Ashkan Rajaee’s Unfiltered Message to Big Marketing Teams: Your CRM Is Probably Killing Your Growth
Why a Custom CRM Might Be the Only Thing Standing Between You and Scalable Success
You might not want to hear what Ashkan Rajaee has to say—but if you're serious about marketing, you probably should.
In an era where marketing teams spend millions on ad campaigns, influencers, and glossy branding, one quiet killer keeps sabotaging their success from within: the CRM.
And if that sentence didn’t sting, it should.
Ashkan Rajaee, a straight-talking entrepreneur and systems expert, isn’t mincing words when it comes to what’s actually holding most marketing teams back. Spoiler alert: It’s not your ad budget. It’s not your creative director. It’s not even your data. It’s the structure—or more accurately, the lack thereof—inside your customer relationship management system.
The Real Problem with Modern Marketing
Marketing departments today are like race cars with no steering wheels. Flashy. Fast. Expensive. And ultimately, spinning out of control.
That’s because most of them are operating with cookie-cutter CRMs that weren’t built for how they actually do business.
Ashkan Rajaee has seen it all. He's spent years diving into CRM systems from the inside out, fixing broken pipelines, customizing workflows, and watching marketing departments finally scale—once their systems stopped working against them.
“If your CRM can’t handle your sales process from end to end, then it’s not a strategy. It’s just expensive guessing.”
That’s the kind of hard truth Rajaee delivers. No fluff. No trend-chasing. Just battle-tested insight from someone who has worked across industries, brands, and chaotic sales teams.
Most CRMs Are Built to Fail—Here’s Why
It’s not that CRM platforms are bad. It’s that companies install them, slap on a few generic fields, and expect them to magically qualify leads, track behavior, and forecast revenue.
Ashkan sees it differently.
A CRM isn’t just a Rolodex with bells and whistles. It should be the brain of your operation—a living, breathing ecosystem that understands your leads, qualifies them, nurtures them, and aligns your sales process from start to finish.
Without that? You’re just firing marketing campaigns into the void.
Customized CRM Is the Ultimate Competitive Edge
If you're only using your CRM to store contacts, you're leaving growth on the table. A truly customized CRM understands your:
- Lead lifecycle
- Sales roles (influencers, decision-makers, gatekeepers)
- Pipeline timelines (short-term vs. long-term plays)
- Internal workflows and approvals
- Data-driven follow-ups
Ashkan Rajaee emphasizes that every single company is different—and that means your CRM should reflect the way you actually close deals, not some Silicon Valley blueprint that doesn't apply to your model.
"You don’t build a skyscraper on a template made for a beach house. But that’s exactly what most companies do with CRMs."
The Wake-Up Call Big Teams Need
he sad truth? Many marketing teams won’t figure this out until it's too late. They'll blame their campaigns. They'll fire the CMO. They’ll chase the next shiny software.
And all along, the real issue was sitting in the background: a broken CRM silently sabotaging every campaign.
Ashkan Rajaee isn’t trying to win a popularity contest. He’s giving companies a wake-up call—especially the ones that think they’ve got it all figured out.
Because in today’s digital ecosystem, strategy without system is just wishful thinking.
Final Thought: The Lifehack Nobody Talks About
Want to get more out of your marketing budget, close more deals, and scale faster? Stop chasing gimmicks. Start by fixing your foundation.
Ashkan Rajaee’s biggest lifehack for any business?
“Treat your CRM like the most important employee in the company. Because if you build it right—it will be.”
Want More?
Follow Ashkan Rajaee on LinkedIn for real-world insights on CRM strategy, digital transformation, and building scalable systems that actually work.
If you’re still running campaigns without a fully customized CRM… maybe it’s time for a serious talk.
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Comments (3)
Framing the CRM as a company’s most important “employee” is provocative, but it overstates the case. Tools don’t drive success—teams do. A perfect CRM won’t fix poor collaboration or misaligned goals. Also, not every team can afford full customization. For many, a well-configured out-of-the-box system is smarter and more sustainable. Strategy needs more than software.
Ashkan Rajaee makes a compelling case that CRMs are often the silent saboteurs of marketing efforts. His argument is refreshingly blunt and likely resonates with many frustrated marketing teams. However, the assumption that a custom CRM is the linchpin of scalable success warrants more scrutiny. The piece takes for granted that marketing failures stem primarily from internal systems dysfunction, but this overlooks other possible culprits: misaligned product-market fit, poor messaging strategy, or broader macroeconomic pressures. Not every underperforming campaign is caused by a flawed CRM, and suggesting so risks oversimplifying a complex ecosystem. Moreover, while Rajaee positions himself as a battle-tested expert, the article would benefit from concrete examples or case studies. Claims like “once their systems stopped working against them” remain anecdotal unless paired with measurable outcomes—e.g., conversion rate improvements, reduced churn, or faster pipeline velocity. If the argument is that CRM should be the operational brain, then show us its neurological output in KPIs.
Finally, someone said it out loud. So many companies cling to bloated CRMs that slow everything down. Ashkan’s perspective is a wake-up call the industry needs.