Monday Sales CRM - CRM Software Monday style!

Monday has been around for several years now and is reputedly one of the fastest growing SaaS companies in the world.

One of the things that has impressed me the most with Monday as an end-user myself is how fast the company is improving their product. It is continually and rapidly evolving.

Very recently (mid October 2022), I heard about a fundamental shift in the platform's evolution. As both a Monday user myself and also a Monday expert who often helps Small Businesses optimise their Monday setup, I actually have mixed feelings about this big change. But I will explain what I mean by mixed feelings at the end of this article.

For now, let's focus on what these recent changes are and what they might mean for the end uses - us.

The "Old" Monday - Work OS

In its previous incarnation, Monday was primarily marketed as a Project Management tool using the slogan "Work OS" (Work Operating System). There was just one product ("Monday.com") which you signed up for at one of several tiers. Each tier or plan had more or less functions based on the Tier. This is the version of Monday I am still using to this day.

Downsides to the "Old Monday"

In this old version, while users had access to 200+ templates, those templates were relatively simple in nature. Most templates were made up of just 1 - 2 Boards and a Dashboard with a handful of Automations preset.

While these Templates helped those new to Monday to jump-start the building process and develop a better understanding of how the system works, the templates were not integrated with each other. This meant that users had to cobble together the various Templates they installed with both each other and any non-Templated Boards in their Monday account.

The end result?

Users/Organisations ended up with a "Frankensteined" system comprised of multiple fairly generic templates and other Boards cobbled together. Almost always, the organisation would reach a point where they realised their Frankensteined Monday system was holding them back and they would commit to starting again from scratch. Usually, at this point they would hire a Monday Expert like me to design and build a complete and totally custom system for them in Monday. In the long run, relying on cobbled together Templates often proved to be a huge waste of time and money - it would have saved the user a lot of time and money to opt for a custom build right from the outset. (Hindsight is a wonderful thing).

Monday Work Management - The New Approach

In the new version of Monday, the platform is broken down into 5 quite different Products that allow you to access different features and use the platform in different ways.  

These 5 Products are Monday Work Management, Monday Marketer, Monday Sales CRM, Monday Projects and Monday Dev. 

Monday Work Management has (as far as I can see) identical features and functionality as the old Monday Work OS (which I am still on).  As with the old version, Monday Work Management comes with 200+ templates and is fully customisable - allowing you to build almost any workflow you can imagine.

While the other new Products do add one or two features not previously available in Monday, the 2 major difference between Work Management and the other new Monday Products are as follows;

1. The other Products (ie other than Work Management) come fully pre-built with boards, dashboards and automations tailor-made for each Product's purpose.  Eg the Sales CRM comes with Boards for Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Activities & Deals, a Sales Dashboard and all your automations built ready-to-go for you.  It also comes with 2 new features - merge duplicates and email tracking.
2. Monday Sales CRM, Monday Dev, Monday Marketer and Monday Projects come with LESS FEATURES than Monday Work Management but they COST MORE per month than W.M.

When I first looked at the new Monday Products & Pricing, I made the assumption that you had to sign up for Work Management as a base platform and then had the option of adding any/all of the other Products to it for increased functionality. 

However, it seems that you can use any of the Products individually without having to sign up to Work Management. 

Both Work Management and the 4 Products you can add to it come in 5 main Tiers - Individual (free), Basic, Standard, Pro and Enterprise. (Note that traditionally Monday has also offered but not promoted or listed a Student plan and Non-Profit plan. Both have free options if you qualify).

Without having even tested it, the Merge duplicate data feature is new to Monday as far as I know and sounds very helpful.  BUT, keep in mind that you only get Duplcate Warning on Monday Sales CRM Enterprise, so presumably you will still have to either stumble upon or search for duplicates before you can merge them.

My mixed feelings about the new Monday Product range

I have always thought that one of Monday.com's greatest strengths is also it's biggest weakness.

When I speak of it's greatest strength, I am referring to the fact that you can put almost any sort of data you can imagine into Monday (and automate it) and you can customise Monday into an awesome system for almost any business, industry or use case.

However, Monday's chameleon-like nature means that it is hard to market it as any one thing in particular. For example, Monday has been marked as a project management tool for many years now, but it isn't a P.M. tool. It is a platform that you can use to build a kick ass PM Tool.

The other big drawback with Monday's almost unlimited customizability and lack of more complete templates is that it is very time-consuming (and often expensive) to build a complete or even half-complete system with it.

For this reason, I think this re-structure by Monday.com is both inevitable and also a smart move. It allows them to target specific markets more effectively with their marketing and also create more complete systems tailored for a particular use case.

However, the new Monday Products in a way signal a move in completely the opposite direction to the philosophy that originally created Monday.com - that philosophy being all about creating a totally customizable system that wasn't templated that users could shape precisely to their needs.

So the question is, does this mean that moving forward Monday.com will be more "pre-built" in nature and less customizable to the needs of the individual?

Also, as it stands the "new Monday" is 50% totally customizable Work Management and 50% Customizable but pre-built and fairly generic add-on Products like the Sales CRM. I don't think Monday can be both things - totally customizable on the one hand and pre-built with specific features and automations on the other hand.

But what I am most disappointed about is the fact that this new CRM Software Monday has released adds almost zero in terms of functionality when added to Work Management, although it will at least more than double any organisations monthly subscription costs.

It seems to me that it is far more cost effective and will provide greater results faster if users instead stick to just Work Management and hire a Pro to make it look and function the way they need it to to manage their organisation effectively.

However, I am going to give Monday.com the benefit of the doubt and will continue to test these new Products of theirs, ask questions of their support team and wait to see the additional features in these Products that they have already hinted at. Stay tuned for updates.

Un-answered questions re the new Monday Product range