The moment I realised CRM could drive growth

It was the early 2000s. I was working for an online sportsbook in the UK.

We’d done something that felt pretty progressive at the time: built five VIP segments based on value and frequency, and every month we sent each group something specific and relevant. Not a blanket offer blasted to the whole database. Something that said: we know who you are, we know what you do, and we value it.

It wasn’t complicated. But it worked. These customers felt seen. Retention was solid. The numbers told a clear story.

Then we hit the end of the financial year.

The commercial director called it: costs needed to come down to hit year-end targets. The monthly VIP campaign was on the list. I pushed back. Hard. I made the case that these weren’t costs — they were the thing keeping our best customers engaged. That spending money on the right people at the right time wasn’t a luxury, it was the mechanism.

I lost the argument.

So I watched.

And the numbers tanked.

The “saving” became a loss that dwarfed whatever we’d cut. The campaign wasn’t a cost centre. It was a revenue driver wearing a marketing budget.

What the CCO didn’t see — couldn’t see, because no one had connected those dots clearly enough — was that the campaign wasn’t a cost centre. It was a revenue driver wearing a marketing budget. The moment we stopped showing those customers they mattered, they behaved accordingly. They drifted. They churned. The “saving” became a loss that dwarfed whatever we’d cut.

That experience never left me.

Not because I was right and someone else was wrong. But because it showed me exactly what happens when customer data exists but the business doesn’t truly understand what it’s telling them. When retention gets treated as an expense instead of an investment. When the connection between what you spend on customers and what customers return to you isn’t visible to the people making the decisions.

The gap that became the work

That’s the gap I’ve spent the years since trying to close.

Map who your customers actually are. Observe what their behaviour is telling you. Understand their value — not just what they’ve spent, but what they’re worth if they stay. Then engage them in a way that proves you know the difference.

That’s MOVE. And it started, honestly, in a boardroom in the UK where I lost a fight I should have won, but learned something I’ve never stopped using.

What this series is

This series is everything that’s come since. Real projects, real data, real outcomes. The patterns that keep showing up. The mistakes that keep getting made. And the moments — like that one — where the numbers tell you exactly what you need to know, if you’re willing to look.

Follow along. There’s plenty more where this came from.