To CRM or not to CRM, that's the question.

February 5, 2016 8:56 AM

Starting a consultancy firm. I am considering whether I need a CRM tool/system right now. What are your experiences? Why do I need one now, and If you can convince me why I need one, which one would you recommend?

I have started my own consultancy firm. I'm currently working solo, but plan to hire within a year from now. I am fully aware of the necessity of good CRM management, about knowing your customers, but i am hesitating whether I currently need a CRM tool to do that. I am afraid it will cause a lot of added admin tasks and maybe costs. I am currently using a combination of my phone/contacts, reminders in my calendar and my brain. My current database maybe exists of a couple of hundred business contacts. I am not sending a newsletter yet, but can imagine I will start doing that soon.

Most of the CRM systems are focused on a more heavy use. I can imagine that there is a benefit in it in a few years from now, but when is that moment? The moment I am not the only one the company anymore?

So my main questions can be summarized as above: What is the added value of a CRM system in my current situation, and if there is one, which system would you recommend? Is there an added value to using my iPhone contacts and reminders in a calendar? Salesforce seems good, but quite extensive compared to what I feel I need. My current favorite is Zoho, but what am I missing? Any recommendations?

(I have researched old ask me questions: this one came close, but is already 4 years old)

posted by eau79 to Work & Money (9 answers total)

How many clients do you currently have? How many do you expect to have? Will you be doing short term stuff going from one client to the next, or will you have long term relationships? How many people in the client's office will you be working with?

Personally, I probably wouldn't do it yet if I were in your shoes. But your answers to the above questions could change my mind.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:13 AM on February 5, 2016

Best answer: Disclosure: I am a Salesforce consultant for a large consultancy firm.

You may not need a formal CRM at this juncture. When you have multiple users, you may want to reconsider.

What you want for when you're ready to graduate to a CRM is clean, easily imported data.

Typically you have accounts-contacts-opportunities-activities as the basis of what you're tracking. If you want a really basic solution, you can keep an Excel Spreadsheet with tabs for what you want to track.

So you can have an Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities and Activities Tabs.

Make a list of your accounts and the information you want for them across the columns. Do the same for the other topics.

When you add a new account, add it to the list. For every connection you make, add it to Activities. Include dates.

This way, you have data in a format that can easily be imported into a CRM once you're ready to move to one.

Keeping notes on an iPhone is okay, but make time to enter everything into your Excel CRM to keep it current. CRM is heavily dependent upon user adoption. If you're the kind of person who's using sticky notes and phone numbers on your hand, this might be a departure for you, but trust me, you have to model the behavior for any subsequent employees.

Once you wrangle this, ask me about how to track data and do analysis on it.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 9:16 AM on February 5, 2016 [6 favorites]

You can implement CRM now - while you are small and the implementation will be easy and off-the-shelf. Or you can implement CRM when you get larger and need to convert existing systems and processes.

Given the choice between a legacy conversion and a greenfield install, I'd install today if you really intend to grow within a year or so. (And yeah, Salesforce.)
posted by 26.2 at 9:47 AM on February 5, 2016

You might consider using something like Asana (a project / task tracker) to manage your todo list and reminders. You can forward emails to Asana and it automatically creates tasks. The tagging, search, mobile app is great. I like being able to reprioritize tasks, it is far harder to reprioritize a calendar. Free for a single user.

A couple hundred contacts can be managed in an address book. You can use mail chimp for emails.

This combo should be fine until you grow.
posted by crazycanuck at 10:13 AM on February 5, 2016

Best answer: I'd really recommend it. You may not need something as robust as Salesforce.

I went with Hubspot CRM for 2 reasons - it's free (the CRM not the marketing platform they provide) and it's helping me manage my follow-ups that tend to easily drop-off my task list.

I was also looking at Insightly, which has a great looking contact management interface, but I was looking for something to help me be more intentional about sales.

I've set-up past clients on Highrise who are still very happy with it.

And one of my mentors swears by Infusionsoft

After finally setting up one for myself, I don't find it creates more admin work - on the contrary it's been a good place to make notes after a networking event about things that may not be directly relevant to the current conversation but that I may want to remember in the future. So, while you may be just fine without a CRM, you'll likely find that it brings your professional capability up a few notches.
posted by A hidden well at 10:37 AM on February 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

You need a system of record - doesn't matter what it is. Could be Excel, could be Evernote, could be a baby CRM. Don't get hung up on the tool (or your corporate name, logo, or website -- all those are distractions to doing the work).

I started my consultancy using Nimble, but I soon realized I was only dealing with a few prospects at any time about new business, so it wasn't doing me much good. It did have a nice tickler feature if you're the kind of person who likes tickler reminders to reach out to old contacts.

I found I didn't need a CRM, but did need (self)project management, for which I used a combination of Evernote, Google Docs, Apple Calendar, Apple Contacts, and Todoist. I still search a lot to remember on which platform some info exists though :-).

Just now I've added staff, we're using a lot more shared Google Docs and trying Basecamp. Would have been superfluous earlier. Still no CRM.
posted by troyer at 11:17 AM on February 5, 2016

'nthing Hubspot. It's actively being developed, and you can't beat the price (Free). Previously I was on the basic paid Zoho plan. Zoho has better reporting, a good mobile app that lets you work offline, but limits your custom fields, and is a bit clunkier.
posted by Sophont at 5:03 PM on February 5, 2016

I've been using the free trial of ProsperWorks the last week or so and I have to say, it's clean, especially if google work is your go to. They don't have everything you may ever want in a CRM but that's what sucks about SF....it's gotten so cluttered with shit that one person wants or needs that it's core functionality feels left behind.
posted by hangingbyathread at 9:42 PM on February 5, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks for all the responses. Food for thought. Interesting to read the different perspectives.
posted by eau79 at 3:21 AM on February 6, 2016