Recommendations on CRMs?

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November 22, 2019

by a searcher from Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth in Boston, MA, USA

I'm looking for a basic CRM to track sales leads and provide a database from which to send marketing emails to customer contacts. I've looked into Hubspot which has these functions but is really expensive. Hoping there's a more affordable solution out there!

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commentor profile
Reply by a searcher
from INSEAD in Singapore
Hi Alex. How big is your company? Specifically, how many salespeople and clients/prospects do you have?

You might find that the easiest way to start is simply to track through Excel/Google Sheets. Just have your columns mapped to the typical deal stages (prospecting, qualifying, negotiating, etc.) and you'll find a process emerging organically. You can then find a CRM that adapts to the way you and your salespeople work.

I have been through several CRM systems and none of them are perfect. Especially if you want to have marketing in the same system, you will find that they all limit you in some form. Personally I like CRM for contact/lead management, but not for marketing campaigns. I find that using smaller tools that are good at one thing is better than one large tool that is mediocre at most of them. But I can code integrations by myself so take that with a grain of salt.
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Reply by an admin
from Stanford University in Honolulu, HI, USA
Hi, ^redacted‌: In addition to the comments here ... for recent perspectives on this question, please see https://www.searchfunder.com/post/crm-recommendation (especially my comment on the research done by ^redacted‌ on price and options), Also, check out the commentary by ^redacted‌: https://www.searchfunder.com/post/youre-not-as-differentiated-as-you-think-as-a-searcher.
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