-- For many small and medium-sized enterprises, growth stalls long before they expect it—and often for reasons they can’t see. Deals slow down, leads go cold, forecasts feel unreliable, and teams begin operating on instinct rather than insight. While these symptoms feel familiar to most founders, their root cause is rarely addressed: an underperforming CRM that no longer reflects how the business actually works.
According to Joe Batten, Founder of With Scale, this is one of the most overlooked threats to SME growth. CRM systems, he argues, are often implemented early in a company’s journey and left untouched as the business expands. What starts as a simple tool to store contacts quietly becomes the backbone of sales and marketing activity—and if it’s misaligned, every part of the commercial engine feels the strain.
For SMEs already stretched for time and resources, this isn’t a theoretical problem. It has real, day-to-day consequences. Sales teams lose track of leads. Marketing can’t see which campaigns generate revenue. Leadership struggles to understand where growth is slowing and why. These inefficiencies compound in the background until the business hits a wall that feels impossible to diagnose.
This is the gap With Scale was designed to fill. The consultancy specialises in fractional RevOps support for B2B startups and scaleups, helping them rebuild the operational foundations they need to grow. Batten’s approach begins with understanding how information moves through the business—not just the CRM configuration, but the processes, handoffs, and decisions that rely on it. When the system doesn’t reflect the real customer journey, teams waste hours navigating manual workarounds that were never meant for scale.
What Batten often finds is that SMEs have more than just a CRM problem—they have a visibility problem. Without trustworthy data, leadership cannot make confident decisions. Without a clear pipeline, sales teams cannot prioritise effectively. And without consistent attribution, marketing cannot track what is driving demand. The cost of this invisibility is significant: slower sales cycles, lost revenue, and a culture of guesswork.
When those issues are addressed, the change is immediate. A CRM that mirrors the company’s real sales motion allows teams to operate with far greater accuracy. Conversations shift from vague assumptions to precise insights. Forecasts regain credibility. Marketing and sales finally speak the same language. For many SMEs, it’s the first time they feel in control of their growth rather than reacting to it.
This is why Batten believes fractional RevOps is becoming essential for early-stage companies. Full-time operations hires are expensive and difficult to justify early on, yet the need for expertise is urgent. With Scale provides SMEs with access to senior-level RevOps guidance at the moment they need it most—when the business is growing faster than its internal systems can handle.
In a market where customer journeys are increasingly digital and competition moves quickly, SMEs cannot afford to operate with blurred visibility. The hidden cost of an inefficient CRM isn’t technical inconvenience—it’s lost opportunity. Batten’s message is clear: before investing in growth, SMEs must first invest in clarity.
More about With Scale: With Scale
Watch the full discussion with Joe Batten: View here
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Name: Gianmarco
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Organization: Xraised
Website: http://www.xraised.com
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