Motii Mini: From first call to go-live; what a CRM implementation actually looks like

In This Episode
If you've ever wondered what actually happens after you decide to implement a CRM, this episode takes you behind the scenes.

Katie Tassone-Milligan and Ben Fuller unpack the practical steps in a CRM implementation with a partner, from discovery and configuration through to data migration, training, go-live and adoption. The conversation is grounded in the real questions business owners ask before they commit: how much time will it take, what resources are needed, how clean does the data need to be, and what can be done before the first consultation?

The short answer: the best implementations are collaborative, focused and practical. A strong partner does not just configure software. They help clarify the sales process, bring the right data into the system, train the right people and keep a close eye on adoption once the team goes live.

What We Cover

• What happens before and during a CRM implementation kickoff meeting
• Why discovery starts with the sales process, not the software
• How sample data helps teams understand the system before go-live
• Why the final data migration usually happens just before launch
• How champion users help with training and internal adoption
• Why implementation is not finished the moment the system goes live
• Typical implementation timelines for a Pipedrive rollout
• What can delay a project, including dirty data and too many stakeholders
• How a phased approach can get teams using the system earlier
• What to prepare before speaking with a CRM implementation partner

Resources Mentioned

• Tools and platforms mentioned in the episode: Pipedrive, HubSpot, Salesforce, Excel, NetSuite and Miro

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Modi acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia. We pay our respects to elders past and present and acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this land. Welcome to the Modi Playbook. If you've ever felt like your systems are technically in place, but somehow still feel chaotic behind the scenes, you're in the right spot. This is where we share what we're seeing, what's working, what's not, and the lessons businesses learn the hard way. Think of it as practical strategy straight from the trenches. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Welcome back to another Modi Playbook mini episode. Our short, sharp answers, sometimes not always short, but you know, they're good answers.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Sometimes not sharp either.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

To the questions that we get asked the most. I'm Katie, marketing and brand strategist for Modi, and I'm joined again by Modi's original co-founder and CRM expert, Ben Paul. Welcome back, Ben.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Thank you for having me again.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

You're welcome. Last mini episode, we talked about ROI, return on investment, how long it takes to get your return on investment from a CRM, why implementations fail, and whether you actually need a partner or can go it alone. And this episode, we're going to pull back the curtain on an actual implementation process. So we'll talk about what does it look like, how long does it take, and what can you do right now if you're a business owner considering a CRM before you actually even speak to anybody? Sound good?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

It does sound good. I'm looking forward to it. I think this is probably one of the things that stops people, right, from going ahead with a CRM implementation, which is what am I in for, I suppose. And it's actually one of the most common questions. Like everyone wants to know what are the resources that I have to allocate for this? How much time of mine do you need? And so I'm sure we'll get into all of that stuff, but I think that this is a sorely needed point of discussion.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Yeah, awesome. And I think you're right too, because it's that unknown factor, right? We can seem a bit like it's looming there. So we'll get into the first question. Let's let's talk about what does a CRM implementation actually look like when you work with a partner?

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Okay, so let's start from the top in a sense where I'll do a demo, right? So for those listening, I do most of I do half of Modi's sales, right? And so I will do a demo where I will get an understanding of the business and then I'll put together a proposal and I'll send through the proposal, and the proposal will be signed. Once the proposal is signed, Modi issues a deposit invoice, usually for 50% over the project. And once that's paid, we book in a kickoff meeting. The kickoff meeting is all about making sure that we've got access to the systems that we need, that we are aware of the data that needs to come into the system and where it might be sitting, that we understand the business and we start diving into some of the sales and post-sales processes and everything like that. So we can get a really good idea of what we might be building inside of the business. And so everything I've described there, right, happens before the end of the first 45-minute kickoff meeting. Right. So we're 45 minutes into the project essentially, by the time we've done all of that.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

And we call that the probably the discovery phase, like where we're really like understanding everything.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah, it's the discovery phase. And then usually in that meeting, the the client that we're working with will want to know what resources they need to assign to the project. And my answer to that is generally uh we will need at least one meeting a week, one hour a week, plus you'll need to do another hour of prep or work on top of that to provide us what we need to be able to continue progressing your project at the speed that you expect.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Yep. And that's like the configuration phase. Is that what we call it? So you've done like the discovery, and then we're starting to actually get into it and like like build the structure and that revolt that that involves understanding it in great detail in a more micro level. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah. Sometimes prior to the kickoff meeting, we will ask them to send through an export of their existing database, whether that exists in Excel or whether it's an export from whatever, say we're doing a HubSpot migration or a Salesforce migration. We will maybe sometimes before the kickoff meeting go into Salesforce or go into HubSpot, do a sample export so that we can talk through what we're seeing. Because for CIM implementation people like us, yeah, the data tells the story of what the setup's going to look like. And a lot of people are very wary of this because they are saying to us, hey, I'm moving away from HubSpot or I'm moving away from Salesforce because I don't like the way it's set up. I don't want you to use that as the basis for my the build of this system. And look, you also need to know the industry that they're operating in. Yes, who they're selling to. And these are good, like this is a good segue into what do we talk about in that kickoff meeting? Because it is things like what do you sell in what industry to who for how much and how often, and how much of that is new business versus existing business, and where do you put those quotes together? And like it just flows through all of those questions, right? And all of that is surfaced in that discovery or that kickoff meeting, so that the next phase, which is the configuration phase, I think you called it before, or the implementation phase, so that that goes as smoothly and as quickly as possible.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Yeah. And I mean, we talked about it in a previous mini-episode as well, is that a lot of the implementation process, or at least the beginning part of it, is really understanding the sales process, the sales process itself, not the system, you know, the software. Because you can't build that out until you understand it in detail. And that's why there's so many questions and it has to be a collaborative approach.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Yep. And and the other important thing I think, Katie, in this meeting is we're also providing education and training, even in the kickoff meeting, right? Because we're talking about um the difference between having a stage in a pipeline, for example, versus creating an activity for whatever that might be. Right. And and we're trying to talk the client down a lot of the time from having 15 stages in a pipeline, right? Because you might only complicating things. Yeah. Yeah. You might need eight stages and then six activities that are created at different stages to do things. Yes. Um, and so it's it's about training at that same time during that, during that kickoff meeting.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Yep. Yeah, for sure. We start with the discovery. So you're having all these questions, you're starting to configure and actually do the implementation. Then you've got the actual data migration. That's when that's going to happen, is after the understanding and the checking it.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

So there's two or three phases to the data migration. The first is getting the data out of whatever system it's in or systems that it's in, right? So that's the first bit and getting it into a spreadsheet, an Excel sheet.

unknown 7:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

The second phase is importing sample data. This can happen quite early in the setup phase. So after the discovery session, generally, but get let's say 10 companies, 10 opportunities or deals, 10 persons into the system so that when we do the second meeting or the third meeting after discovery, we can show the system with actual data for the client sitting in the system. Because I think we spoke about on an earlier episode. It's so much easier for someone to wrap their head around what's going on when they can see names that they're familiar with inside of the system.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Yeah, you're making it real and you take it out of that theory. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

So there's the sample data import, right? Which is not the full data set, but uh a subset of a cohort of that data. And then generally the full data migration happens only a day or two maximum before we go live. And the reason for that is in whatever other system they're using, whether it's HubSpot or a spreadsheet or whatever, yeah, they are continuing to use that and update that while we build pipe drive. And if we take, let's say, four weeks from start to finish, we can't import the data that we exported four weeks ago. Because it's out of date now. Yeah, it'll be out of date by the time they go live. And the most recent information is not there. And so we generally have to do that go live data import the day before we actually go live. And look, that's always a nerve-wracking thing, right? You're dealing with a lot of data and you've got to get it into the system and and make sure that everything goes right and make sure that um, and we look, we have so many checks and balances in place for this these days. Yep. And we're very good at it now. Like we don't make mistakes anymore. We very rarely make mistakes, um, and we catch them if we do. But yeah, that's probably, I think, from a CRM implementation perspective, that final data migration is the most nerve-wracking for an agency at least.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Oh, for sure. It makes sense. And then you did mention that you've got training that's happening like along the way, because obviously it's almost like sales process training happening in conjunction with the software. And then after you do go live, training happens afterwards as well. I know you do video recordings and then yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

So I would say again, the training sort of there's maybe let's call it three parts. One is during the implementation, we like to sort of have what we call a champions team, right? They're the champions with the CRM. They don't have to be the senior management. Often the best people are the people that others go to inside of a business to ask questions on how things work, right? And sometimes that's an admin admin administrator that's been there for 15 years that knows absolutely everything. Or sometimes it's like a salesperson who's just a great communicator and has a good relationship with everybody, right? Rather than the sales manager.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

And so that that champion, whoever they are, a single person or multiple, they are sitting in on most of the meetings that we have week to week with the client. And also we will do a dedicated training session for that champion's group, generally speaking. Yeah. So that happens prior to go live. And then in the lead up to go live, we will make the video-based training manual. And this consists of, let's say, 15 videos, but there's usually two or three videos that we will insist that the broader team watches before we do the first of the training sessions as we push live. The reason we get them to watch the video-based training manual, or some of the videos, sorry, is that if people haven't seen Pipe Drive before and we're doing a training session for the first time, they sit there all starry-eyed, wondering what the hell they're looking at and trying to orientate themselves inside of the system. Whereas if they've watched two two-minute videos that explain what's going on, they can then focus in on the important things, ask the right questions, and take more of the session in, take more on board, and leave the session actually with more knowledge than what they went into it with.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Yeah. It becomes a practical session instead of just once again like theoretical, like, oh, I've got an idea of what it is, but you're like, oh, that's how it's used. That's what we need to do. And so then they're live, they're using it, and implementation is done. They're at that place.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Well, no. You want feedback, right? Like sometimes silence is golden, it means everyone's loving it, but sometimes silence is not golden and it means that no one's using it, which is even like which is the worst case scenario, right? Yeah, where there's where there's no adoption and you're not seeing the deals being created and things like that. And so we do keep a really close eye on the system after we push live to make sure that contacts are being created, deals are being created, deals are moving along the pipeline. We check that everyone's got their email synced, all of those little things, right? To make sure that adoption's there. And we want to make sure that no soldiers left behind as well, right? So we can keep an eye on and we do we go into the system where we check the login times and stuff. And so sometimes let's say there's 10 users that have been on boarded, there might be one or two users who haven't logged in in a week, and that sets off alarm bells.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Yeah. So I guess that that sort of leads to my next question. You know, how long does the information actually take? And I suppose the easiest part of that question would to define is up until the go live point. And after that, some need more, you know?

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Yeah. Yep. So I would say traditionally for Modi, you're looking at four weeks for a typical pipe drive implementation, up to eight weeks for a pipe drive implementation that's got a Net Suite ERP platform integration and a whole bunch of other stuff going on, right? So four to eight weeks. Now, the caveat here is we are reliant on our customer to be responsive and to provide the information required.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Because it is a collaborative approach, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

100%. And sometimes, like if they haven't cleaned the data and we can tell that they haven't cleaned the data, and we've done as much cleaning as we can on our side, and we need someone within the company to go through because we don't know certain things about the data set, yeah. We will have to postpone a go live because we're not going to bring dirty data into the system. And sometimes they're like, Oh, yeah, we haven't started that yet. And it takes them two or three weeks, and all of a sudden it goes from six weeks to nine weeks, and you're like, Oh God.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

But in the ideal situation where you've got that really good collaboration between the client and yourselves, it's actually quite an efficient process that can happen quickly. It does come down to, you know, that data. And I suppose getting back to what we just talked about before, too many stakeholders, because if there is a disagreement around what the sales process should be, if you can't nail that down, then you can't build the system around it.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

And that will be too many, too many spoiler prof for sure. And I think the other thing, Katie, is inside of Modi as well, we are beginning to make some changes to get what I would say is the majority of our clients up and running more quickly, right? Yeah. Yeah. And in a more simple fashion. So sometimes you don't have a choice, right? If there's a net suite integration that must be part of the system, then yeah, that has to be there for go live. Other times, though, what we're trying to do these days is if we have the option, we will get a nice simple system set up and a training session done and the users in the system, sometimes within a week or within two weeks, and up and running. And then we will add a phase two, which we call the so the first phase is sort of core pipe drive, phase two is the growth phase, and phase three, which might come a month or six weeks down the track, is fine-tuning, right? And so rather than delivering all of those phases up front over, say, six weeks, they're delivered over maybe six to ten weeks. But the first phase of particularly and getting them into the system can happen within a week.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Yeah, which is which is priceless because that's really your it. I mean, it's it's not beta testing, but it's it's but a real life use of the system and it matters, you know. That's where you can fine-tune and learn how people are using it.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Yeah, and if the client is willing to come along for the ride with you with that, they end up with a better system, right? Because you're getting the feedback on the way through. Plus, the client, after using it for only a week, has a way better feel of how this thing's actually going to act inside of their business. And they're able to give you some really deep, in really in-depth quality feedback on what will and won't work for them. Yeah. And some of the things that they thought were set in stone in their mind and must happen. All of a sudden, when they see the system in action or feel and play with the system, they're like, oh, okay, that doesn't matter. I'm happy not to do that. You'd like sweet. Yeah, but set that aside then. Yeah. You worry about that. Maybe down the track, it could be part of the fine-tuning phase. You add that as an item to the fine-tuning phase. You do come back to it, see if it's still important then or not important then. And it makes for a better system. It honestly does.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Yeah, yeah. It's more of an agile way of doing things, isn't it? Where you can actually iterate as you go, but you're getting that really good solid system up and running early so they can start actually using it, which is where the value happens. So that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Things things can easily be over-engineered before someone's even laid a finger on a keyboard. Yeah. And so this way that we've that we're working um with some clients now sort of saves that. It means that you're not over-engineering before you get started.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Yep, love that. It's gonna be exciting to see how that rolls out too. But yeah. So is there anything that somebody who is uh you know considering embarking on a CRM implementation with with, say, Bodhi or with a partner, is there anything that they could really be doing to prepare?

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff. I wouldn't sweat any of it, right? If you if you want to do the the demo meeting first um and then get a list of things that you should be doing out the back of that, by all means, that's a valid approach and maybe the best approach. Um, but if you want to get prepared a little bit to get the most out of that demo, that initial consultation, a little bit of uh a visual chart of your sales process is good. Um, again, don't sweat it, but just uh and a little bit of an outline of that and be ready with the answers to the questions. Like, what industries do you guys operate in? Who are your customers? What do they buy? How much do they spend? When do they buy? How often does that occur? What do you do once a sale is signed? Is there a post-sales administrative flow? Like you should be able to, most people can answer these questions off the top of their head, right? Um those businesses that are a bit more of a mess, then maybe again it's hard, Katie. Like whether or not I I'd to be honest, I'd probably rather be dictating to them the information that I need rather than them imagining what that might be.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, if they have it, they can like do a rough sketch, they can use a mirror board or whatever, whatever, just even like be ready with those insights and see how they go. But yeah, it's it's not necessary because you can actually work through it as well. So you do need to know how things are operating, but also like what's not working right now. That's value, that's so valuable, right? Like what's what's broken in your systems? What are you struggling with? Where where's your team struggling? Because that's where the solution lies, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah. So the question is like, why are you reaching out to a sort of thing or whatever variation of the data it is, right? Like, why are you why are you considering a CRM now? Why are you considering Monday now? Why are you considering Pipe Drive now? Yeah and that answer, I think the answer to that question is probably the most informative for me. Yep. And usually it comes down to reporting, data segmentation, accountability. Those three things are always float to the top of that probably quite long list of items, but those three are super important.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Yeah, it makes sense. So I guess I guess at the end of the day, the best thing that you can do if you want to and you're considering rolling out a CRM and working with a partner is actually just start the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Yeah. Yeah. I would to not waste anyone's time, right? Most of all your own time, book a consultation and have the discussion and ask whoever it is that you're talking to, okay, what's the next thing you need from me to be able to A, maybe provide me with a proposal or B, understand more about my business so that you can get a bit further down the track to providing me with a proposal. Because like at the end of the day, it's not only the solution that's being provided, but you've got to be comfortable with the cost, not only of the subscription of whatever platform it is, but the the cost for the agency, like Modi and everything like that. You've got to be comfortable with that. Uh, which is why, like, we publish our price list, I share it with everybody so that everyone knows, hey, I'm paying the same price as Bob over there for exactly the same stuff, and I'm not being priced based on my ability to spend.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Which I think makes people comfortable in working with us because they know that hey, all of these prices are fixed.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

It's just all up front. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, bottom line, have the conversation. You don't have to have it all sorted. Just start the conversation. So you'll be able to get into it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Yeah, by all means. It's the best, it's the best approach.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Yes. Awesome. Well, we've done it again. We've not made a mini episode very many, but that's okay. It was extremely valuable. So that is all for us for now. Until our next episode. Thank you, Ben. Thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Thank you, Cody. Cheers. Thanks for having me on again.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

And thanks for listening. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

That's it for another episode of the Modi Playbook. One shift, one system, one measurable improvement. All information shared in this podcast is general in nature. For tailored advice specific to your business, visit Modi.co/slash playbook and book a momentum call with our team. See you next time.