Buyers have changed how they buy. They do most of their research before they speak to anyone, and they expect the same simple, personal experience from a business supplier that they get from the apps on their phone. Plenty now commit to complex purchases on reputation, reviews and a free trial alone. Sales and marketing teams built for a different era feel that gap first.
The usual response is a new platform. Sometimes that’s the right call. But a new CRM on top of the old way of working mostly moves the old problems somewhere more expensive. Changing how a team sells and markets is a people and process job first, and a technology job second.
We’ve seen these programs succeed and we’ve seen them stall. The ones that stall tend to fail in the same places, and most of those places are visible before a single thing gets built.
Find the real problem first
Every business runs on three things: its people, its processes and its technology. Before you change any of them, get an honest picture of how each works today.
That means going into the detail. Map the processes, or write them down for the first time. Find out what people spend their days on and how they actually do it, workarounds included. Most of all, talk to the people doing the work. A day spent with your frontline team will tell you more than a week of reports and senior interviews.
Then design the future with all three in mind. It’s tempting to swap the technology and copy the existing processes across, so nobody’s routine changes. But processes built around an old system’s limits will hold the new one back. The aim is the right people doing the right things, with the right tools, at the right time.
Write a business case someone will read
The last hurdle before you start is sign-off. We’ve seen plenty of 30-page business cases that took three months to write, and we’d steer you away from that. The people approving the spend are short on time. In our experience, a one or two-page case gets approved far more often than a bound report.
A good one covers five things:
- One clear goal leaders can hold the program to.
- The problems the business is facing.
- The people, process and technology changes needed to meet the goal.
- The time and cost involved.
- The return you expect.
Four ways programs go wrong
Failed programs tend to follow a few familiar patterns.
1. The shortcut
One solution delivered in isolation, such as a new CRM with no work on the processes behind it. The old problems move to a new tool and the workarounds survive.
2. The add-on
Change work piled on top of everyone’s day job. Leaders and staff burn out, and the program loses focus.
3. The team in a tower
A central team runs the program at arm’s length from the business, so frontline knowledge never reaches the decisions that need it.
4. Set and forget
Go-live is treated as the finish line. Nobody reinforces the new habits or checks whether the benefits arrived.
Most of these come from trying to keep costs down or avoid disrupting day-to-day work. Both are fair concerns. But a program has to be sized to its benefits. Don’t launch a major change effort to build one report, and don’t underfund a big change and expect big results.
Win early, then go deep
Phase the work so people feel a benefit before they feel the disruption. Start with changes that are cheap, quick to deliver and obvious to the people using them. Something as simple as an e-signature tool can take a daily frustration off a salesperson’s plate and change how their week feels.
Then deliver the core of the program, which is usually the CRM itself. That work takes months, and it will disrupt people. Early wins build up goodwill to draw on during that stretch, and they give the team a glimpse of what’s on the other side. Whole programs have been cancelled because the first phase took too long and hurt too much.
Put the right people on the team
A program is only as good as the people running it. You need experts in the solutions being introduced, and you need insiders who know how the business really works. Either group on its own will get it wrong.
Bring frontline leaders in from the start. They own the current processes and teams, and they’ll be the ones embedding whatever comes next. If they don’t feel ownership of the new way of working, they can stall it. We’ve seen promising projects fail on exactly that.
Talk to the sceptics early, too. Your most resistant salespeople are often your best performers, and they have reasons for doing things their way. Involve them in the design and act on their feedback. Done well, they’ll end up selling the change for you.
Find your change champions
A good waiter can make a night out. They know the menu and when to leave you alone. They’ll talk you into something you wouldn’t normally order, then make sure the kitchen gets your changes right.
A change champion does the same job inside a program. They sit between the frontline team and the people delivering the change. They explain what’s coming in a way colleagues relate to, and carry the team’s needs back so the design reflects how people actually work. That saves a lot of dishes being sent back.
Champions can come from any level, from a top salesperson to a respected team leader. Look for someone who is:
- Liked and respected by the frontline team.
- Comfortable talking up, down and across the business.
- Committed to what the program is trying to achieve.
- Willing to push back rather than default to ‘yes’.
Involve them at three points. In scoping and design, so priorities reflect the people most affected. In testing, where they can check the solution works for real users and review training material before it goes wide. And after go-live, when they become the first person colleagues ask for help and the loudest voice celebrating early wins.
Leaders go first
Like the safety briefing on a plane, leaders need to fit their own mask before helping others. They should understand the changes before the rest of the business does.
Managers carry a heavy load. A sales team that has spent years honing its rhythm will lose it for a while. Pipelines get harder to manage, and conversion rates usually dip before they recover. Managers need to coach through that with empathy, adjusting their approach to each person rather than pulling them up on every mistake. Few managers have all those skills ready to go, so it’s worth investing in training or coaching for them.
Executives matter even more, because everyone watches what they do. They have their own habits and favourite reports to let go of, and nobody is checking that they do. When a senior leader asks for the old report, the team goes back to the old system to produce it, and the change slides backwards.
Two habits help. Share progress regularly, including what still isn’t working. And talk openly about mistakes, your own included. Leaders who admit what they’ve found hard make it safe for everyone else to keep going.
Sales and marketing change together
People often ask whether to start with sales or marketing. Our answer is both. Customers experience one business, not two departments, and improving one side while the other stands still leaves most of the benefit on the table.
Where to start
Before you sign for anything, try three questions.
- 1. Can we describe, in a sentence, the problem we’re solving and how we’ll know it’s solved?
- 2. Have we spent time with the people who’ll use the new way of working, not just the people approving it?
- 3. Who will champion this on the floor, and who’s likely to resist?
If those answers are hazy, the program isn’t ready to start. That’s the most useful thing you can find out early.