What should a CRM actually do for an architecture or design studio?

I've seen businesses with sophisticated CRMs that still manage new business largely through memory, inboxes and conversations between directors.

The software exists and there may be thousands of contacts sitting inside it, but people are still trying to remember who last spoke to a potential client, whether somebody followed up an introduction or what happened to a conversation six months ago.

I don't think that necessarily means they chose the wrong CRM. Quite often the problem started earlier because nobody really decided what the system needed to help the business do.

For an architecture or design studio, I think that question is particularly important because the conventional sales funnel doesn't always reflect the way relationships and appointments develop in the industry.

A CRM should come after the strategy, not before it

There is a temptation to think that installing the right software will create the structure that is currently missing.

In reality, the CRM can only organise a process that has already been thought through.

The studio still needs to decide which markets it wants to develop, which organisations matter, who the relevant people are and how it wants to manage those relationships. It also needs some agreement internally about what information is worth keeping and what people are expected to do with it.

Without that, the CRM can quickly become a very expensive address book.

I prefer to think about the way the studio needs to work first and then build the technology around that. A small founder-led practice will have very different requirements from a larger studio where several directors and perhaps a dedicated business-development or marketing team are all contributing information.

The system should fit the practice rather than forcing the practice into a generic sales process.

One of its most important jobs is simply helping the studio remember

Architecture and design practices accumulate a huge amount of relationship knowledge over time.

A director meets somebody at an event. A consultant makes an introduction. A former client changes company. Someone replies to an email. Another person has a conversation with a member of the team at a conference. Six months later, that same person appears around a completely different project.

A lot of this information stays with the individual who experienced it. That works reasonably well while the number of relationships is small, but it becomes increasingly difficult as the network grows.

A useful CRM gives that collective memory somewhere to live. It should make it possible to understand who somebody is, how the studio knows them, what has happened previously and who else in the practice has a relationship with them.

This becomes particularly important when several people are involved in business development. The relationship should belong to the studio rather than disappearing into one person's inbox.

It should help people understand what deserves attention

Remembering what happened is only half of the job. The other half is making it easier to understand what needs to happen next.

That doesn't mean the CRM needs to make the decision. In many cases, I don't think it should.

What it can do is make useful information visible. A follow-up has been forgotten. A relationship has been quiet for a long time. Somebody has moved to another company. A target organisation has changed in a way that might be relevant. A conversation has progressed to the point where another director should perhaps become involved.

Once that information is visible, somebody can make a sensible judgement about what to do with it.

This is the difference between having a database and having a system that actually supports new business.

Architecture relationships don't always fit neatly into a sales funnel

Most traditional CRMs are built around an opportunity moving through a series of stages until it either converts or disappears.

That can be useful once a genuine project or opportunity exists, but a lot of architecture business development happens long before that point.

A studio might know somebody for several years before there is an appropriate project. During that time they may meet occasionally, exchange ideas, see one another at events, make introductions or simply stay loosely aware of what the other is doing.

I don't see that period as dead space before the sales process starts. It is part of the relationship, and in architecture that relationship can eventually be incredibly important.

A useful system therefore needs to accommodate people and organisations that matter to the studio even when there isn't an active opportunity attached to them.

Automation is useful when it removes administration

There is a lot that technology can do extremely well in the background. Information can be organised, repetitive tasks can be reduced, reminders can be created and changes around companies and people can be surfaced much more efficiently than somebody manually checking everything.

That can give founders and directors a considerable amount of time back.

Where I become much more cautious is when the automation moves from supporting the relationship to trying to conduct it.

Automatically sending somebody a supposedly personal message because they changed jobs may save a few minutes, but it also removes the judgement that makes the interaction feel genuine. The system doesn't necessarily know the history of the relationship, what happened last time you spoke or whether contacting that person today makes any sense at all.

I would rather use technology to make sure the right information reaches the right person inside the studio and let that person decide what happens next.

The right CRM doesn't need to be complicated

It is very easy to become distracted by features.

For a smaller practice, a relatively simple system that people consistently use may be considerably more valuable than an enormously sophisticated platform nobody wants to open. A larger studio with multiple markets and several people involved in new business may genuinely need something more advanced.

What matters is whether the system helps the practice understand its relationships and make better decisions.

Can the studio see which organisations it genuinely wants to get closer to? Can it understand who it already knows and what has happened before? Can people see where a relationship is developing and where something has been forgotten? Can useful information about changes in the market or an organisation be connected back to the people responsible for that relationship?

If the answer is yes, the CRM is helping.

If it is simply storing thousands of names, the studio probably doesn't have a CRM problem. It has a new-business process that hasn't been properly designed yet.

By Richard Hall, Founder & CEO of Grand House