CRM Hygiene & Coaching Insights with Ron Mifsud

Modern sales leaders are under more pressure than ever. Longer deal cycles, stricter budgets, and the constant struggle of CRM adoption make it difficult for teams to stay aligned and efficient. In a recent Spiky Signals conversation, Waleed Shaarani sat down with Ron Mifsud to discuss the challenges revenue leaders face—and how they’re tackling them with the right mix of process, coaching, and technology.

Why CRM Hygiene Still Hurts Teams

Mifsud highlighted a universal pain point: CRM hygiene. Even with automation, reps still spend countless hours updating fields, logging notes, or retyping interactions. Worse, leaders don’t always trust the data—forcing reps to repeat what they just updated.

As Mifsud put it:

“If leadership keeps asking me for something I already spent an hour updating, it means there’s a lack of trust in the CRM.”

This is exactly where tools like Spiky.ai make a difference. With CRM Auto Sync, meeting notes, transcripts, and action items flow automatically into CRM, removing the manual burden and giving leaders confidence in the data.

Deal Velocity: Moving Beyond Activities

Activity tracking—counting calls, emails, and meetings—doesn’t guarantee deals move forward. Mifsud pointed out that reps are hired for their ability to connect with buyers, not for their ability to update Salesforce fields.

Instead, sales velocity improves when leaders focus on:

• Identifying friction points in the buyer journey
• Pinpointing winning behaviors across top reps
• Using AI insights to surface patterns in successful deals

Spiky’s real-time coaching nudges reps during calls, helping them address objections and move opportunities forward faster.

Coaching at Scale: Personal, Yet Systematic

When asked about coaching, Mifsud stressed the balance between scale and personalization. Frameworks like MEDDIC provide consistency, but every rep has a different learning style.

Great leaders, he said, adapt their coaching to the individual—while relying on tools to scale best practices. Spiky supports this with feedback and coaching tools that analyze conversations and highlight actionable insights for managers.

The Art and Science of Sales

Mifsud drew a sharp line between sales “science” (CRM stages, methodologies, data capture) and sales “art” (building relationships, crafting messages, understanding buyer psychology).

His advice:

• Leave the science to automation—let AI tools handle hygiene and reporting.
• Empower reps to focus on the art—developing talk tracks, building rapport, and influencing buying committees.

Spiky.ai bridges both worlds by automating the science while amplifying the art.

Patterns, Not Just Metrics

While some platforms emphasize metrics like talk time or number of interactions, Mifsud argued that true insight comes from understanding patterns in winning deals—such as multi-threading, consistent executive engagement, and objection handling.

Spiky’s conversation intelligence aggregates insights across calls to uncover exactly these kinds of patterns, giving leaders clarity into what actually drives wins.

Key Takeaways

1. CRM hygiene is broken without automation—leaders need tools that eliminate manual data entry.
2. Deal velocity is about behaviors, not activity counts.
3. Coaching must balance personalization with scale—AI tools make this possible.
4. Sales success requires both art and science—automation frees reps to focus on relationships.
5. Patterns reveal more than metrics—conversation intelligence uncovers repeatable winning behaviors.

Final Thought

As Mifsud summed up, sales reps aren’t hired to type data into CRMs—they’re hired to connect, persuade, and close. Leaders who embrace automation and coaching tools like Spiky.ai give their teams the freedom to focus on what truly matters: building trust, accelerating deals, and driving revenue.