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Why Your CRM Isn't Broken — It's Doing Exactly What It Was Built to Do
Co-Founder Taliferro
Co-Founder Taliferro
Most teams buy a CRM for control.
They want a single place to see what's happening, what's stuck, and what's coming next. They want fewer surprises. They want visibility. They want order.
Then the reality shows up.
The CRM feels heavy. People avoid it. Updates happen right before meetings. Forecasts are guesses. Dashboards look clean while the real work lives in email, notes, spreadsheets, and someone's head.
So the conclusion is almost always the same:
Here's the truth most vendors won't say out loud:
Your CRM isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it was built to do.
CRMs were designed to be systems of record.
They store contacts, accounts, deals, activities, and notes so leadership can:
That's not useless. It's just a different job than what most busy teams need day to day.
If your work depends on relationships, follow-through, and timing, your most important daily question isn't:
“What's in the pipeline?”
It's:
“What is the next move that matters?”
CRMs don't answer that well because they optimize for tracking, not motion. They optimize for clean records, accurate stages, and fields that roll up nicely into reports.
When a system optimizes for reporting, it makes a tradeoff.
It becomes easier to measure — and harder to use in real life.
That tradeoff shows up as:
This is why the real work happens outside the CRM.
Not because people are lazy.
Not because they hate accountability.
Because the CRM is built to record the work, not to drive the work.
So people do what makes sense:
The CRM stays technically correct.
The day still feels chaotic.
Updates are required when work is messy and incomplete. Right after a call. Right before a review. When the answer is still “it depends.”
So people either:
Both outcomes break trust in the system.
Dashboards are great at showing counts. They're terrible at telling you what to do.
Teams look at charts and still ask, “Okay, but what do we do next?”
That gap creates:
Most CRMs let you store notes. Few turn those notes into next steps.
Promises get buried in timelines. Context dies in text boxes. Important details disappear until someone remembers to search for them.
So people stop trusting the system to help them remember. They create side systems:
The CRM becomes one more place to check — not the place where work moves.
Every CRM depends on adoption. That means everyone must do extra work that doesn't feel like progress.
When time gets tight, adoption is the first thing to fall.
That's why “CRM adoption” becomes a permanent initiative. Not because people resist change — but because the daily payoff is weak compared to the effort required.
Over time, the CRM turns into a reporting machine.
People start working for the report:
The system looks healthy.
Momentum slows down.
Layering AI on top of a CRM helps with:
It does not fix a system designed around storage.
If the workflow still depends on:
then AI becomes just another feature sitting on top of the same drag.
That's why a lot of “AI CRM” demos look impressive and daily use feels underwhelming.
The system still watches.
It still waits.
It still needs you.
A momentum-first system starts from a different goal.
It doesn't ask:
“Did you update the record?”
It asks:
“Did we move this forward?”
A Business Momentum System is designed to:
If you want the formal definition, start here: What is a Business Momentum System?
The key difference is simple:
CRMs remember the past.
Momentum systems focus on what happens next.
TODD was built as a Business Momentum System.
It's designed for the work that happens before a CRM stays accurate:
Some teams useTODDas their primary system.
Others keep a CRM for long-term reporting and use TODD in front of it — as the place where momentum lives.
Either way, the daily experience changes.
The system stops asking you to babysit it.
It starts helping you move.
If your CRM feels heavy, don't start by blaming your team.
Start by naming the tradeoff.
If you want to go deeper, these pieces connect the dots:
Your CRM isn't broken.
It's built for management and reporting. When you ask it to create daily momentum, it struggles — by design.
If you want motion, you need a system built for motion.
Tracking isn't progress. Progress is progress.
Because most CRMs are optimized for reporting and record-keeping. They require constant updates, fields, and stages so the system stays clean, even when the real work is messy.
Often it is the CRM design. If a tool demands extra time from busy people and does not help them decide what to do next, adoption will always be fragile.
AI can help write and summarize, but it does not fix a system designed around storage. If the tool still depends on manual updates and does not drive next moves, the drag remains.
Use a momentum-first system for day-to-day motion. Many teams keep the CRM as a long-term record and add a Business Momentum System (BMS) in front to surface next moves, follow-ups, and action.
For many small teams, yes. Larger teams may keep a CRM for reporting while using TODD as the Business Momentum System that runs daily outreach, follow-ups, and relationship motion.
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