Why I built my own CRM instead of buying another one

For years, my business ran on software that was built for somebody else.

A CRM designed for estate agents. A spreadsheet for orders. An email inbox nobody owned. WhatsApp on three different phones. And me, in the middle, as the person who knew where everything was.

That works when you’ve got one showroom. It’s a disaster when you’re building four.

The problem wasn’t the software. It was the gaps between it.

Every bit of chaos in a kitchen and bathroom business lives in the gaps. The supplier confirmation that didn’t match the order. The out-of-stock email buried in paragraph three. The contract change that never reached the supplier. The missed call from a customer who’d already been waiting a week.

None of those are big problems on their own. Together, they’re return visits, angry customers and margin that quietly disappears.

So I built one app for the whole team

Today, my team works from one app we built ourselves. Orders, supplier confirmations, deliveries, calls, texts, WhatsApp, service cases, training and reports — all in one place.

• When a supplier confirms an order, the app checks it line by line against what we asked for.
• Supplier emails are sorted automatically, and out-of-stock warnings are flagged, even when they’re buried.
• Every call is logged, missed calls first, so nothing slips.
• Our fitters have their own app on their phone, with their jobs, diary, delivery list and photo upload.
• New starters learn from handbooks built on the real screens they’ll use.

Why it matters if you own a K&B business

The point isn’t the software. It’s that the business stops depending on one person’s memory — usually yours.

When the process lives in the system, the owner stops being the answer to every question. Things that used to slip land on a list with someone’s name on it. And new staff learn the job from the system, not from shadowing the busiest person in the building.

You don’t need to build your own software to get there. But you do need to know where your gaps are. That’s usually where I start with the businesses I work with.

If this sounds like your business, read my free guide, The Messy Middle — or apply to work with me.