I don't start by assuming you need a CRM

Yulia Fomina — Founder, ProperBizFix

Manchester, UK

I don't start by assuming you need a CRM.

Most CRM projects I've seen start with the software already half-chosen. A demo gets booked, a shortlist gets made, a decision gets rushed — and only once it's live does anyone ask what it was actually meant to show. By then it's an expensive way to find out.

I work alone — no handover to a junior after the first call. Whoever you speak to is whoever does the work.

What I won't do

—I won't recommend a CRM if the real gap is a decision nobody's making, not a lack of software
—I won't send you into a vendor comparison before I know what the system needs to show
—I won't treat "get a CRM" as a strategy — it's a purchase, and it needs a spec first
—I won't recommend software if the real problem sits upstream, in how the business decides what matters

I didn't advise on this from outside. I was responsible for the pipeline, the reporting, and the numbers that fed into the P&L, inside a business where none of that infrastructure existed yet — including the decisions about what to track before any system was chosen. I know where that groundwork gets skipped because I've been the person accountable when it was.

Before operations, I spent years as a lawyer — contract lifecycle, regulatory compliance, transactional documentation. That's why I don't treat "what should this show us" as a loose, figure-it-out-later question. It's a specification, and a business built on a vague one runs into the same problems a badly drafted contract does.

I don't think of a CRM as something you install once and leave alone — it's a product that has to evolve alongside the business, or it stops reflecting how the business actually runs. That's part of why I stayed close to this problem long enough to work on both ends of it: the Analysis exists so the foundation is right before anything is built, and Unsnag exists for when that evolution has been skipped and the system needs to catch up.

Already have a CRM, and the question now is why it isn't giving you answers? That's Unsnag — same person, later stage of the same problem.

Questions People Ask

Before you get in touch

We already know we need a CRM. Why wait?

You might be right that you need one. The Commercial Discovery doesn't slow that down — it makes sure the CRM you choose gets built around the decisions you actually need to make, instead of a generic template.

Isn't this just another CRM comparison service?

No. Comparison sites assume you already know what to measure. I work on the step before that — figuring out what's worth tracking, where it should live, and how it connects to what you already run the business on.

What if it turns out we don't need a CRM at all?

That happens. Sometimes the real gap is a spreadsheet nobody trusts, a missing definition, or a system that was never built. If that's the case, I'll tell you — a CRM wouldn't fix it either.

Once I have the Analysis, do you help me pick or implement the CRM?

Not by default. The Analysis gives you the specification and the order to build in — the principles for choosing software, not a recommendation of which one. If you'd rather not run the selection or implementation yourself, that's a separate, explicitly scoped engagement, agreed on its own terms — never bundled in automatically.

We already have a CRM and it isn't working. Is that you?

No — that's a different stage, and a different problem. Unsnag deals with CRMs that exist but no longer reflect how the business actually runs.

What does the Discovery call cost, and how long does it take?

Nothing, and twenty minutes. It's a short conversation to check this is genuinely a fit and scope what the Analysis would need to cover — not a sales call in disguise. If it isn't a fit, I'll say so on the call.

Why are you and Unsnag separate sites, if it's the same person?

Because they're genuinely different problems, at different points in the CRM lifecycle. ProperBizFix is for before you've chosen a CRM. Unsnag is for after you have one and it's stopped reflecting how the business runs. Same operator, same standards, different stage — kept separate so neither offer gets diluted by the other.

We already have a list of clients. Isn't that enough?

Sometimes, genuinely, yes. A list answers "who are our clients" — and for some businesses that's all they need. What it won't tell you is that a client who usually re-orders every six weeks has gone quiet for four months, that a specific service is quietly running at a loss, or that two people are chasing the same client without knowing it. That's not a flaw in the list — it's what happens when nothing records events over time or connects to delivery and finance. A list has no logic for movement: no stages, no expected pace, nothing that flags when something's drifting. That logic — whether it's a sales pipeline, a reorder cycle, or a risk signal — has to be designed in from the start, not added once the list already exists. Part of the Discovery call is being honest about which side of that line your business is actually on.

Commercial discovery and analysis, before any CRM design decision