Topline · 1 Oct 2026 · From the week of 28 September
SPOTLIGHT: The Problem With Your CRM Nobody Talks About | Ramin Heydari, CEO & President @ XYZies
These are notes on the conversation, checked against its transcript. The episode itself has the full discussion.
In brief
Sam Jacobs interviews Ramin Heydari, CEO & President of XYZies, an Irvine, California company he has led since 2007. XYZies helps service providers and retailers sell cable, internet, TV and wireless services, and it now also runs consumer-facing ventures such as SmarterHome.ai. Heydari describes a recent problem: four sales motions spread across separate tools, with no single view of performance across channels. He argues that AI's pace demands 10x rather than 10% growth thinking, and that bolting AI onto existing software is not enough. In his view the bottleneck is fragmented systems and data, and the fix is one unified, AI-driven system that gives real-time coaching and continuous grading at every role level. He also warns about enterprise software vendors whose post-sale delivery doesn't match the pitch.
For founders
- Heydari argues that AI has made 10% annual growth targets obsolete, because software that once took three months can now be built in under two days, so leaders should set 10x goals and look for the bottleneck that blocks them.
- He says sprinkling AI onto existing tools is not enough, and that the business has to be rethought with data and workflows under one roof so decisions can be made quickly.
- He says his companies have lost millions of dollars on enterprise platforms whose features and support didn't match the sales pitch, and that he judges vendors by whether they deliver week over week, not by the first pitch.
- His core leadership lesson is that the future belongs to those who can see it before it becomes obvious, which he says requires reflecting rather than just reviewing, and attention to detail before execution.
For revenue leaders
- Heydari says running sales motions across separate CRM, communication and analytics tools slows the business down, breaks processes and makes performance hard to measure.
- He describes defining explicit expectations for every role, from marketing, lead gen, closer and account manager up to supervisor, VP and CEO, so leadership gets a true picture of performance.
- He favors real-time AI coaching at every funnel stage over feedback given weeks after a mistake, which he says is how reps have historically been corrected and then blamed.
- He describes an always-visible A/B/C grading dashboard that shows each rep how to move up a grade, replacing quarterly or six-month evaluations; he notes the system is still being built.
- He argues reps feel successful through gradual, visible improvement, not when management demands different results without knowing where things went wrong.
What was said 14, most useful first
AI's pace makes 10% annual growth targets outdated and that businesses should aim for 10x growth. Listen
Heydari says growing 10–20% a year used to be celebrated but is now a thing of the past, because software that could take three months to build can now be built in less than two days. He says this means expectations should shift from 10% growth to 10x growth. He frames AI as an evolution, not just a revolution like the industrial or digital ones.
“we have to change that expectation of a 10 % growth to 10x growth”
Heydari favors real-time AI coaching at every funnel stage over correcting reps' mistakes weeks after the fact. Listen
He says agentic AI should supervise and give feedback to everyone in real time, from lead gen through closer, account manager and supervisor, not just one stage. He criticizes the historical pattern of going back two weeks to correct a mistake today and then blaming the rep tomorrow.
“This is real time. We are not going back to two weeks ago and try to help someone to change its mistake they made two weeks ago today and then blaming them tomorrow.”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
Heydari describes an always-visible A/B/C grading dashboard that shows each rep how to reach the next grade, in place of periodic performance reviews. Listen
Instead of an employee evaluation after six months, or being taken into an office after three months, each employee sees a dashboard grading them A, B or C based on the settings that are configured. The dashboard also tells them how to move from C to B or from B to A. He says this makes performance "a state of obvious" and is rewarding for employees who want to improve. The system is still being built and improved.
“The grading is always there. You want to be an A player? Here's a dashboard for you. It tells you, based on the settings that are set, your A, B, or C. If you want to go from C to B, from B to A, this is how you do it.”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
Heydari judges software vendors by whether they deliver week over week over several months, since the first weeks may just be a sales pitch. Listen
He says the first week of a vendor engagement may be a sales pitch, and in the second week vendors may still be trying to look good. The real test is whether deliverables arrive every week. He says that in roughly three to five months with his current CRM vendor (transcribed as "Chris at work"), XYZies made more progress than with any vendor in his 30-plus years.
“Maybe the first week is a sales pitch. Maybe the second week, they still try to look good. But when it goes week over week, every week, you get your deliverables. They hold your hand.”
Listen to the episode Retention & customer success Link to this
A 10x growth target forces leaders to identify the specific bottleneck in the business, which for XYZies turned out to be scattered data across channels. Listen
Once you think in terms of 10x, he says, you have to ask what the limiting factor, stumbling block or bottleneck is. At XYZies, which runs B2B and B2C channels with different products and services, the answer was data. He described data as the company's compass, which doesn't work properly when the data is scattered.
“When you think about things that way, then you have to think about that, what is a limiting factor? What is a stumbling block? Where is a bottleneck to this?”
Adding a little AI to existing software tools is not enough to make a business AI-driven. Listen
Heydari says many business tools are just adding "a little bit of AI spice," and their makers believe that makes them working AI systems. He argues it requires much more than that: the business has to rethink how it operates, with things as much as possible under one roof so decisions can be made quickly on current data.
“so many tools in businesses are just adding a little bit of AI spice with and they think this is the AI system that is working, but it requires a lot more than that”
Spreading sales operations across a CRM, separate communication channels and a separate analytics system made things slow down, break and become hard to measure. Listen
XYZies had four sales motions, each on a separate tool, and no single view of performance across channels. Its stack was a high-end popular CRM, plus WhatsApp, phone lines and chat, plus another system for data analysis. He says that when you try to deal with multiple things, you can't put things in motion quickly or measure them well.
“when you try to go ahead and deal with multiple things, that's when things start to slow down and things break because then you cannot really put things in motion quickly, and you cannot measure them very well”
Technology alone doesn't fix go-to-market performance; each role must have explicit expectations so the CEO isn't misled about what is happening. Listen
Even with agent APIs and all the technology ingredients, he says, humans still run the business. He lists the questions to answer: what is expected from marketing, lead gen, the closer, the account manager, the supervisor and the vice president. The last question is what the CEO needs to see so they don't "get bamboozled."
“What are we expecting from marketing? What are we expecting from the lead gen? What are we expecting from the closer? What are we expecting from the account manager? What are we expecting from the supervisor? What are we expecting from the vice president? What are we expecting the CEO to finally see and for the lack of better word, not get bamboozled?”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
Heydari describes his ideal "dream CRM" as one place for leads, task assignment, coaching and analysis, removing the need to export data to ChatGPT or Claude. Listen
He contrasts this with the current workflow: collecting data from several systems, then exporting it to ChatGPT or Claude for analysis. In his ideal, you go to one place to get leads, assign tasks to employees, and have employees coached on what they did right and wrong. He calls the AI-based CRM XYZies is working on with a vendor (transcribed as "Chris at work") a "dream CRM" and says it is still in the works.
“You go to one place, you get all your leads. You go to one place, you assign the task to your employees. You go to one place and your employees get coached for the right and wrong.”
His companies have lost millions of dollars on enterprise platforms whose post-sale reality didn't match the sales pitch. Listen
He describes buying fancy platforms that promise everything, then finding they don't deliver. Customer support won't involve the salesperson who sold the product. When he upgrades and pays for the enterprise tier, the feature he needed is still "in the works." He says bigger companies are probably losing billions this way.
“Lost our companies have lost millions of dollars millions of dollars and you know some bigger companies probably billions are losing still because you know you buy these platforms and they're all you know fancish fancy”
Reps feel successful through gradual, visible improvements, not when management demands different results without knowing what went wrong. Listen
He cites Earl Nightingale's 1952 definition of success as "a progressive realization of a worthy ideal." He says it is gradual little improvements that make people feel successful, and that AI can show reps where they need to improve. He ties this to kaizen, or constant, never-ending improvement.
“Reps, they don't feel successful when they're doing the same thing and the management is asking them for a different result without really knowing where they went, when things went wrong.”
Many startups fail because of a lack of attention to detail, a belief reflected in his company's name. Listen
He says some businesses thrive and others don't even when they all focus on sales, marketing and operations. He attributes much of the difference, and many startup failures, to attention to detail. XYZies was named for this idea, with the "ies" standing for the details his team attends to when building platforms and distribution models.
“a lot of unfortunately startups go out of business because of the attention to details”
Heydari's core leadership lesson is that the future belongs to those who see it before it becomes obvious, which he says comes from reflection rather than review. Listen
He says leaders don't need a crystal ball. They need to sit down and reflect, not just review, and decide what success should look like at the end of their progress and whether they'd be happy with it. He adds that you don't need to see the entire future: planning well and paying attention to details before execution makes the journey enjoyable.
“future belongs to those. who can see it before it becomes obvious. So one may say, okay, so should I go buy a crystal ball? You have it in your hand. It just requires sitting down as a leader and reflecting, not just reviewing, reflecting”
Heydari positions SmarterHome.ai as an AI-plus-human comparison service, built on the view that AI search has created information overload for consumers. Listen
He describes SmarterHome.ai as a Kayak-style comparison site that currently matches households with the fastest internet at the lowest cost and affordable home security. He plans to expand it to other home services. His reasoning is that people now search in ChatGPT and other AI systems on top of Google, which overloads them with information. He says XYZies' manpower augmented with AI can help people make better decisions.
“Now everybody's searching things in ChatGPT and many other AI systems. Now there is an information overload for even consumers trying to figure out even where they want to eat.”