How Sales CRM Software is the Best Thing for Small Business Growth?

It is well established that while every business today needs a Sales CRM tool to propel its growth, small businesses, in particular, can benefit immensely from the use of CRM software.

Business across industries have increased their conversion rate by 300% with the implementation of sales CRM.

However, the key to leveraging this tool effectively is choosing the one that’s right for your business and its unique needs.

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What is Sales CRM? 

A Sales CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a tool that helps businesses improve their relationships with their prospects and clients.

Sales software for small business manages clients at every step of their buying journey. It helps businesses centralize sales operations, win maximum opportunities and build long-lasting relationships with their clients.

From lead management to workflow automation and data analytics, Sales CRM offers a wide array of tools to help business owners keep a close eye on where the business is heading.  

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Sales CRM Benefits That Small Business Owners Should Consider

Sales CRM today is at the heart of every business, and small businesses are no different. Recent stats suggest that 91% of companies with more than 11 employees use a CRM. This means there has to be a concrete reason why CRM is widespread.

Looking at its most basic benefits, you’ll see that sales CRM for small business saves time and can exponentially increase sales and return on marketing investment.

Here are the many outcomes and benefits you can derive from a Sales CRM tool if you are looking to scale your business:

• Reduces the burden of manual admin work.
• Minimize errors in data collection.
• Reduces bad decision-making.
• Improves the chances of lead conversion.
• Improves the chances of customer retention

It doesn’t matter whether you want to expand your portfolio by adding new products or services, or you want to expand your business to new geographies or streamline your sales process for better productivity – a Sales CRM software can help you scale with ease.

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Why Do You Need a Sales CRM for Your Small Business?

1. Full Stack Feature Set Out-of-the-Box

Small business owners often convince themselves, “I have access to prime enterprise technology like spreadsheets, email, and such. I don’t need to change my technology ecosystem when my current stack works fine.”

Using this technology stack, your business might achieve all defined goals, and adopting a sales CRM will only murk the water.

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We often miss that such a varied technology stack consumes a lot of time, binding salespersons to admin tasks more than tasks that affect the bottom line, i.e., sales.

On the other hand, a full-stack feature set brings all data into one unified system, freeing time for the sales team to focus on sales.

Key Sales CRM best features include- 

• Lead Management System  
• Deals, Contacts & Companies Management  
• Data Analytics  
• Sales Pipeline Management  
• Collaborative Tools  
• Customer Reports and Insights  
• Data Management & Security  
• Cross-platform & Device Usability 

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2. Customization & Technical Assistance

Organizations often rely on the CRM vendor for customizations or hire consultants to implement the same.

Both options cost extra and take significant time to implement and process audits. Small & Growing Businesses cannot afford to invest as much time and resources to implement a bulky ‘customized’ CRM that may not fit their needs best.

Customizability can be broken down into three aspects.

1. Data Fields & User Control – User control is where the account owner or system administrator can control access based on user role, allowing access to critical information like customer data and sales data analytics only to a limited few.

Data fields and entities are where the sales pipeline is managed based on existing workflows and terminologies used to suit the business and the industry.

2. Software Integration is where the sales CRM is integrated with technology from a third party.

These are software tools that you might already be using and that need to be integrated with your sales CRM software for seamless functioning-

• Email Integration ( Gmail, Outlook, Mailchimp, Netcore)
• Communication ( Calling & SMS: Exotel, Knowlarity, Servetel; Chat- WhatsApp, Slack; Video- Google Meet, Microsoft teams, Zoom)
• Accounting (Intuit, Razorpay, Quickbooks, Xero)
• Lead Generation ( Facebook, Google, JustDial, TradeIndia)

3. Workflow & Automation of specific processes reduces time spent on admin tasks and improves data collation like auto-lead capture, auto-segregation by source, and one-click conversion of leads to contacts, deals, and companies.

So, look for a sales CRM with a full-stack feature set that offers customization in all the aforementioned verticals. Other than that, saving on additional cost and time, customizability along with a full-stack feature-set helps:

• Provide a more effective solution to your sales team, suited to your business’s process

• Improve data accuracy and sales productivity

• Use software that your sales team is used to. Ex: Google Maps

• Prevent sunk costs w.r.t third-party investments

• Get information and data analysis from third-party systems in one place

Small business owners face unique challenges that limit their ability to make the same choices that any enterprise can.

Various CRM options are available in the market today, catering to enterprise businesses and growing businesses.

Sales CRM designed for Small Businesses keep in mind their unique needs and constraints and offer simple, easy-to-use, effective CRMs which deliver the bang for the buck!

Before investing in Sales CRM Software, carefully examine the various factors and what will best suit your requirements.

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3. Affordability & User Limitations

Most sales CRM software offers confusing pricing plans with multiple variations and support options for each.

Investing in a CRM is not a minor decision, as it will be a recurring cost for any business.

Small businesses need sales CRM software to accommodate their unique needs along their growth journey. Most CRM tools come with a per-user cost, so growing businesses have to shell out increasing amounts toward the license cost as the team size increases.

As a result, small business owners decide to restrict the number of users/licenses, and only a few members of the organization can access the tool.

This results in a lack of collaboration as most team members don’t have access to the data and conversations on the tool.

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6 Red Flags to Spot When Purchasing a Sales CRM

Most businesses are unaware of what to look for before finalizing a CRM tool. While selecting the best CRM tool can be a thorough and painstaking job, given the plethora of options available today, you can always make your decisions easier by screening out a few options.  

Here are a few red flags you should look out for when purchasing a sales CRM tool.  

🚩 Poor Returns on Investment 

Don’t fall for too-good-to-be-true pricing. Just because you got charged less for a CRM does not mean you will get value out of your purchase.   

Small business owners often get misled when evaluating CRM features and comparing vendors. They look out for systems with more features for lesser prices without understanding the context of the business value they can offer. 

While many growing businesses relate to value for money to TOC (total cost of ownership), it is rather ROI that they should focus on.  

Evaluating the Return on investment of a CRM tool 

• Consider the amount you will pay to buy and maintain the CRM software. You can calculate this by adding the monthly cost of the software with its implementation, setup costs, and add-on costs (if any). 

• You must also examine how the CRM software helps you increase your revenue and profits. This could be higher sales productivity, efficiency, customer retention, etc. The reason why it is essential is that a lot of CRMs in the market are feature heavy and difficult to adopt.  

With an understanding of these aspects, the odds of you falling prey to the wrong CRM vendors are slim.  

🚩 Hidden Costs 

Price is the number one consideration for 14% of growing businesses when choosing CRM. Up to 6% of businesses will be open to changing their CRM if it is too expensive.  

Imagine you get your hands on the perfect CRM solution that solves your unique sales issues and is within your budget. You buy the CRM tool only to find out that you will pay way more for setups, integrations, and features.  

How is that possible? Well, that’s precisely why you must beware of the hidden costs that can come to you: service charges, implementation charges, etc.  

So, to avoid disappointment later, choose a transparent CRM with its pricing and return policy.  

🚩 Difficulty in Usage 

60% of businesses say their productivity improved by using a CRM platform Then, why do 40% of salespersons still rely on traditional methods like Excel for their work? 

This is because some CRM systems are so challenging to navigate and use that the sales team gives up on them within a few months of using them. This creates more problems for the business as now they have their data scattered in different places, and they are paying for a tool they do not use.  

A sure-shot way to avoid landing with an overtly challenging CRM tool is to take the software for a spin during its free trial.  

🚩Lack of Robust Customer Support 

Growing businesses need more support when it comes to CRM adoption. However, many CRM vendors fail to give them higher priority regarding technical and business assistance. 

A good CRM brand will support you while your team navigates it through the tool. They will help you with:

• Fast responses to queries 
• A walkthrough of how to use the CRM 
• Help is given in implementing the CRM tool 
• A dedicated POC for your brand 

If your CRM vendor is not providing you with these benefits. This is a red flag.  

🚩Lack of Mobile Access 

You need your sales team to be able to sell when on the go. So a CRM without mobile access is never a good investment.  

Statistics show that mobile CRM companies achieve up to 65% of sales targets. On the other hand, only 22% of targets are met by companies that do not use a mobile CRM.  

This type of CRM system ensures that your teams can work on the go and access the tool from wherever they are. This is especially useful to field sales teams and the owners and managers who track the work of such teams. 

🚩Lack of Automation 

90% of employees state that repetitive and manual tasks burden them and hamper their productivity.   

Workflow Automation is one of the basic CRM features. It helps the sales team interact with customers with contextual information, be more responsive, manage the vast data banks, and eliminate the tedious manual work.  

Settling for a plan that doesn’t offer workflow automation can be a bummer, as you will buy a tool without its more important feature. Without automation, your sales staff will waste their already-tight bandwidth on manual activities, which could otherwise be directed toward closing sales.  

🚩 No Customization 

For software as crucial as CRM, your business can suffer significantly if the tool is not fully compatible and suitable with your business. Keeping this in mind, the lack of customization options in your chosen CRM is a glaring red flag.  

Your CRM dashboards, reports, and pipelines should all reflect the business’s specific needs. If you are stuck with default templates for such crucial aspects, you are not harnessing the true potential of a CRM system. Your CRM should tell you precisely what you want to know, which can be made possible with customizations.  

If you steer clear of these traits while purchasing a CRM, you will invariably end up with a perfect CRM tool that can help boost your business! 

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Small Businesses Need More Than Just a Sales CRM

While all these features, customizability, and affordability are great, small business sales applications need more support to compete with the biggest and the best.

Small businesses need more than just sales CRM software to scale and thrive in a highly competitive market.

1. The Typical Case of Priority

Small business owners find their businesses at the back of the queue as CRM vendors prioritize large-ticket accounts when in need of support.

While this might make business sense for the CRM vendor, it does not augur well for small businesses.

Small businesses need to be given higher priority regarding technical and business assistance. ‘Time is money for small businesses, and they don’t have either to waste.

What small businesses need is a level playing field in terms of-

• Quick deployment time
• On-demand technical expertise
• Desired product training
• Required resolution of technical issues (if any)
• On-demand business expertise

This is the result of growing businesses getting the support they need!

Better customer engagement, better sales productivity, and faster business growth.

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2. Business Expertise

Small business challenges come in many shapes and sizes. And the lack of access, or affordability, to business consultants is one of the most significant factors in helping small businesses plan better.

Experienced business consultants can help with strategic and tactical planning to help reach business goals coherently based on your unique requirements, your industry, and your product/service.

Access to business expertise helps with-

• Bringing in industry knowledge
• Defining and strategizing viable approaches to reach business goals
• Building a culture of growth mindset
• Setting up proper feedback workflows to discover, order, and analyze information from customers, the sales team, and external stakeholders.

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3. Product Implementation & Adoption

When switching from Excel to CRM, many businesses struggle to get their sales team to use the software.

As Scott Edinger sets the context in this Harvard Business Review article, “…when I ask executives if the CRM system is helping their business to grow, the failure rate is closer to 90%.”

So you need to know if your business is ready for sales CRM software.  

Take a look at the list of questions below.

• Am I using too many software tools to run my business? Is it creating confusion for my sales team?

• Does my sales team have the right mix of technology, support, and expertise to deliver at scale?

• Do my sales team, and I have complete visibility into my sales operations?

• Is my current sales CRM investment(s) proving its worth?

• Using my current CRM investment(s), can my sales team track sales metrics in real-time to know where they excel and where they need to increase efforts?

• Does my sales team have a complete and integrated view of all my customers? Do they know who the most valuable customers are?

• Does my sales CRM software allow me to segment my contacts efficiently? Segments like Leads, Opportunities, Customers, Referrals, and Companies?

If you answer ‘yes’ to 3 or more questions, your business needs a CRM. 

But how to ensure that your CRM implementation is successful? Well, a lesser-known fact is that training and onboardings are equally crucial for successful CRM adoption. Find a solution that provides robust training and support, so your team gets onboarded and starts scaling.

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7 Sales CRMs that Small Businesses Should Consider 

Knowing all about what a sales CRM is and how it can benefit your business will surely tempt any business owner to look for the best CRM for small business. If yours is a small business, you might be worried about choosing the right CRM option. After all, your growing business cannot divert large sums towards trial-and-error methods of finding the right solution for your business. 

We are here to make this choice easier for you, with a compilation of 7 of the best sales CRMs that you should consider for your small business:  

1. Agile 

This product is an excellent fit for small businesses that require an all-in-one CRM solution fitting within their limited budget. Agile combines three of the main operational aspects of any business, namely Marketing, Sales, and Customer service automation. Besides these functionalities, it also offers gamification features and social integration.  

You can avail of this software for free for a team of up to 10 users or use their paid versions that begin from $9.99/user/month. This pricing model is well suited for the budget constraints typically faced by small businesses.  

2. Insightly 

Insightly is a platform that can automate your sales while managing all your various projects. It helps in streamlining the processes for deal closures, by helping businesses track every stage of the sales cycle. A well-planned and executed closure mechanism can greatly enhance the productivity of your business.  

The pricing for Insightly begins from $29/user/month and ranges up to $99/user/month. For such competitive pricing, it has a good feature set that can greatly help your small business.  

3. Kylas Sales CRM 

Kylas is a robust sales CRM tool that is specifically designed for small and growing businesses. Its features have been specifically designed to address the common problems faced by SMBs. Some examples of this include- 

• Lead Management features to ensure that the precious leads for your business are not wasted. 

• Workflow Automation features to streamline the end-to-end processes of your business and scale productivity.

• Data Analytics features that can use your data to identify trends and insights.

Kylas has a highly transparent pricing model. Its paid version can be availed for a flat fee of INR 9,999/ month for unlimited users. It also has a free version, which makes CRM adoption possible even for businesses that cannot divert any resources toward it.  

4. Close 

Among the biggest challenges for small businesses are the generation and management of leads. These crucial processes are made easy and efficient by Close CRM. Besides, it also enables you to track, manage and optimize your sales pipeline. It is a handy tool for salespersons and helps scale their productivity.  

This tool can be obtained for pricing as low as $25/user/month, which goes up to $125/user/month for the most advanced plan. However, the features offered at this price make it a good investment for small businesses to consider.  

5. Zoho CRM 

Zoho CRM is an integrated platform for marketing, sales, inventory management, and customer support. These aspects cover a large chunk of the routine operations of a small business, which makes this tool an ideal fit for them. Its expansive feature set, including lead scoring, deal management, sales forecasting, etc. resolves the concerns commonly faced by SMBs.  

This CRM tool has been made highly affordable for growing businesses. The pricing starts from as low as INR 800/user/month, and even this basic plan contains a good range of features. 

6. Hubspot Free CRM 

This is a robust CRM for small businesses, which can be availed at zero costs. Any business, however small it may be, can adopt this tool to transform its operations. Hubspot’s free version has features directed towards optimizing marketing and sales efforts, as well as other features pertaining to service and operational efficiency.  

This free version comes with no expiry date, and hence can be considered a long-term CRM solution too for small businesses.  

7. Bitrix 24 

Bitrix 24 is a feature-rich CRM tool that can benefit small and growing businesses. Its features can resolve several key concerns for SMBs such as lead management, pipeline management, or customer segmentation.   It has a reasonable pricing model that caters to diverse organization types. Its basic model is a 5-user plan for INR 3,270/month, and the most advanced one comprises a 250-user plan for INR 22,744/ month.

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Bottom Line

To conclude, robust sales CRM software can transform your sales process. It can make it much simpler and more manageable. You need easy-to-use sales CRM software to satisfy your business needs without asking you to break the bank.

To know more, check out our blog on ‘How to Select the Right CRM for Your Business.’