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The CRM Advantage
The CRM Advantage episodes
- Episode 1 — Building the Foundation: CRM Strategy Before Software
Everyone wants to talk about which Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform to buy. We want to talk about everything that has to happen first, because that's what actually decides whether the platform works.
In this opening episode, Mario is joined by Lessie Russell, digital transformation leader and founder of The Executive Gain, for a conversation about the groundwork most companies skip. Together they've seen the same pattern play out again and again: a company picks a CRM on the strength of a demo, rolls it out, and eighteen months later wonders why adoption is thin and the data is a mess. The tool wasn't the problem. The foundation was never laid.
They get into what that foundation actually looks like, including:
- Why CRM carries the highest failure rate of any enterprise application, and what the companies that get it right do before they ever shortlist a vendor
- The strategy questions that have to be answered before software even enters the conversation
- The role nobody budgets for, and why skipping a dedicated administrator quietly sinks so many rollouts
- How to tell whether your organization is actually ready to buy, or just eager to
- Where digital transformation and CRM strategy meet, and why the two can't be separated
If a CRM decision is anywhere on your horizon, this is the episode to hear first.
Mentioned in this episode:
- Free CRM Readiness Assessment, find out where your organization actually stands: https://stratanorth.co/crm-readiness-assessment/
- StrataNorth CRM advisory services: https://stratanorth.co/crm-advisory-services/
- Vendor Capability Matrix (free download): https://stratanorth.co/insights/crm-vendor-capability-matrix-landing-page/
About the guest: Lessie Russell is a digital transformation leader and the founder of The Executive Gain. https://www.theexecutivegain.com
About the host: Mario Calisto is Co-Founder and Consulting Partner at StrataNorth, with 20+ years in CRM, marketing automation, and enterprise technology strategy. https://stratanorth.co
Produced by Waleed. A StrataNorth production.
30 min
About The CRM Advantage
From the publisher's feed
The CRM Advantage is a podcast about getting enterprise technology decisions right before the money is spent.
Hosted by Mario Calisto of StrataNorth, each episode…
works through the real reasons CRM and marketing automation investments succeed or fail. The short version, and the thing most buyers learn too late: it's rarely the software. It's the strategy, the readiness, and the buying process that surround it. A great platform dropped into an unprepared organization still fails. A modest one, bought well and run with discipline, pays for itself.
Mario brings two decades of doing this work directly, implementing these platforms, advising the companies buying them, and sitting across the table from the vendors selling them. Each episode he's joined by operators and leaders who have been through it, for honest conversations aimed at the people who actually own these decisions: IT directors, operations leaders, and the executives who sign off on the spend.
No vendor scripts. No sponsored takes. StrataNorth is fiercely independent, and the advice here reflects that.
If you're staring down a CRM evaluation, a MarTech overhaul, or a renewal you're not sure you should sign, start here, and have the conversation before the purchase order.
New episodes released monthly. Subscribe wherever you listen.
Learn more and work with StrataNorth:
- CRM advisory services: https://stratanorth.co/crm-advisory-services/
- Free CRM Readiness Assessment: https://stratanorth.co/crm-readiness-assessment/
- More from StrataNorth: https://stratanorth.co
A StrataNorth Studios production.