I was on a call recently with a leadership team who thought they had a CRM problem.
They’re a global manufacturing company. Strong sales last year. Smart people. Real
opportunity ahead of them.
But they were feeling friction.
At one point, someone said:
“After the last migration and integration, there’s a lot of duct tape in there.”
I’ve heard some version of that sentence more times than I can count.
“Duct tape” usually means:
- Systems layered over systems
- Reports that don’t quite reconcile
- Marketing activity that can’t clearly be tied to revenue
- Data no one fully trusts
Their instinct was reasonable.
Fix the integrations.
Clean up the system.
Patch the weak spots.
But as the conversation unfolded, I had a moment.
If we helped them patch the system, we’d be helping them stay stuck.
Because the issue wasn’t the software.
We hadn’t yet aligned on what success actually looked like for them.
On a recent RevOps Champions podcast, guest Jennifer Zick said:
“RevOps is the glue. It’s the heart of what makes the strategy possible.”
I love that description.
But when I hear “glue,” I immediately think:
Glue to what?
To me, that glue is your revenue operating system.
Not just your CRM.
Not just dashboards.
Not just automation.
Your revenue operating system is how marketing, sales, customer service, operations,
and finance align around how revenue is generated, measured, forecasted, expanded,
and improved.
If that system isn’t intentionally defined, designed, and architected up front, then every
“fix” becomes rework waiting to happen. Every fix creates complexity instead of
scalability.
Midway through the call, one of the leaders paused and said:
“I’m recognizing that maybe we don’t have the right sequence.”
That was the breakthrough moment.
Because sequence matters more than software.
If leaders aren’t aligned first…
If success hasn’t been clearly defined…
If priorities aren’t agreed upon…
Then no CRM in the world will save you.
A CRM cannot create alignment.
It exposes the lack of it.
That’s why we start with a project we call Architecture and Clarity.
Before we rebuild pipelines.
Before we redesign integrations.
Before we clean up data.
We define:
- What must be true 12 months from now that isn’t true today?
- What decisions does leadership need to make that they cannot make right now?
- What does trustworthy data actually mean in this business?
- What do sales, marketing, and customer service need in order to execute consistently?
Only then do we build.
Otherwise teams aren’t aligned.
Leaders aren’t aligned.
Definitions aren’t aligned.
The system becomes a source of frustration instead of a competitive advantage.
And here’s the other part that matters.
Your revenue operating system is not a project.
It’s a practice.
I compare it to a yoga practice. You don’t “implement yoga.” You commit to it. You
improve it. You strengthen it. You adjust as your capability grows.
The same is true here.
No one has time for massive, disruptive, all-consuming projects. The companies that
see the most success treat their revenue operating system as something they refine
month after month. Small improvements. Clear priorities. Dedicated ownership.
Over time, those refinements compound.
Better forecasting improves margins.
Clearer attribution improves capital allocation.
Aligned pipelines shorten sales cycles.
Shared visibility increases accountability.
Predictability increases the value of the business.
That’s the transformation I get excited about.
Not just cleaner dashboards.
Not just clever workflows.
But leadership teams who can finally say:
We trust our data.
We know what’s working.
We know where to invest.
We know what needs to improve next.
If your current system feels like duct tape…
If you don’t have one source of truth for key data…
If your team is busy but not fully aligned…
You probably don’t have a CRM problem.
You have a sequence problem.
And that’s exactly where Architecture and Clarity begins.
Glue is powerful.
But only if you know what you’re building.
Here’s to getting the sequence right.
Kristin
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Kristin Dennewill
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