How to Build a CRM, a Step by Step Guide

Two years ago, I decided to make a radical shift in my life. I was a heavy smoker, partied occasionally, didn’t engage in any physical activities, and ate whatever I came across.

It all started with catching a cold five times in a row, and it ended with me losing my voice for over a month. I wondered, “What’s wrong?”

Was it because the climate in the region had changed so drastically? Or was I lacking some essential vitamins? I was searching for a simple explanation and an easy solution.

I tried supplements, vacations in southern regions, and various teas—not to mention bombarding doctors with questions about what was wrong.

I was looking for a magic pill that would resolve the series of illnesses that were knocking me out of life.

I didn’t want to admit it, but my lifestyle was the real issue. It was a systemic problem that didn’t have a simple solution. It required a comprehensive approach, much like when you decide to build a CRM system. I had to revisit almost every aspect of my life and make changes.

It was the food, the quality of my sleep, my caffeine intake, the excessive weight I had gained during the pandemic, and the nicotine that elevated my resting heart rate, reducing my stamina and overall health.

Two years fast forward, and I’ve succeeded. But it all started with the first step.

Digital Transformation

Implementing CRM solutions impacts a business in a similar way. It almost inevitably leads to a digital transformation, which has a lot in common with changing one’s own life.

This transformation has a profound effect on the business processes. Whether one likes it or not, it’s a mandatory process that every modern company must undergo if it wants to survive.

If a company isn’t following the digital path, it’s likely on an unhealthy diet.

But true CRM implementation isn’t just about purchasing CRM software. It’s about changing the corporate lifestyle, mentality, way of working, and, most importantly, corporate culture.

However, many businesses are looking for a magic pill.

They try to buy their way into the digital world by investing millions of dollars in custom CRM development, hiring teams, and thinking this alone will bring success. It won’t. There’s more to it, and I’ll talk about that in a moment.

The Process

CRM implementation follows a well-defined process, one that has proven effective in companies worldwide.

This process is excellent for getting projects signed off, ensuring consultants and developers are paid for their services. However, what it often lacks is the know-how to make CRM systems truly work for your business.

The process consists of seven steps:

Some sources might use slightly different names for these stages, but the process remains fundamentally the same.

This is the process for delivering a custom CRM project to the client, and it’s something you’ll need to account for when working with consultancies.

I’ll definitely discuss this process in detail in this article. But before you even start the project, there’s one crucial step that many overlook.

Start with Why? 

The first thing you should do is ask yourself—and anyone else who cares about the company’s future—”Why?”

Why are we looking to implement custom CRM software? Are we hoping for CRM software to be a magic pill to increase revenue? Is it just a trend that everyone is following, and we want to jump on board? Or are we trying to appear more attractive to investors?

While these are all valid reasons, they likely won’t lead to a successful digital transformation. Your “why” should encompass your vision for where the company should be heading from a digital perspective.

One of the most obvious trends right now is the shift to e-commerce. In the past, sales were often made over the phone, but today’s customers are increasingly looking for self-service options.

Baby boomers, who are accustomed to a “personal touch” and would pick up the phone to make a call, are slowly retiring.

Millennials are far less inclined to talk to real people, and Gen Z are even more introverted.

Future generations will have completely different habits and expectations, and understanding what will future-proof your company should drive your “why.”

Stage 1 – It All Starts with an Idea

CRM implementation always begins with an idea—just like when I realized I needed to change my lifestyle. It took some time for me to come to that realization, but thankfully, I did.

I started small. I took a pen and paper and listed all the “bad habits” I had. I included everything I could think of that doctors would consider “unhealthy.”

My goal was to understand my current situation and get an idea of where I should be heading. I came up with a simple approach that I borrowed from my professional life—I should tackle everything in small steps.

I started by walking. I began with 5,000 steps a day, which now seems like a ridiculously low number to me. But at the time, it was a massive step.

The same applies to your own CRM development projects. Think of the first step you could take to move your company to a better place from where it is now.

It should be small, manageable, and easy to achieve in the short term.

When I considered my lifestyle, I understood that I needed to change my habits gradually, implementing one change at a time. Otherwise, I risked falling back into my old ways.

What I didn’t mention is that I had already attempted to change my life about five times before. Each time, I lasted 3 to 6 months before falling back into my previous lifestyle.

I’ve observed similar behavior in companies. They start their CRM software development projects, stick with them for the first few months, then realize how difficult it is to maintain the processes they’ve built and revert to their conventional way of doing business.

Leadership Is Everything

When ideating about a custom CRM system, remember that you’ll be embarking on a complex process of change.

Think carefully about how you can make that change sustainable. You’ll need to be at the forefront of the transformation, and it’s crucial to understand that you will need to change first.

The most successful projects in the industry are those where leadership is directly involved in the CRM development process, where digital directors have as much, if not more, influence than the commercial director.

Always keep in mind that this is likely the second most important project for the company, right after your core product development. With that mindset, you’ll be doomed for success.

Find the Right People

In many cases, it’s a good idea to start with assembling the right management team before proceeding with any further actions on custom CRM development.

Find the right CTO and executive sponsors who have a genuine interest in digitally maturing the company. These individuals will guide you through the resistance and challenges you’ll face during CRM software development.

It’s possible that you won’t find these people internally, and you may need to look for them externally, on the market. Be prepared for that.

Your current team might lack experience with digital initiatives, and if you assign them to a project they have no prior experience with, the outcome might not be favorable, to say the least.

One Step at a Time

And once again, remember to take small steps. Don’t attempt to implement a complex CRM platform that covers all your departments and business processes at once.

Break it down into bite-sized chunks. Identify the area where digital transformation could bring the most immediate improvement.

Many start with customer relationships. Some begin with lead management, while others focus on sales team management. Consider what might be the smallest, most manageable step for your organization.

While ideating for that first step, keep the bigger picture in mind. Develop a strategy and choose the initial step that will logically lead to the second, third, and so on. But keep each step small and manageable.

Research

Finally, do your homework. Read as many resources as possible. Talk to as many people as you can, attend seminars, listen to podcasts, and subscribe to newsletters. Gather all the information you can to make more informed decisions in the future.

Stage 2 – Planning

Now that you’ve passed the idea stage and decided that building a custom CRM system is the right move for your company, it’s time to prepare for it.

As I mentioned earlier, the CRM development process is well-structured and has proven effective—when followed precisely.

When I was rethinking my lifestyle, I took extensive notes on the areas I needed to improve. But I also prioritized the order in which I would tackle those changes.

For instance, I knew I couldn’t start running without first giving up smoking, so I linked those two events together.

Similarly, during the planning stage in your business, only you know which business processes are closely tied and should be addressed together.

Revise Your Goals

During the planning stage, it’s essential to set very clear goals. If you’ve already done this during the ideation stage, great—now it’s time to revisit and refine them.

The goals you initially set should now evolve into more tangible and measurable objectives. Aim for something you can almost touch with your fingertips.

If your goals are well-defined, it will be easier to determine whether you’re succeeding or if you need to pivot your project in a different direction.

At this stage, clearly define what success looks like for you and how you will recognize failure.

Start Building a Team

Just as during the ideation phase, you need to start building your development team. This time, focus on assembling your digital team that will deliver new functionality and sustain the cycle of New Feature → Enhancement → New Feature.

Your team shouldn’t just focus on CRM software development or maintaining the product; it should be structured around key functions:

• Business Analysis
• Project Management & Ownership
• Development
• Quality Assurance
• Support
• Enablement

Business Analysis will help you gather requirements for your future CRM system and translate them into technical language so that developers can deliver effectively.

The Product Owner will “own” the product, responsible for orchestrating requirements, overseeing delivery, and ensuring a smooth handover of results to the support team. Meanwhile, the Enablement team will ensure users have sufficient training resources and knowledge to use the system effectively.

Perform Careful Business Analysis

At this stage, you’ll need to conduct a thorough business analysis. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, think of it as describing how your business operates and translating that into specific requirements for the developers.

However, be cautious. Business analysts are smart and inquisitive individuals who love to dive deep into the details. This can easily result in your entire business being documented in diagrams, resembling a book.

You should lead this process and limit it to what aligns with your current strategy. I always recommend conducting business analysis only for the part of the business you plan to digitalize in your next step.

There’s another crucial aspect to business analysis: make sure to include the Product Owner in the process. The Product Owner should be familiar with your processes and will be your go-to person for all CRM-related questions in the future.

Definition of Done

Another important aspect of planning stage is “Definition of Done”. Take the time to clearly define what “done” means for your business. You should specify how user stories (tasks) will be delivered to you and when you will consider them complete.

A common mistake is to define “done” in broad terms, such as “we have launched the system.”

If you think critically about that phrase, you’ll quickly realize it’s vague. What does “launching the system” really mean? What are the specific criteria for this?

Instead, define “done” at the user-story or task level. For example, “A user story is considered done when the developers mark it complete, QA and the Product Owner approve it, and it has been deployed to production.”

This may sound a bit technical, but it’s not. Learn the terminology and talk with your delivery team to understand how the technology delivery process works.

This is one of the many mission-critical elements you’ll need to understand and work with. 

Digital delivery isn’t always straightforward; it involves working with abstractions, and we’ve developed ways to make these abstractions more tangible. You should do the same.

Decide on Methodology

I’m circling back to the idea of making changes in small steps, one at a time—just as I did in my personal journey.

You’ll also need to decide how you’ll proceed with your own CRM software implementation.

There are two main competing methodologies: Agile and Waterfall.

Agile is an iterative approach where the digital team delivers enhancements every few weeks (in sprints), while Waterfall is a method where you plan the entire project upfront and deliver it in one big chunk.

I’m not here to push one methodology over the other—but I am. Choose Agile.

Just like in life, it’s easier, cheaper, and more efficient to implement things in small, manageable chunks. This approach has proven itself time and time again.

Define Your MVP

I’ve already emphasized the importance of taking small steps, and one of those steps is defining your MVP.

MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product, which means determining the bare minimum you can launch your product with.

When I started addressing my lifestyle, I decided that the bare minimum to initiate change was to start walking—in small amounts, but consistently every day.

I implemented walking first: 5,000 steps every day. Only after following this pattern for a month did I move on to more changes.

The same principle applies to CRM system implementation. Start with something simple that you can implement quickly. This will allow you to get used to the product, making future changes less painful.

The Tools

During the planning stage, you’ll need to choose business tools that align with the project management methodology you’ve decided to use.

These tools will help you keep track of what your team is doing, monitor progress, identify blockers, and most importantly, implement a strict process for CRM features development. They’re essential for coordinating multiple roles that are working simultaneously on the same project.

I recommend choosing JIRA from Atlassian. It’s not the best, cheapest, or fastest tool on the market, but it’s the industry standard. Almost everyone knows how to use it, and it offers tons of templates for various cases and types of project management.

However, don’t spend too much time on the tool selection. The process is what matters most, not the tools.

Stage 3 – Design

After carefully thinking through your project, gathering your team, and allocating your budget, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and start designing the system. This stage is crucial in the CRM implementation process, where CRM tools and strategies come into play.

Often, businesses distance themselves from this stage, assuming their involvement in the Ideation and Planning stages was sufficient. Typically, consultants set up multiple workshops that can take days to complete, and businesses might think, “Well, we’ve provided them with enough information.”

But information is not the same as knowledge. The devil is in the details, as they say, and that’s especially true here. Remember, you’re not designing a commodity that can be produced with commonly available knowledge. You’re building a highly customized software product that you and your successors will use for many years.

Any mistakes made at this stage can be incredibly costly to fix—if they can be fixed at all. I could recount numerous stories where customers had to restart their CRM implementation process from scratch simply because their initial design stage was poorly executed.

Architecture

In the realm of CRM products, there’s a concept called “Architecture,” which is quite similar to what we’re familiar with in structural architecture. Architects in this context are individuals with broad market knowledge and deep expertise in software products. They can help you design a system that is both sustainable and future-proof.

The downside of hiring such experts is their cost. For example, there are fewer than 400 Salesforce CTAs (Certified Technical Architects) worldwide, making them a scarce resource.

The good news is that you don’t necessarily need to hire a certified architect. There are many professionals with a proven track record who may not have the certification but possess the skills and experience you need. The scarcity of certified architects is highlighted just to illustrate the value and rarity of such expertise.

Refinement

During the design stage, your team will have a significant need for refinement sessions. Refinement is essentially another term for business analysis—these are meetings focused on clarifying requirements.

Don’t skip these meetings. Just don’t. They are as important, if not more so, than the initial requirement-gathering sessions. This is your opportunity to share your business insights and ensure that the product is better suited to your specific needs.

Non-Existing Processes

Often, your business may lack well-defined requirements, and many of your processes might not exist or might not be well-suited to a digitalized way of doing business.

I always advise my clients not to rush with such processes. The true art of successful implementation lies in identifying areas that have the most impact on the business and are the most mature from a process standpoint.

Focus on the process that is the most straightforward, has the most users, and is repeated most frequently. Digitalize this process first. Only after that should you experiment with processes that are still undecided or at a low maturity level.

Understand Implications and Trade-Offs

During the design stage of CRM implementation, you’ll often be faced with questions from the team that you might not fully understand.

For instance, an architect might present you with a data model. For an inexperienced business user, a data model might not mean much, yet you’ll be expected to sign off on it without fully understanding the implications.

To navigate this, ask simple but crucial questions like, “What trade-offs did we make for this model?”, “What are we sacrificing to make it this way?”, and “What is the alternative, and why didn’t we choose that direction?”

The answers might be a bit technical, but it’s essential to push your team to translate their explanations into terms you can understand. This is critical for the future, as it will enable you to explain to your team why certain decisions were made and what limitations they bring.

Stage 4 – Build

The Build stage is where the project gets executed. At this point, the success of the project largely depends on the quality of the talent you’ve sourced and how well you prepared during the planning stage.

However, as a business user, product owner, or whatever role you’re in, there are specific ways you can positively impact the process.

Stay involved. Watch demos. Keep a close eye on the implications of every CRM solution being implemented.

There’s a lot you can do to ensure success. And once again—don’t skip refinement sessions. They will continue to play a crucial role during the Build stage.

Pivoting

During my lifestyle transformation, I followed my plan step by step. I bought a Garmin watch to count steps and started with 5,000 steps a day.

Then I quit smoking, started running 3k, and addressed my diet. I learned how to cook and understood what calories meant.

Next, I added gym workouts and eventually changed my hobbies. Instead of activities I could do at home, I chose ones that got me outside—like hiking.

I gradually followed my plan, made changes along the way, and kept executing. For instance, I discovered that I needed to avoid any power exercises involving vertical loads on my back.

I didn’t know that before starting my “project,” but I learned it along the way. Did it change how I executed my plan? Certainly. I had to completely rework my training program, but the goal remained the same.

The same principle applies in a CRM implementation project—you should be open to discoveries. Sometimes they may have much bigger consequences than you anticipated, but you must be prepared for them. Be ready to pivot your plan, make adjustments, and get back to execution.

Stage 5 – Validate

Once you’ve completed developing your first MVP, you’ll face a very challenging task—probably the most stressful one after “go-live” day. You’ll need to validate everything you’ve built with users.

But the good news is that there’s a methodology to make this process successful and as painless as possible.

User Acceptance Testing

To give you some context, the validation stage typically involves going through a process known as UAT—User Acceptance Testing.

During this phase, you’ll need to “deploy” all your development into an isolated environment called a sandbox. This is a safe space where you can migrate your data and allow users to interact with and test what you’ve built.

Testing Scenarios

However, be careful—don’t let users do whatever they want during UAT. Their expectations will inevitably be higher than what your product is capable of at this stage.

To manage this, always provide users with specific scenarios that outline what the product should be able to do.

For example, they should be able to create an opportunity, fill in the relevant information, set a close date, and save it.

These scenarios should cover the entire functionality you’ve developed, and users should not be allowed to deviate from them.

This is crucial to avoid unnecessary rejection from users while also ensuring that your MVP functions as expected.

Feedback

After successfully completing UAT, you’ll likely have a list of issues that need addressing.

Divide this list into two categories or tags: “Bugs” and “Improvements.”

Depending on the size of your list, prioritize the most critical bugs—those that would prevent you from going live with your system. Fix these first, and once they’re resolved, you’ll be ready for the next step.

Go/No-Go

The final step in this stage is a brief meeting called “Go/No-Go.” This is a critical decision point where you, either collectively with your team or alone, decide whether you’re ready to move to production.

In case you’re unfamiliar, “production” refers to your “live” system—the one that you’ll actually be using day to day.

Stage 6 – Deploy

After going through the development process, you’re finally ready to give your product its first breath of life.

This is the most stressful part of the entire delivery process, but there are steps you can take to reduce that stress.

Technical Deployment

Ideally, your project has a process in place that allows your team to deploy your product from the sandbox to production with just a few clicks. This process is known as CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment). However, not all projects have this setup, as it can be bulky and expensive.

Regardless of the approach, your tech team will now be responsible for the technical rollout of the production environment, while you remain responsible for the business side of things.

Engaging Users

While the tech team handles the technical deployment, your focus should be on preparing training materials to get your users familiar with the product.

User engagement is a vast topic, worthy of an entire book, and it’s impossible to cover everything in one article. However, there are several universal rules that tend to work well across different contexts.

I’ve developed a CASEI framework that can help boost user adoption and engagement in the long run. Still, there are specific actions you can take in the short term to make an immediate impact.

Train the Trainer

Identify the most advanced computer users in your team and turn them into your “champions.”

Teach them, explain the system to them, and keep them engaged. Make them your most motivated advocates for the CRM, and ensure that for every five users, there is at least one “trainer.”

This approach has consistently proven more effective than any documentation or training sessions. You’ll have someone experienced and motivated working alongside your users every day.

If someone leaves, the system will sustain itself. The trained champions will teach newcomers, making this the most sustainable strategy for CRM adoption.

Support

During the deployment stage, I strongly recommend hiring dedicated personnel to provide full-time support for your team. This period, often referred to as “hypercare” by consultancies, typically lasts a couple of weeks. During hypercare, one or more of the product developers who participated in building the system provide second-line support.

Second-line support means that the first point of contact for any issue will be your trained “champions.” If they can’t resolve the issue, it will be escalated to the more experienced support team members.

Keep Building Your Backlog

During the go-live phase and shortly after, your users will likely be more active than they will be in the following months. This is almost always due to the excitement and curiosity that comes with launching something new, making users more willing to share their observations and suggestions.

Take advantage of this time to gather new feedback and requirements to build your backlog of user stories, which you can later implement as enhancements. You might even consider opening a dedicated portal where users can vote on the features they want most.

This approach shows that users play a role in shaping how the system evolves, not just management. It will boost adoption rates and make the product more aligned with real-world usage.

Adoption Dashboards

If you’re implementing Salesforce CRM, I strongly recommend exploring Salesforce Adoption Dashboards.

These are pre-built reports that help you monitor how effectively your users are engaging with the system. They track key metrics such as login frequency and the number of various records created, like accounts and opportunities, allowing you to assess and encourage user adoption.

Stage 7 – Continuous Improvement

Once you’ve launched your MVP, it’s time to rethink, revisit, and learn from any mistakes.

The final stage is actually not final—this process will be repeated every time you launch an update.

To keep your system sustainable, implement a process where small changes are made to the system every few weeks, communicated to users, and then repeated. 

This approach keeps your product “alive” and allows it to gradually evolve into something better and bigger, all while enhancing your company’s digital maturity level.

On that note, I want to thank you for reading this far. If you need further guidance on your CRM project, feel free to reach out to me or one of my colleagues through the contact form in the Contacts section. And don’t forget to subscribe to my mailing list—I send updates in seasons when I gather enough interesting stuff to share.

Cheers,
J.