Paco had a notebook. A black one, with the elastic band they sell at airports. He kept it in the inside pocket of his jacket, always the same pocket, and pulled it out with a gesture that by now was involuntary: hand goes in, fingers find the band, pull. Seventeen years doing it exactly the same way.
Everything was in that notebook. The clients' names, their wives' names, some of their children's. What he had promised them and when. Who he could call first thing on a Monday and who had to wait until Thursday afternoon because they were in a bad mood before then. What discount Martínez got in September and why Gutiérrez couldn't get the same without Fernández finding out.
Paco was the company's best salesman. Everyone knew it. The manager knew it, and let him be. The other two salesmen knew it, and envied him silently. Carmen, the administrator, knew it, because every time she needed client data she had to wait for Paco to pick up the phone.
One Tuesday in January, Paco didn't come to work. Flu. Nothing serious. His wife called at nine to let them know.
At ten, a client called asking about a quote Paco had promised him for that week. Carmen knew nothing about that quote. She searched her email. Nothing. In the company CRM—which was an Excel sheet with colored tabs—nothing either. She called Paco.
"It's in the notebook," Paco said, his voice thick with flu. "Page... I don't know, about halfway through. Look for 'Transportes Levante'."
The notebook was in Paco's jacket. The jacket was at Paco's house. Paco was in bed with a fever of 101.
Carmen called the manager.
"Can't someone go get the notebook?"
Carmen didn't answer. She didn't need to.
The week without Paco
Paco was on sick leave for nine days. Things happened during those nine days. Nothing catastrophic. Nothing that would make the news. Small things that, added up, left a taste the manager recognized because he had tasted it before: the taste of depending on a single person.
A client from Alicante called three times. No one could tell him the status of his order. Eventually, he stopped calling. When Paco returned and called him, the client said it was fine, but with that tone that means it's not.
Another client sent an email asking for the same terms as last year. No one knew what last year's terms were. They were in the notebook.
A third, Fernández's contact, called to complain that Gutiérrez had gotten a better price. No one knew how Fernández found out, but the problem was served. And the solution was in a notebook, in a jacket, on a coat rack, in Murcia.
What Paco wasn't doing wrong
It would be easy to say Paco was disorganized. That it was a discipline problem. That if he had just filled out the system, everything would have been fine.
It's not true.
Paco didn't fill out the system because the system didn't work for him. The Excel sheet had columns for name, phone, and email. It had no column for "don't call this guy before Thursday." It had no column for "I promised him a 12% discount but only if he signs before March." It had no column for "his wife's name is Inés and they just had a grandson, ask him how it's going."
Paco used the notebook because the notebook adapted to how he worked. The Excel sheet forced him to work the way a robot would work. And Paco wasn't a robot. He was a salesman. Which are different things.
The tool Paco would use
A CRM that works isn't an Excel sheet with more columns. Nor is it an American software with twenty modules of which you use three. A CRM that works is a tool that adapts to how your sales team works. That has room for what Paco wrote in his notebook: the commitments, the context, the particularities of each client that don't fit in a standard form field.
A CRM that works warns Carmen when there is a pending quote, without needing to call anyone. It tells the salesman that today he needs to call Transportes Levante because they haven't heard from them in two weeks. It saves the history of each client—prices, agreements, conversations—so that the day Paco is sick, or on vacation, or decides to retire, the company is not left in the dark.
It doesn't replace Paco. It ensures that what Paco knows doesn't disappear when Paco isn't there.
The question no one asked in time
The manager called Paco when he returned from sick leave. He told him they needed to organize the commercial information better. Paco said yes, of course, he had been saying that for years. The manager fell silent for a moment. They both knew that wasn't entirely true. Paco had been saying for years that the Excel didn't work. But he had also been comfortable with his notebook for years, because the notebook made him indispensable, and being indispensable, even if no one says it, gives a security that no contract can provide.
Carmen, who was at the next desk, said without looking up from her computer:
"The problem isn't the notebook. The problem is that only Paco can read the notebook."
No one added anything. Paco put his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket. The notebook was still there.
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