. The tool can’t hold the data you need, can’t scale with the team, or your audit came up empty on the jobs that matter most.
How Your Company Culture and Team Capacity Impact Planning
Remember, most CRM failures are adoption failures. Before you commit to a path, hold it up against your team.
The more disruptive the path, the more capacity and appetite for change you need. Optimize asks little; Expand asks for a few new habits; Migrate asks for real bandwidth, patience, and a team that’s comfortable giving candid feedback when something isn’t working.
If your answers show you need to Migrate, but your team is stretched thin or change-weary, you don’t necessarily change the destination. You change the pace. Consider Expand as a bridge, or stage the migration in phases, so you’re solving today’s problem without creating tomorrow’s.
Ending Where We Started
A CRM can take a company to the next level, or it can quietly become the most expensive band-aid you own. The difference is rarely determined by the software alone. It’s whether you asked the right questions first. Answer these honestly, and the right path (whether Optimize, Expand, or Migrate) tends to reveal itself before you run and buy that CRM.
Celeste Keeton
Founder & Principal Consultant at Keeton Consulting Solutions. Helping growing teams build tech stacks their people actually want to use.