Phil RisherPhlash Consulting · No. 1 Digital Marketing Consulting Company For $1m-10m Home Service Businesses 🚀

If your CRM is half used and half worked around, now is the time to fix it.

17 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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In this advisory segment, Phil Risher explains that companies aiming for $5‑10 million in revenue succeed by using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system comprehensively—about 80‑90% of its features—rather than relying on patchwork workarounds such as notes and text messages. He warns that partial CRM adoption creates "leaks" in data, automation, and processes, which lead to bad decisions as the business grows. A fully‑utilized CRM provides a single source of truth that informs marketing, operations, finance, and management decisions. Risher urges businesses that are currently at $1‑2 million to evaluate and adopt the right CRM now, because a solid CRM foundation is essential for continued growth.

Chapters

Some people have a CRM like a CRM, like everything in there. Others have a CRM that's just patchworked together with notes and text messages. The companies that win, that get to $5 million, that get to $10 million, they have a CRM and they use a CRM, like at least 80%, 90% of the CRM. If you are getting to $1 million, $2 million, and you use your CRM-ish, but you have all these workarounds and different things, the problem is, is that you're going to start to get leaks. Leaks in data, leaks in automations, leaks in processes. And when you have bad data, you start making bad decisions, especially as you grow, because you get further and further away from the truth. And you need one source of truth inside of your business with data. That's how you make marketing decisions, how you make operations decisions, how you make finance decisions, how you make management decisions. And when you don't have that, you feel like you're lost and you feel like you're stuck. So you got to use your CRM 80, 90%-ish. And you might not know which CRM to use. This is the perfect time to figure out what the best CRM is for your business, because if you're going to grow, you need a good CRM.