Discover folk - the CRM for people-powered businesses
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has become an essential tool for any entrepreneurs looking to streamline their business processes, enhance customer interactions, and boost sales. With a lot of
CRM systems in the market to choose from, figuring out the right CRM can be challenging. Especially if you don't know where to start. In this blog post, we'll unpack what CRM features entrepreneurs should look out for CRM and explore the best CRMs on the market.
7 features entrepreneurs need from their CRM
As an entrepreneur with a lot to balance across multiple business functions, you need your CRM to do the heavy-lifting for you. This means it needs to help you streamline your workflow so you don't have to constantly switch context, be able to invite team-mates to dashboards and control privacy settings for the ones you're not ready to share yet, and streamline your client communication needs. Some of the best CRM software on the market tend to have the following features.
- User-friendly Interface: A CRM should be easy to navigate and use without extensive training. So that you can simply plug and play it to optimize your tech stack.
- Customization options: The ability to tailor the CRM to fit specific business needs is crucial so that your choices aren't limited and it can fit around your needs.
- Scalability: As the business grows, the CRM should be able to grow with it.
- Integration capabilities: Seamless integration with other tools and platforms used in the business.
- Automation: Features that automate repetitive tasks can save time and reduce errors.
- Analytics: Robust analytics to track performance and make data-driven decisions.
- Customer support: Reliable customer service to help troubleshoot and maximize the CRM’s potential.
Now that you know what features a good relationship management platform should have, let's explore the best CRM tools in the market.
4 of the best CRMs for entrepreneurs
Below we've got a mix of CRM solutions for you. Some are designed as a small business CRM while others provide you with CRM software that can scale with you as your business grows.
1. folk
Best for: all-in-one CRM software that can support solo-users and growing teams
folk is an all-in-one CRM solution designed to help businesses scale. It can support you as s solo-preneur and can scale with you when you're ready to make your first hire.
Key features
- Contact management and contact sync: Get real-time information from multiple inbox accounts so you don't need to switch context every time you need contact information. Keep them organized in your CRM by group, with custom fields, auto-deduplication and contact enrichment.
- Sales pipeline management: From lead generation to sales cycle support, folk can support you at every stage with its highly customizable dashboards.
- Mail merge: Merge your contacts from Gmail and Outlook so that you can optmize your email marketing campaigns with folk's marketing automation features and AI assistance.
- free Chrome extensions: Take the heavy lifting out of your social sales strategy with folk's free Chrome extension that can help you generate leads from LinkedIn and other social media platforms, capture new contact information as you nurture business relationships online, create a message template library and more.
Pros
- Can support founder-led sales and other business functions such as fundraising, recruiting, and more making folk one of the most well-rounded and affordable CRM on the list.
- Sales automation including custom objects (coming soon), custom dashboards and auto-deduplication so you don't double up leads.
- Marketing automation including AI assistance to help you personalize bulk email campaigns and email marketing tools such as AI generated ice breakers, analytics and more.
- Free social listening tools making folk one of the most Founder-led sales friendly CRM platform on the market.
Cons
- Reporting is not available in folk yet but is coming soon
Price and plans
You can try folk for free with a 14 day free trial. After that, a monthly or annual subscription plan is as follows.
- Standard: $20 per user, per month
- Premium: $40 per user, per month
- Custom: Starts from $60 per user, per month
2. HubSpot CRM
Best for: free-forever plan
HubSpot is one of the more mature CRMs in the market. Known for their free-forever plan, HubSpot CRM offers a basic CRM tool for entrepreneurs who need a lightweight CRM system.
Key features
- Sales pipeline management: Visual pipelines and deal tracking.
- Contact management: Allows you to create contact records, log sales activities and complete sales tasks within a contact's record.
- Email tracking: Allows you to know when someone engages with your email, get a complete view of someone's interactions with your previous communication.
- Company insights: Automate the process of populating contact records.
- Integration marketplace: Dedicated marketplace connects you with over 1,500 applications to help you personalize your CRM.
Pros
- Free tier available with robust features.
- Excellent integration with HubSpot's marketing and service tools.
Cons
- Some advanced features require paid plans.
- Limited customization compared to more complex CRMs.
- Clunky user experience.
Price and plans
Once you move away from the free-forever version, HubSpot becomes quite steep. On an annual subscription plan, the HubSpot Sales hub pricing is as follows.
- Starter: $15 per user, per month for limited features.
- Professional: $90 per user, per month.
- Enterprise: $150 per user, per month.
3. Freshsales CRM
Best for: sales driven CRM system
Freshsales CRM is a sales-focussed product by the Freshworks team. With its sales-centric design, this CRM is limited to supporting entrepreneurs with their founder-led sales.
Key features
- AI-powered lead scoring: Identify sales-ready prospects with scores assigned by Freddy AI based on positive and negative signals.
- Sales sequences and automation: Get help converting with targeted outreach for prospects and customers.
- Customizable sales pipelines: Build pipelines with custom stages and probabilities based on your sales process.
Pros
- Sales-focussed, making it a great option for entrepreneurs who are building from a founder-led sales strategy.
Cons
- Limited customization options on lower-tier plans
- Limited CRM functionality outside sales. Not as well-rounded as other CRM platforms on the list
Price and plans
On an annual subscription plan, Freshsales starts from $15 per user, per month.
- Growth: Starts from $15 per user, per month.
- Pro: Starts from $39 per user, per month.
- Enterprise: Starts from $69, per user, per month.
4. Zoho CRM
Best for: Business development with some marketing features
Zoho CRM is one of the most well known small business CRMs on the market. There is a separate Zoho product for small businesses via Bigin , customer service teams and enterprise customers.
Key features
- AI Assistance: Zia, Zoho’s AI, provides predictive sales insights and automation.
- Contact management: Presented in a data-driven dashboard for sales and support teams to collaborate from and get real-time notifications from customers.
- Integrations: Offers a huge range of integrations that are categorized by location and use including ones for shipping carriers, payment gateways and project management tools.
Pros
- Highly customizable, easy to use.
- Free plan that helps track leads and manage contacts though with limited features.
Cons
- Expect a steep learning curve if you're new to sales, you'll find Zoho very clunky. Users need to have a sales background and have expert knowledge around the sales cycle, forecasting and pipeline so it's not suitable for beginners.
- Difficult to set up certain integrations in Zoho CRM.
- Customer support – some users have reported poor experiences.
- Advanced features accessible only from high tier plans
Conclusion
Choosing the right customer relationship management software can make a huge difference between whether or not you end up with an annoying CRM or a simple CRM solution. With a lot of choice on offer, finding the best CRM solution can be like finding a needle in a haystack. But one things clear: entrepreneurs need something that can help improve them customer relationships and streamline business operations. Better still is a CRM that can support you as a solo-preneur and when you're ready to scale. Each of the CRMs listed above offers unique features and benefits tailored to different needs and budgets. But if you're looking for an affordable, all-in-one CRM – folk is one of the best small business CRM that can scale with you as your team grows. Try folk free, today.
More resources
- 20 CRM statistics for 2024
- Understanding your CRM system: What should you expect from all-in-one CRM software?
Discover folk - the CRM for people-powered businesses
