How to Choose the Right Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
Most CRMs are built for sales teams, not for small business owners and leaders wearing multiple hats. The result is overbuying or underusing tools.
Here’s how to choose the right CRM for your business.
start with your workflow
Begin by mapping out:
How leads find you
How you follow up
How you close
How you onboard
Your CRM should support this flow of operations.
match tools to your maturity stage
Idea stage: spreadsheets or Notion
Early maturity / gaining traction: HubSpot Free or Zoho
Growth: Pipedrive, Monday, or HubSpot Starter
Mature: Nue.io or Salesforce Starter
Prioritize core functionality
Focus on:
Pipeline visibility
Task reminders
Email integration
Basic automation
Simple reporting
avoid unnecessary features
If you don’t have a sales team, you don’t need forecasting, territory management, or complex automations.
Revisit annually
Your systems should evolve as your business grows. Take stock of your current system’s performance, growth projections for the coming year (and up to 3 years), and team size (including expectations for hiring), and compare them against premium versions of your existing software and other solutions.
