Once upon a time, when our company was still on the rise, I discovered the magic of social media ads. I remember the day we launched our first Facebook campaign—leads started raining in like summer rain in Harare! We also ran Google Ads, and those beautiful pings on Tawk.to kept our team buzzing like bees around a honey jar.
But there was one massive problem…
We were collecting leads using Excel. Yes, you heard me right—Excel. We thought we were being organized. We had columns, we had colours, we even had filters! But what we didn’t have was visibility.****
I had no idea who was talking to which client, when they last spoke, what was said, what promises were made, or whether the follow-up happened at all. My team was basically winging it, hoping the customer would just call back. Spoiler alert: They didn’t.****
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We were getting leads, yes. But we were losing clients—to competitors, to neglect, and sometimes, just to confusion.
Imagine being in the ERP software sales business, where it can take 3 to 6 months to close a deal. Now imagine a salesperson contacting 20 clients per day. That’s 100 per week, 400 per month, and possibly thousands per year. Without a CRM, tracking those conversations is like trying to follow a soapie by watching just one episode every 6 weeks.
We had team members who were chasing deals they couldn’t even remember, and customers who were being ghosted unintentionally. Some were even being double-contacted by two different sales reps from our own team—and neither knew it!****
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Here’s the painful part. When a salesperson left the company, they walked out with their entire mental database. All the potential deals, all the follow-ups, all the notes in their WhatsApp chats—gone. Sometimes they’d even join a competitor and close the same clients they found under our roof.
That’s when we got introduced to a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
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We implemented a CRM system, and I kid you not—our sales increased by 200%.
Now, every client who reaches out—whether on Facebook, Tawk.to, or via referral—is logged, tracked, and nurtured. We know who said what, when, and what the next move is. Even better? When someone resigns, their leads stay right here in the system. We just reassign them to the next available closer.
We even built a 5-year client database that we still use to this day. That’s what’s kept us resilient, consistent, and professional—even in the face of staff changes.
Dear Entrepreneur, Don’t Let Your Sales Team Torture You
If your sales team is still operating without a CRM, you’re not running a business—you’re playing sales roulette.
It’s not just inefficient. It’s not just messy. It’s dangerous.
Think of your CRM as the black box of your business. If things go wrong, it tells you where, when, and how. If things go right, it tells you why, and how to repeat it.****
If you’re still relying on Excel, notebooks, or “memory” to manage leads, stop the madness. Get a CRM before your next best lead becomes your competitor’s closed deal.
Want to see how a CRM can work for your business? Drop me a message. I’ll show you how it helped us grow and how it can work for your company too.
Let’s build timeless businesses—not databases that disappear with resignations.
