Allan L.AI & GTM Ops

About

I once wrote that my greatest strength was untangling any pair of headphones. It's still true, and it turned out to be a pretty accurate job description.

Most CRMs I get called into look like the bottom of a bag of earbuds. A few years of new tools, quick fixes, and "we'll clean it up later" have knotted everything together. Reports don't match. Reps keep their own spreadsheets. One person has become the only one who knows how anything works, and they're doing everything.

When leadership starts asking whether the CRM is worth what it costs, the software usually gets the blame. In my experience it's rarely the software. It's two other things.

Nobody owns it. There's an admin team keeping the lights on, but nobody in sales or marketing leadership is accountable for what goes in and what comes out. Adoption slides, the data gets worse, and eventually nobody trusts the reports.

It was built by people who know a platform, not data. Plenty of consultants can configure Salesforce. Far fewer can design how the data should be structured, where it should live, and how it should move between systems. Without that foundation, every new feature adds another knot.

What I do about it

I work with leaders who answer to a revenue number and are stuck with a system they can't rely on. In about a quarter, we figure out whether your CRM is worth keeping, fixing, or leaving, and you get the numbers to defend that decision. If it's Salesforce and worth fixing, I do the fixing myself: clear ownership, a data foundation that holds up, and fewer manual steps for your team. If it's another platform, I help you choose the right partner or hire to do the work.

Experience

  1. Current

    AI and revenue systems architecture1

    Getting revenue data into shape so AI can actually do something useful with it. I also build with coding agents every day, to prototype ideas fast and cut the busywork out of my own work.

  2. 2023

    Enterprise data architecture2

    This is where data architecture became the job. I merged the tech stacks of acquired companies into a central data warehouse, ran the migrations, and built the dashboards our leaders took to the PE firm and the board. It’s also the year I started taking LLMs seriously.

  3. 2022

    Enterprise CRM implementation and migration1

    Implementing and migrating Salesforce, Pardot, and HubSpot for client GTM teams. The goal was always a CRM people would use as it was meant to be used, not one they worked around.

  4. 2019

    CRM administration3

    The year I learned people would pay me to untangle their tech stack. I ran Salesforce alongside Pardot and HubSpot, and tuned our chatbots so qualified leads reached the right rep. I’d used Salesforce years earlier as a sales rep, so I already knew what a bad setup feels like from the user’s side.

  5. 2017

    GTM consulting

    I started consulting in university, when landing clients turned out to be easier than competing for internships, and won Student Entrepreneur of the Year along the way. Implementing Salesforce and HubSpot on the side for five years, I’d worked in more than 100 Salesforce instances by 2021.

  6. 2016

    Paid media and campaign operations4,5

    Managing paid media budgets and proving what each dollar returned. Running campaigns meant running the systems behind them, starting with my first CRM rollout in 2016, and that’s how I found my way into GTM operations.

Source
  1. 1SaaScendA revenue operations firm that builds Salesforce and HubSpot systems and AI agents for B2B revenue teams.
  2. 2Quorum SoftwareSoftware for oil and gas companies, covering upstream, midstream and measurement operations.
  3. 3KudosA Canadian employee recognition and rewards platform.
  4. 4BrightPathA child care and early learning operator with centres across Canada.
  5. 5Matrix HRA Calgary-based staffing agency placing skilled trades and industrial workers across Canada and the US.

If this sounds familiar

Start with the free five-day CRM audit. You'll see what your CRM is actually costing you before we ever talk about fixing it.

P.S. The recruiter never did get to ask a follow-up question. If you have one, reach out to me at me@itisALLAN.com.