How boring would your personal relationships be if they were one-dimensional? Just think of how prevalent this is in today’s world of social media networks – where people often share mutual friends, contacts, and groups. This is 
inherently one of the important aspects in business too, in terms of client and contact relationship management, which people do naturally and without thinking about. The trouble begins when technology is added into the equation.
Multiple relationships, sometimes called “many-to-many,” are instances where CRM records (whether a contact, account, interaction, etc.) are linked to other CRM entries from another record and vice-versa.
The multi-dimensional nature of CRM itself creates one of the most predominant challenges an organization can face when transitioning sales people to new CRM software to manage their contacts instead of using email and spreadsheets.
Unfortunately many companies underestimate, overlook or ignore this important element and it never makes its way to the implementation roll-out list. This creates unexpected challenges at inappropriate times.
The reason this is chronically overlooked is very simple. Not everyone naturally thinks or looks at things in multi-dimensional ways. Some folks automatically view things multi-dimensionally because they have been trained to do so.
Work that involves technology, marketing, operations or engineering will teach the individual’s brain to think in this fashion. These are the individuals who plan and roll out CRM systems – and they assume that all people naturally think the way they do.
If an individual has a challenging hobby such as Chess, he or she will likely master the multi-dimensional aspects of a CRM system with ease. Women too, tend to have a smoother changeover to CRM software, because they are innately programmed to multi-task: looking after children while minding the home and doing the cooking – all at the same time.
In contrast, sales people tend to behave more like hunters due to the demanding nature of their work. Hunters are focused on one end goal – to make sales. With this goal-oriented mindset, a sales person is trained to reject any and all distractions from the sales objective.
When suddenly faced with CRM software that requires multiple elements to be considered, tracked, logged and
evaluated, a sales person will likely require more training, support and encouragement to embrace the transition. They are forced out of their comfort zone of relying on Outlook and Excel which are essentially comprised of linear, one-dimensional and disconnected lists.
Once using CRM software becomes second nature to sales people however, they realize the ultimate benefit of having all that integrated information at their fingertips. They will then embrace the system as a necessary tool that helps them leverage sales even further.
Multi-dimensional relationships are indeed more complex, but ultimately they offer a more meaningful experience – whether it is in your personal life or when interacting with a CRM system.