3 things CROs do to get their CRM right

"If you don't have a clear strategy and process, you're just going to repeat the same mistake with a different logo." 

Kristen McGarr, Fractional CRO and founder of Adroit Insights, sees this pattern play out frequently. 

Teams are working around their CRM instead of with it. Sales reps maintain their own spreadsheets. A significant investment delivering minimal ROI. Team trust is lost.

So they start looking for a new CRM. The demos are impressive. The features look perfect. Everyone agrees this will finally solve their revenue problems.

Six months later they’re experiencing similar issues. Why?

Because a CRM fails strategically, before it fails operationally. 

Whether you're evaluating your first CRM, considering a switch, or trying to fix an underperforming system, the issue is the same: jumping to the promise of technology, thinking it will solve your problems.

McGarr and Cait Grabowski, Sr. Implementation Manager at Denamico, shared how they help organizations avoid this trap in our recent panel, The CRO Approach to Getting Your CRM Right. 

They guide their clients through a more thoughtful approach that puts technology last.  

Strategy → Revenue Operations → Technology

Let’s dive into their advice for getting your CRM right. 

The CRO Approach to CRMs

1. Strategy

This phase is about creating clarity before ever talking about technology. Many companies start with a growth target like, "we need to grow 35% next year,” but that's not a strategy.

Without strategic clarity, you can't build a CRM that supports it, because you haven't defined it. This includes where that growth comes from, how you'll achieve it, and whether your current operations can support it.

During this stage, McGarr and Grabowski assess: 

Strategic alignment: Is there actual strategy or just a growth goal? Define what growth actually consists of and how you will capture it: new business, expansion, retention.

Team buy-in: Does everyone understand the why behind the strategy? Interview everyone impacting revenue (sales reps, customer service, marketing, operations) to uncover their day-to-day challenges. These conversations help reveal misalignment between the executive vision and reality.

2. Revenue Operations

Once you have strategic clarity, the next phase is building an operational foundation and removing silos across the organization. When this layer is missing, leaders often blame the CRM for problems it can’t fix.

McGarr puts it plainly: "Your CRM can support process, it can't create process."

At this stage, they dive into the details: 

Process clarity: Have your teams documented their current processes or is everyone doing their own thing? 

Handoffs: When does marketing pass a lead to sales? When does sales hand off to customer success? What information needs to pass with each handoff? Can you identify where deals stall during handoffs?

Internal SLAs: How are teams kept accountable to each other? Are there set expectations for turnarounds between teams and are they followed?

Definitions: Is everyone speaking the same language on important terms? This includes things like: lifecycle stages, lead statuses, and deal stages.

KPIs: Have you defined shared metrics that all teams work to impact? Does each team and person know what they are accountable for that impacts the overall performance?

3. Technology

Once the strategy and RevOps foundation is clear, it’s time to evaluate technology. 

When evaluating CRMs, McGarr and Grabowski highlight four key focus areas:

Define must-haves, nice-to-haves, and non-negotiables: Knowing what matters most will help you know when to compromise and when to keep looking. 

Scalability: Selecting a system that lets you show what you need today and add additional features later supports adoption rates and future scalability. 

"Simplicity scales so much better than complexity," Grabowski emphasizes. "Most CRMs are built to scale incredibly well. You don't need to use every feature on day one. Start with what your team needs today, get adoption going, and roll things out in phases."

Reporting capabilities: Can it surface the specific metrics you defined in the RevOps phase? Does the reporting support the leadership team and show individual contributors if they are hitting their expected metrics?

Adoption potential: Is this a system your team can learn, understand and use? Does it take work off their plate or add more? Complexity doesn’t scale or increase user adoption.

3 Common Mistakes to Avoid

During the discussion, McGarr and Grabowski noted a few common pitfalls to watch out for on your CRM journey.

Mistake #1: Making Feature-led Buying Decisions

"I see this all the time, but if it's not going to help you make better business decisions, it's just another expense," Grabowski says. "People will take the time to set the process with me, and then they get excited because 'this product has AI!' or 'this one does everything!' Great, but if it doesn't align with your process, you've just bought an expensive problem."

Stay focused on your must-haves, scalability and usability. 

Mistake #2: Over-engineering the CRM

“So many over-engineered systems exist because teams spent too much time solving for the 10% edge cases instead of the 90% of typical scenarios,” McGarr explains. “Then you end up with a system so customized it's almost unrecognizable from the original software."

Start small. You can always add more. It's much harder to untangle a web of one-off solutions and complex automations.

Mistake #3: Ignoring User Adoption

Following this approach alone doesn’t guarantee CRM success. Teams need change management and training along the way, because they ultimately power the new CRM. 

Grabowski emphasizes, “You can spend all this time and money building processes and software, but if you don't have a team that's aware of and understanding what they're going to get out of this big change, you're not going to have that adoption and it will fail. So it's really important to have a change management strategy to make sure that the software will get adopted.”

If you want to hear McGarr and Grabowski share real client stories, diagnostic questions, and the framework they use, watch the recording of The CRO Approach to Getting Your CRM Right.