Why Do You Need a CRM Anyway?

Why Do You Need a CRM Anyway?

Are you still in the sticky-note stage?

How do you keep track of your customers/potential customers?

• The individual emails are saved in your inbox.  
• Sticky notes in your office?  
• Your contacts on your phone?
• An address book?  
• A spreadsheet?  
• Some combination of any or all of these?

If so, it may be time to invest in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool.

The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool is one of the most important tools in a business owner’s toolkit.  

You might be asking:

What does CRM software actually do?

At a minimum, a CRM is a reliable filing system for your prospects/leads/customers' contact information.  For those of us old enough to remember them, it’s like a Rolodex on steroids.

Additionally, a CRM will store important contact data so your entire team can access it.  Things like:

• Where did you find them?
• Pipeline status
• Products/services they’re interested in
• Purchases they’ve made
• Payments due and payments made
• Key dates (birthday, service anniversary, follow-up after a sales call)

You can add notes - details of conversations, copies of emails, or reminders of next steps or questions to answer.

A nice feature is the ability to add tags to identify specific criteria, such as their lead status, the product/service they’ve purchased, membership or email list subscriber status, etc.

A good CRM will allow you to aggregate and report on the data you’ve captured to help you make informed business decisions to drive sales and improve your bottom line.

If you’re still in the sticky-note stage, I encourage you to consider a more reliable method!
 

How a CRM can impact your business processes and systems

I already mentioned that a CRM is a key component of your filing system.   Some other systems that can benefit include lead follow-up, communication, and marketing.

My husband described the lead follow-up process his team used before his company implemented a CRM.  Without going into too much painful detail, it involved printing notes and dropping them into a folder for a particular date to remind them to contact the lead.  

With a CRM, you extract data from the email/contact form and enter it into the program.  If you have the right kind of automations set up, that data can be added without you having to do a thing!   The tool notifies you on the day you’ve indicated that you need to follow up.  If you aren’t able to make contact that day, simply update the record with a new date.  No moving pieces of paper around!  

Maybe you want to send targeted emails to a particular group of clients.  If you’ve assigned tags, it’s easy to identify which clients they are and send the email only to that group.  Again, you might have a tool that can automatically assign tags for you*!  

Connecting your CRM to other business tools (email marketing, invoicing and payment, for example) is another great way to streamline your systems by reducing or eliminating the need to enter data into multiple programs.

So many to choose from!

Now that you’ve decided you need a CRM, how do you decide which one of the dozens out there is best for you?  

Do you use the one your friend told you about?  The cheapest?  The most popular?

I recommend identifying some key elements to base your decision on.  Here are a few that might be important to you:

• What’s your budget?
• How many people are on your team?
• What size is your customer base?
• What’s your comfort level with technology?
• What functions are must-haves for you? Nice to have?
• What other tools do you need to integrate with (or maybe you’d rather implement an all-in-one platform)?

 

So there you have it.  CRM 101.  If you’re ready to be more organized and efficient, in turn saving more time and money, or if this has sparked additional questions, email kim@alphazedservices.com and I’ll do my best to get you answers.  

A well-chosen CRM won’t just clean up your database—it will transform how your business runs.

It helps you stay top-of-mind with clients, improve retention, and free up your team from repetitive admin. Whether you’re a solopreneur or managing multiple team members, having organized, automated systems makes everything easier.

If you’re still relying on sticky notes and spreadsheets, let’s talk about what’s possible with a better system. You don’t have to keep doing things the hard way.

If this has sparked additional questions, email kim@alphazedservices.com and I’ll do my best to get you answers.