CRM Hacker

10/16/2026

The automation failed. Some of the work may still exist.

Example: a new customer needs an onboarding task in the CRM and a project in a separate delivery system. The CRM task saves, but the project request times out.

An error message alone doesn't tell you whether the delivery system created the project. Running the whole process again may add a second task—or a second project.

Make this an acceptance test: stop the response after the remote action, then run the recovery path. Can the team establish what already happened and finish the missing work without duplicating the completed part?

Use one stable reference for the business request, check what each receiving system guarantees, and assign uncertain cases to a named owner. A quick lookup before creating a record isn't enough if two retries can run at once.

The pass condition is one complete handoff, with evidence showing what happened in both systems. A green success message or a cleared error isn't the result.

10/15/2026

A smaller quote can still need a new pricing decision.

Suppose a $90-per-license price was approved because the customer agreed to buy at least 100 licenses. They cut the order to 20. The price and discount percentage stay the same, but the commitment behind the approval is gone.

Checking only whether the discount changed can miss this.

Record the conditions behind a price exception: minimum quantity, contract length, product mix or an end date. When the deal changes, check the conditions that actually earned the price.

For the 100-license rule, test 99 and 100 at the same unit price. That catches a boundary mistake that a dramatic drop to 20 might miss.

Send a broken condition back for a decision. A typo shouldn't restart every approval, and a new pricing rule shouldn't silently rewrite a signed agreement.

The full guide covers temporary exceptions, quote expiry, amendments and billing checks:
https://f.mtr.cool/vj6psz9ml1

Keep temporary prices from becoming permanent. Define owners, expiry and approvals, preserve agreed quote values, and give billing a traceable source.

10/07/2026

A useful sales handoff needs evidence the next person can check.

We'd review a few customer calls beside their proposed CRM updates. For each change, keep the source statement, the proposed value and the seller's accept-or-correct decision together.

That makes disagreements visible before they become confusing records.

Our Dreamforce Sales Cloud recap looks at keeping context intact from the call through the next action.

Read the practical takeaways:
https://f.mtr.cool/k03naj809p

10/06/2026

Before the next CRM prioritization meeting, ask each requester to fill in five lines:

• People affected and work blocked
• One example record or screenshot
• Current workaround
• Deadline and what makes it fixed
• Person who will confirm the result

Suppose one request changes dashboard colors and another fixes leads reaching the wrong queue. We'd check the consequences of both, including whether the colors create an accessibility issue, then compare customer impact, effort and dependencies.

Put the decision and its reason in the backlog. A repeated request shouldn't restart the discussion unless the evidence changes.

Our CRM governance framework:

Build a CRM governance framework your team will use. Define ownership, decision rights, intake, priorities, standards, releases, and review cadence.

10/02/2026

I finally took my own advice and simplified my website.

I’ve been building my own sites since around 2008, mostly because I know just enough about marketing and SEO to convince myself I need 47 pages.

This time I went the other direction.

I rebuilt the CRM Hacker site with Codex and made the homepage one focused landing page. The deeper service pages and articles are still there. There’s just a lot less noise up front.

Way cleaner.
Way easier to understand.
Way more like what I actually do.

New site is live. Take a look and tell me what you’d change.

09/30/2026

Before choosing a faster quoting tool, try one awkward case: a discount outside the seller's authority.

We'd check whether the request reaches the right approver, whether the decision changes the quote correctly, and whether the approved terms reach fulfillment and billing.

Our Dreamforce Revenue Cloud recap explains why the work after the quote matters—and what to test in your own process.

Read the article:
https://f.mtr.cool/kikrk8lpmw

09/29/2026

The change is one field.

That field may feed another automation, an integration or a report.

We’d trace the path before editing and test the behavior afterward. The few minutes spent finding dependencies can make the change much easier to explain.

09/28/2026

A request made in chat and the same request made in the CRM should not get different business rules by accident.

We’d test the ordinary path and an exception, then check where the final decision is recorded.

The interface can change. The agreed process should remain recognizable.

09/27/2026

Before “follow up” becomes Monday’s mystery: add a verb, an owner and a date.

A useful next step should survive the weekend without its author standing beside it.

09/26/2026

The process is documented.

In a tab. On a laptop. That needs restarting.

An exciting succession plan.