Why CRMs get abandoned by the people who were supposed to use them

Every CRM rollout we've watched from the outside has the same arc. A new director comes in, picks a tool, ships a pilot. Reps use it for a month. Then custom fields pile up. Required fields multiply. Rep velocity drops. And by month six, the CRM is a compliance tool rather than a selling tool.

The pattern isn't about the tool. It's about what gets layered onto it by people who don't spend their day in the tool. Every field that's added to "just make sure we have the data" is a tax on the person closing deals.

Here's what we've seen work: treat each new required field the way you'd treat a new page of paperwork for a new hire. Not impossible, but requiring real justification. The best revops leaders we've met say no to 80% of field requests.