In the summer of 2019, operator, entrepreneur, and sales strategist Ruslan Shagiakhmetov was running Luckru, a small Russian-based customer relationship management (CRM) consulting firm. After over a year in development, the company was struggling to stand out in a saturated market, as building trust as a startup proved difficult and many potential clients dropped out before reaching the final stage of the sales pipeline.
"We had built up marketing to generate a decent flow of leads, we'd gained some expertise," Ruslan recalls. "But every lead was a battle."
That all changed when a bold shift in strategy led Ruslan to change how Luckru sold and delivered its services, and today's article is a closer look at how that one decision transformed the company's growth trajectory and turned it into one of the country's top CRM consulting firms.
Luckru: Running A CRM Firm In a Crowded Market
Before founding Luckru, Ruslan worked at a Russian job classifieds network, where he played a key role in doubling the company's revenue and was eventually promoted to chief sales officer.
After the company was acquired by a larger competitor, he decided it was time to start his own venture, which led to the launch of Luckru in 2018. Luckru's focus is on helping businesses improve their operations and increase sales, offering services like department audits, workflow automation, and staff training for managers and executives.
Luckru powered through its first year with a small 10-person team and a steady stream of leads, but the company soon began facing a critical challenge.
Its offerings were built around Bitrix24, a popular CRM platform in Russia due to its affordable pricing and low technical barrier, but the same qualities that made Bitrix24 appealing also attracted a flood of competitors. The market became crowded with firms offering similar solutions, often at drastically different price points.
"Clients were overwhelmed with offers from professionals and amateurs alike," Ruslan explains. "Prices for the same project could range from $5,000 to $50,000, and it was hard for clients to trust anyone."
This meant that, despite solid technical skills and a capable team, Luckru struggled to stand out in a saturated environment and earn client trust, with many potential buyers defaulting to larger or more recognizable firms because they viewed them as less risky.
This led to a critical turning point for the company; if Ruslan wanted Luckru to break through, he'd have to rethink how its services were being sold.
Ruslan's Change in Strategy: Flipping the Risk Equation
Ruslan identified a core issue in how CRM services were sold: clients were being asked to commit to long-term projects without fully trusting the company's ability to deliver, which created friction during the sales process and drove many clients away.
Armed with that insight, Ruslan overhauled Luckru's business model from scratch by introducing a bold new proposition where every project would have a clear, fixed price and a maximum cost ceiling. The work would also be split into large, standalone phases, with clients only paying after approving each one. Finally, and most crucially, clients could cancel at any time without penalties, while retaining all completed work.
By placing the financial risk on Luckru rather than the client, Ruslan aimed to show the company's confidence and professionalism. However, implementing the new model came with its own set of challenges.
Since payments were now made after client approval rather than upon the signing of contracts, cash flow became inconsistent and hard to predict. To stabilize operations, Ruslan cut internal expenses, negotiated with investors to extend the company's financial runway, and took on a larger share of the operational risk himself.
This shift also brought about internal challenges. The sales team, which had been trained to promote fixed installment plans, had difficulty explaining the new structure to potential clients. Realizing this, Ruslan revamped the entire pitch strategy, rewriting sales scripts, organizing training sessions, and personally joining sales calls to coach team members in real-time, ensuring they could clearly communicate the rationale and value of this new model.
While these changes made for a difficult initial transition, Ruslan and his team remained committed and the new model began to gradually deliver positive results.
The Turning Point: Becoming A Leading CRM Firm
Within six months of adopting the new sales model, Luckru began securing larger deals and its revenue grew tenfold. By the end of 2020, Luckru ranked among the top three Bitrix24 CRM consultancies in the Ural Federal District, later breaking into the national top 15 in both 2021 and 2022.
The team expanded quickly, growing from 10 to 40 employees and moving offices twice to keep up with rising demand. By 2023, Luckru had completed over 300 projects, including more than 20 enterprise-level CRM implementations, while also expanding internationally with clients in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates.
Luckru's approach also reflected a wider change in the CRM consulting market. As clients sought more flexible, lower-risk payment options, other Russian firms began adopting similar practices, offering solutions like phased billing, cloud-based systems, and adaptable payment models to fulfil clients' specific needs.
"This seemingly simple offer allowed us to quickly rise to the top of the market," Ruslan concludes. "And it forced the entire industry to adjust its rules."
Continuing to Bet on Trust
After leading Luckru as CEO for five years, Ruslan Shagiakhmetov now serves as chief operating officer across five international markets at Larixon Classifieds, a large classified ad platform with projects in Cyprus, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. In addition to his executive role, he's currently pursuing an MBA at Boston University to further his expertise in product management and business development.
But even as his focus expands, Ruslan remains grounded in the same principles he used to turn Luckru from a struggling startup into a leading CRM firm: creating business systems that directly address client concerns to gain client trust and secure long-term success in a competitive market.
