Webinar Details
During a recent webinar with Matthew Volm, Courtney Sylvester and Jared Barol, we finally said what most teams are too tired or too political to say out loud. The CRM is not broken because you hired the wrong admin. It is broken because humans were asked to be the system of record. A CRM built on manual data entry is destined to decay. The decay is slow at first. Then it becomes structural. Then it becomes operational truth.
I have lived inside that decay. I have built around it. I have excused it. Now I build tools that remove it. That shift is not a convenience. It is a survival requirement for modern go to market teams.
This is the part of the conversation RevOps has been craving but rarely gets the space to voice.
Session Highlights
This conversation highlights how CRM data is unreliable because it depends on humans to maintain precision they were never built for. The result is a system that drifts away from reality while teams continue making decisions as if the data were solid.
Why Most CRMs Have Are Bottlenecked
- CRMs fail because humans are treated as the system of record. Manual entry creates inconsistency, bias, and inevitable decay.
- The lead object is outdated and harmful. It fragments the customer journey, adds unnecessary complexity, and creates operational drift. A contact centered model is more accurate and far simpler.
- Most CRMs mirror internal silos rather than customer behavior. Systems are built around departments instead of reflecting how customers move, which causes broken workflows and muddled reporting.
- Real signals live outside the CRM. Calls, emails, tickets, and conversations contain the truth but remain unstructured. AI extraction turns these signals into structured, accurate fields.
- A trustworthy CRM transforms RevOps into an alignment engine. With shared reality, teams stop debating interpretations and start acting on truth.
- The realistic transformation path is Crawl, Walk, Run.
- Crawl: audit and simplify
- Walk: shift to contact centric, automate signal parsing, rebuild reporting
- Run: automate enrichment, risk detection, next steps, and updates
- AI strengthens RevOps instead of replacing it. RevOps sets the architecture and judgment. AI delivers accuracy, structure, and pattern detection.
- Cultural change follows technical change. Accurate data calms pipeline reviews, reduces defensiveness, shortens meetings, and increases trust.
- RevOps must lead with honesty and conviction. It requires acknowledging failures, redesigning foundations, and pushing automation even when uncomfortable.
- The future is a revenue system that matches revenue reality. Customer centered models and AI powered data integrity are becoming the standard for high performing teams.
