Why CRM Hacker is hands-on, what that means for my clients, and why I'm done trying to make it look bigger.

By Jonathan Carlson

I've spent a lot of years being self-conscious about my business.

I don't have employees. I haven't built a multi-million dollar agency. And for a long time, I thought that meant I wasn't doing enough.

Because that's what you're supposed to do, right? Build the agency. Hire people. Take on more work. Outsource it. Hand off the engagements. Scale.

That's a valid path. I just never really wanted to do it that way.

I like talking to my clients. Understanding their business. Figuring out what they're actually trying to accomplish, designing the solution, and then being able to go build the thing.

Lately I've been realizing something: maybe that isn't a weakness in my business. Maybe that IS the business.

Who exactly is "we"?

I've hidden behind that word for a long time.

"We help companies." "We build." "We work with."

It's me. I'm CRM Hacker.

I'm the person talking to the client and figuring out the business requirements. I'm the solution architect designing what should happen, the technical architect figuring out how it should work, and the person building it.

That combination is probably the thing I should have been talking about all along.

If we decide something needs to change, you don't have to explain the whole thing again to someone who wasn't in the conversation. I understand why we made the decision because I was there making it with you.

The relationships tell a better story

I've been doing this full-time since June 2021. Two of my current clients have worked with me for around five years.

Other relationships lasted two or three years, until the client was ready to take the work internally. We handed off systems their teams could actually own.

Nearly all my business has come from referrals, recommendations, or people I've worked with coming back when they move to another company.

People have put their own reputation behind my work. When I stop and think about that, it means a lot.

I'm incredibly grateful for it. And I'm learning to give that evidence a little more weight than the things I think a business is supposed to look like.

Yes, I get excited about a form submission

I'm still working on building a more predictable pipeline. Cold outbound doesn't come naturally to me. If I don't have something real to say to someone, I have a hard time pretending otherwise.

Every once in a while, a website inquiry comes in and makes my day.

Partially because it's a lead. Partially because I get an unreasonable amount of satisfaction watching the form, autoresponder, attribution, CRM routing, and notifications actually work together.

RevOps people will understand.

That's the work I enjoy: understanding how the pieces fit together, then making sure they actually do what the business needs.

Standard tools. A business that isn't standard.

I've spent more than 11 years working across sales, marketing, RevOps, CRM, automation, reporting, routing, data, and GTM systems.

I've worked with SaaS companies, professional services firms, recruiting companies, insurers, and businesses in trucking, construction, roofing, and facilities maintenance. They don't all sell the same way, serve customers the same way, or need the same systems.

I'm happy to use standard tools. I just don't assume every business should operate the same way.

I want to understand how THIS business works. What needs to change. What we're building toward. And what the simplest system is that can get us there.

Sometimes that's a new implementation. Sometimes it's fixing a process that has become painful. Sometimes it's being the person who keeps working with the team as priorities change.

Working directly with me should also leave your team in a better position to own its systems. The relationships that ended in a successful internal handoff matter to me just as much as the ones that are still going.

A business I'm proud to keep building

Would I like to build something bigger someday? Absolutely. I'd love to teach people, create opportunities, and help others grow.

Does that mean I need 50 employees and a giant delivery team? I honestly don't know. I'm getting more comfortable saying that.

What I do know is that I've built a real business. I've done good work for good clients. People continue to trust me, refer me, and call me again when they need help.

I'm good at what I do. That still feels a little weird to write. But it's true.

I don't need CRM Hacker to look bigger than it is. I need people to understand what they get.

You work directly with me, from the first conversation through the decisions, the build, and the changes that come afterward.

Sometimes that means getting your team ready to take over. Sometimes it means working together for years.

That's a business I'm proud to keep building.

If that's the kind of working relationship you're looking for, discuss your goals with me. The initial conversation is free. Any project or ongoing support is scoped and priced separately.