Is your team ready for a CRM?
Twelve questions, three points each, thirty-six available. The rubric is published in full, including where the cut-offs are and why.
- 12 questions, full rubric
- Scored 0 to 36
- No email required
The short answer
- Twelve questions across four areas: the process, the data, the people and the reason. Score each 0, 1, 2 or 3 against the descriptions below and add them up.
- Above 24 you are ready. Between 15 and 24 you have specific gaps worth fixing first, and the low-scoring questions tell you which. Below 15, a CRM will be abandoned within six months and the money is better spent elsewhere.
- The single best predictor is question ten. If nobody owns the CRM, nothing else on the list saves the project.
The rubric, not a widget
How to score
For each question: 0 = not true at all. 1 = true for some of the team. 2 = mostly true. 3 = true and you could prove it today. Score honestly rather than aspirationally; the point is to find the gaps.
The twelve questions
Three points each, thirty-six total.
| # | Question | What a 3 looks like |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Do you have a sales process everyone follows? | You could draw it on a whiteboard and two salespeople would draw the same thing |
| 2 | Can you name the stages a deal passes through? | Named stages, each an event with a date rather than a feeling |
| 3 | Do you know where leads come from? | Every lead has a source recorded, not inferred from memory |
| 4 | Is your contact data in one place today? | One list, even if it is a spreadsheet. Three exports from three tools scores 0 |
| 5 | Is that data reasonably clean? | Few duplicates, addresses mostly valid, obvious junk already removed |
| 6 | Do you have a suppression or do-not-contact list? | It exists as a list, not as things people remember |
| 7 | Does someone answer enquiries within a day? | Consistently, including when the usual person is away |
| 8 | Would the team log activity if asked? | They already do somewhere, even informally |
| 9 | Is there a manager who reviews pipeline regularly? | A recurring meeting where deals are actually discussed |
| 10 | Will one named person own the CRM? | A specific human, named, who has time for it. This is the question that predicts failure |
| 11 | Do you know what problem you want it to solve? | One sentence with a number in it, not a general wish for organisation |
| 12 | Can you spare a fortnight for setup and training? | The time is in a calendar, not in an intention |
A rubric for self-assessment. There is no benchmark here of what companies like yours score, because that number would be invented.
What the score means
- 25 to 36. Ready. Pick a tool, set the stages to match the process you already have, and do not let the implementation redesign your business.
- 15 to 24. Nearly. Look at every question you scored 0 or 1 and fix those first. If they are questions 1 to 3, fix the process. If they are 4 to 6, clean the data. If it is question 10, find the owner before you buy anything.
- Below 15. A CRM will make things worse before it makes them better, and most teams in this range abandon the tool inside six months and blame the software. Spend the money on defining the process instead.
The two questions worth extra weight
Question 10, ownership. A CRM without a named owner drifts within weeks. It does not need to be a full-time job, but it does need to be somebody's job rather than everybody's.
Question 11, the problem. Teams that can state the problem in one sentence with a number in it get value from a CRM quickly. Teams that want to be more organised buy an expensive place to be disorganised.
A note on seats, since it affects question 8. Where seats cost money, teams exclude people to save it and the record becomes incomplete, which then gets blamed on adoption. SalesCrew has unlimited seats on every tier, which removes that particular excuse.
Fix the low scores before you buy anything
A named owner and a one-sentence problem are worth more than any feature comparison.