Before You Buy Another Tool, Fix This in Your Business First

05/12/2025

There's a pattern I see in a lot of SMEs. Things feel messy. Work is leaking. Clients are waiting. Cash is tight. The owner is exhausted… and the solution becomes:

"I just need the right system. A CRM. A new app. Some AI. Then it'll all run smoothly."

Let me be straight with you: if your underlying process is broken, no tool will save you. All you'll have is a broken process happening faster, with more notifications and a bigger debit order leaving your account every month.

Before we talk about marketing technology (MarTech) or AI, we need to talk about the boring, unglamorous pieces that quietly decide whether your business feels sane or not: your offers, your pricing, your deposits, your delivery, and your follow-up. Once those are clear, tools are powerful. Before that, they're just expensive distractions.

First, what is MarTech and why do SME owners chase it?

Marketing technology, or MarTech, is the umbrella term for the software you use to market and sell: email platforms, CRMs, WhatsApp and SMS tools, ads managers, landing page builders, AI tools that write or design or analyse. Used well, MarTech can help you capture leads properly, follow up consistently, automate boring admin, and see what's working.

All of that is good. I work with these tools every day.

But here's the catch: if you don't know what you're selling, how you want to sell it, and what "good" looks like in your process, MarTech just gives structure to your confusion. The tool looks impressive, but underneath it's still the same vague offer, soft pricing, shaky boundaries and guesswork.

So we fix the foundations first.

Step 1: Offers – what are you actually selling?

Most SMEs are "selling a bit of everything to anyone who needs it". It feels flexible and generous. In practice, it quietly destroys your clarity.

If I asked you right now to name your three main offers and explain what each one includes, who it's for, and what problem it solves, could you do it in one plain sentence per offer? If not, that's your first job – and you don't need an app for it.

Sit down with a notebook and write out your top three offers. For each one, answer in simple language:

Who is this for?
What painful problem does it solve for them?
What is included, and just as importantly, what is not?

Once your offers are clear on paper, your quotes start becoming clearer, your clients' expectations get clearer, and you stop promising "a feeling" instead of a result. A system can't clarify a promise you haven't made. That clarity starts with you, not with software.

Step 2: Pricing – can you say it without apologising?

No amount of automation will fix pricing that's built on fear.

If your prices are guessed, change from client to client, or quietly get negotiated down every time someone sounds shocked on the phone, then all a fancy tool will do is send underpriced quotes faster. The problem is not the speed; it's the decision.

You don't need a pricing PhD. You need some lines in the sand. At minimum, you should know:

Your standard price for each of your main offers.
The lowest price at which the job is still worth doing.
How you handle discounts (if at all) and under what conditions.

Put it in writing, even if it's just one A4 sheet stuck above your desk. That way you aren't re-deciding your value 20 times a week based on who's on the other side of the call. Only once that backbone exists does it make sense to build quoting templates and automation around it.

Step 3: Deposits – when does money move?

If you don't have a clear deposit rule, you are financing your clients' lives with your own stress.

Many SME owners live with the constant ache of, "We've done the work, now we wait and hope they pay." That's not a character flaw; it's often just a missing policy.

Ask yourself honestly: when does money move in your business? Before the work, halfway through, or only at the end? Do you take a deposit? How much? Is that written on every quote and invoice, or is it something you vaguely mention and then back away from when there's pushback?

A clear deposit policy is one of the fastest ways to make your business feel lighter. Yes, some people will walk away when you enforce it. Often, they're the same people who would have paid you late, argued about scope, and filled your WhatsApp with drama. You're not losing "good work"; you're refusing to buy stress on credit.

Get the rule clear, write it down, and practise saying it calmly. Then, if you want, use tools to make invoices and payment links smoother. But the courage to ask for money upfront is not a software feature; it's a decision.

Step 4: Delivery – how does the work actually move through your business?

Before you automate anything, you need to understand how work currently flows through your business. Not how it should work. How it actually works on a Wednesday when you're tired and the network is slow.

Take one of your main offers and map it out on paper:

How does the client first contact you?
What happens next – call, site visit, quick message, quote?
Once they say yes, what are the steps from that moment to "job done"?
Who does what, in what order?
How do you know the work is done properly?
How do you close the loop with the client?

Aim for six to ten steps, no more. If you can't sketch it, you can't systemise it. And if you don't know the real flow, any automation you build is just wiring on top of a guessing game.

Once the steps are visible, you start seeing where work gets stuck, where you drop balls, and where a simple template or checklist could help. Only then does it make sense to say, "Right, which tool can help us move from step 3 to step 4 more smoothly?"

Step 5: Follow-up – what happens after "job done"?

Most SMEs are terrible at follow-up, not because they don't care, but because they live in permanent reaction mode. As soon as one job is finished, everyone is thrown into the next fire.

Follow-up matters for three reasons: it catches problems early, it creates repeat business, and it reminds good clients you still exist.

Start simple. At the end of each week, list the jobs you've completed. Decide who you'll follow up with the next week. Create one or two standard follow-up messages – one to check they're happy, one to ask for a review or referral. Use those over and over instead of rewriting every time.

You don't need AI to send the first ten of these. You need the habit. Once the rhythm exists, MarTech can help by scheduling messages or setting reminders. But again, tools come second. Rhythm comes first.

Only now: tools, automation, dashboards

When your offers, pricing, deposits, delivery, and follow-up are at least reasonably clear on paper, that's when tools become genuinely exciting instead of overwhelming.

Now you can say things like:

"We lose leads between the first WhatsApp and the quote; we need a simple form and CRM to keep track."
"We forget to follow up after delivery; we need a basic workflow that reminds us three days and fourteen days after a job closes."
"We can't see which service makes us the most money; we need a small dashboard that shows revenue and profit per offer."

Notice the difference: you're not buying tools because someone on YouTube said they're powerful. You're choosing tools to support a specific part of a process you already understand. That's when MarTech and AI stop being toys and start being servants.

A simple checklist before you spend another rand on tools

Before you sign up for the next subscription, pause and ask yourself:

Can I clearly describe my main offers – who they're for and what's included?
Do I have a written price structure and a minimum price I'm willing to stand on?
Do I know exactly when money moves, and do we stick to that rule?
Can I explain, in a few steps, how work moves from "enquiry" to "job done"?
Do we have any consistent follow-up rhythm with past clients?

If you can't honestly say "yes" to most of these without mentioning an app, you're not ready for more tech. You're ready for a notebook, a quiet corner, and two honest afternoons.

Why this matters more than the latest AI feature

A lot of SME owners secretly hope technology will save them from hard decisions: saying no to the wrong clients, raising prices, enforcing deposits, admitting that the current way of working is burning them out. But technology can't repent for you. It can't set boundaries for you. It can't decide what kind of business you're building.

From a Christian point of view, you're still responsible before God for how you run this thing: how you treat people, how you handle money, how you steward what's been put in your hands. Tools are helpful, but they don't carry the accountability. You do.

So start by fixing what only you can fix: the structure, the promises, the way you handle people and cash. Then let marketing technology or MarTech come in as a quiet assistant, not the saviour of the story.

Once the foundations are solid, the right tools really can make your business feel lighter. But if you skip the hard parts and hope software will do it for you, all you're buying is a nicer-looking version of the same old chaos.