Best CRM for B2B sales

As a B2B sales team, managing complex deals, long sales cycles, and multiple touchpoints with prospects can be overwhelming without the right tools. A powerful Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can help you streamline your sales process by organizing leads, tracking interactions, and automating follow-ups—all from one platform. The right CRM will allow you to stay organized, improve collaboration, and close deals more efficiently.
In this blog post, we’ll explore the best CRM options for B2B sales teams like yours, highlighting tools that will help you manage your sales pipeline, enhance productivity, and drive growth.

Why you need a CRM

In busy B2B sales teams, a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is essential for streamlining processes and maximizing efficiency. Here's why.

Challenges without a CRM

Managing B2B sales without a CRM can lead to several challenges and take your team away from important priorities that help them smash their target.

• Disorganization: Without a centralized system, tracking customer interactions and sales data becomes chaotic.
• Missed opportunities: Important follow-ups and potential deals can slip through the cracks due to lack of reminders and tracking.
• Inefficient Processes: Manual data entry and scattered information waste valuable time and resources.
• Lack of insight: Without comprehensive data analysis, it’s hard to make informed decisions about your sales strategies.
• Inconsistent communication: Without a unified system, maintaining consistent and professional communication with clients is challenging.

Benefits of a CRM

Fortunately the right CRM can help you address these challenges and provide some extra benefits.

• Centralized information: All customer data and interactions are stored in one place, making it easily accessible.
• Enhanced efficiency: Automate repetitive tasks and streamline workflows to save time and reduce errors.
• Improved customer relationships: Track customer interactions to provide personalized service and build stronger relationships.
• Better decision-making: Utilize data analytics to gain insights and make informed strategic decisions.
• Increased sales: Identify and capitalize on sales opportunities more effectively.
• Consistent communication: Ensure all team members are on the same page with unified communication tools.
  

How to evaluate and choose a CRM

With a lot of CRMs on the market to go through, it can be hard to figure out which one fits your business goals best. To help you with your decision making process, we've put together the following tips.

1. Define your requirements

Before selecting the best CRM for B2B sales, it's crucial to identify the key features your business needs. For B2B sales, look for functionalities like lead management, sales pipeline tracking, automation capabilities, and robust reporting tools. Ensure the CRM can handle the complexity of B2B transactions and supports integrations with your existing tools. Start by looking for the following key features we've rounded up for you.

Key features of a CRM for B2B sales

• Automated processes: Streamlines tasks by automating repetitive workflows, freeing up valuable time for your sales team to focus on closing deals.
• Contact enrichment: Automatically finds leads and customer email addresses and contact information, enhancing efficiency and ensuring your database is always up-to-date.
• Structured pipeline: Tracks leads and customers through defined stages, ensuring process clarity and effectiveness, which is crucial for managing long sales cycles typical in B2B sales.
• Mail merge and email sequences: Increases communication efficiency with follow-up templates and automated sequences, helping maintain consistent and timely engagement with prospects.
• LinkedIn connection: Seamlessly imports leads and customers from LinkedIn and tracks conversations within the CRM, leveraging the power of social selling.
• Analytics: Provides essential data analysis and predictive insights for better planning, helping you make informed decisions and accurately predict future sales.

2. Budget considerations

Balancing cost and return on investment (ROI) is essential when choosing a CRM for B2B sales. Evaluate both the upfront costs and ongoing expenses, such as subscription fees and add-ons. Consider the potential ROI from improved sales efficiency, better lead management, and enhanced customer relationships. Opt for a CRM that offers scalable pricing plans, allowing your business to grow without incurring exorbitant costs.

3. Selection process

Choosing the right CRM vendor involves thorough research. Start by compiling a list of potential vendors that specialize in B2B sales solutions. Check reviews, request demos, and ask for case studies or testimonials from other B2B companies. Evaluate the vendor's reputation, support services, and the ease of implementation. A vendor with a proven track record in B2B sales will be more likely to meet your specific needs.

4. Get a demo

Once your shortlist is in order, make sure you get a demo of each platform to see how closely it can align with your current process and tech stack. Utilize free trials or demo versions to test the CRM's usability and features. Compare how each platform handles key B2B sales processes, such as lead nurturing, sales forecasting, and customer segmentation. Gather feedback from your sales team to ensure the chosen CRM aligns with their workflow and enhances productivity. Ultimately, select the CRM that offers the best combination of features, ease of use, and scalability for your B2B sales operations.

3 tips for implementing a CRM

At this stage, it's time to get excited to introduce your team to your new CRM. To help you make the most of the implementation stage, we suggest keeping the following in mind.

1. Import your data in your new CRM

Transitioning to a new CRM can be seamless if you start by importing your existing data. Export your current data as a CSV file from your existing CRM. This step ensures that all your valuable customer information is retained and ready to be utilized in your new CRM system. And, you won't have to worry about manually adding contact information which can be so time consuming and tedious.

2. Create your first pipeline

Setting up your first pipeline is essential for managing your B2B sales process effectively. Make sure you define the stages that reflect your sales cycle, such as Lead Generation, Qualification, Proposal, Negotiation, and Closed Won/Lost. Each stage should represent a specific milestone in your sales journey. This structure will help your sales team track progress, identify bottlenecks, and focus on moving deals forward efficiently.

3. Onboard your team

Successful CRM implementation hinges on team adoption. Conduct training sessions to familiarize your team with the new system, its features, and best practices. Highlight how the CRM will streamline their workflow, improve customer interactions, and ultimately boost sales performance. Encourage team members to provide feedback and address any concerns they may have. A well-onboarded team is more likely to leverage the CRM to its full potential, driving your B2B sales success.

The 5 best CRMs for B2B sales

1. folk

folk is a modern CRM platform for managing contacts, workflows, and relationships, offering customizable pipelines, AI-driven tools, and integrations to enhance deal management and prospecting.

Key features

• Contact enrichment: Automatically enriches contact details by finding emails and LinkedIn URLs, enabling efficient outreach without manual data entry or additional costs for email services.
• Sales cycle and pipeline management: Manage your whole sales cycle in folk. Keep your leads and clients organized, and get help personalizing your outreach messages.
• LinkedIn integration: Seamlessly import contacts from LinkedIn, and Sales Navigator allowing you to import contacts individually or whole search lists. Track contacts and leverage your network and social sales strategy within folk, and use templates for quicker, streamlined communication.
• Mail merge and email sequences: Full email sync compatible with Gmail and Outlook with access to templates, and tracking features, enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• AI-powered features: AI tools assist in managing contacts and relationships, automating routine tasks, and suggesting actions to improve productivity.
• Integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing users to centralize their workflow and reduce manual data entry.

Pros

• Ease of use: folk is praised for its intuitive interface, making it accessible even to non-technical users with quick onboarding and a minimal learning curve.
• All-in-one: folk streamlines your workflow by allowing you to import contacts from LinkedIn, automatically find their emails, reach out through customizable email sequences, and track interactions in a pipeline, eliminating the need for multiple tools and saving time and money.
• LinkedIn integration: Seamlessly import contacts from LinkedIn, track conversations within folk, and use templates for quicker, streamlined communication.
• Customizability: Custom fields, pipelines, and workflows.
• Integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing users to centralize their workflow and reduce manual data entry.

Cons

• Reporting: Currently lacks reporting features, but there are plans for future implementation.
  

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

HubSpot CRM is a user-friendly, scalable platform offering integrated tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, and operations efficiently.

Key features

• Marketing Hub: Includes email marketing, ad tracking, landing pages, and lead generation tools, essential for capturing and nurturing B2B leads.
• Sales Hub: Provides deal tracking, pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting, making it easier to manage B2B sales processes and customer relationships.
• Service Hub: Offers customer service tools like ticketing, live chat, and knowledge bases, ensuring that your B2B customers receive top-notch support.
• Lead scoring: Prioritize leads with predictive scoring to improve sales efficiency and focus on high-potential B2B prospects.
• Operations Hub: Syncs and automates business processes across different systems, streamlining operations for B2B sales teams.

Pros

• User-friendly Interface: The intuitive design makes it accessible for users of all skill levels, facilitating quick adoption by B2B sales teams.
• Comprehensive free plan: Offers a robust free version that includes essential CRM features, ideal for small B2B businesses and startups.
• Seamless integration with marketing tools: Integrates smoothly with marketing, sales, and service hubs, creating a unified platform for managing B2B leads and customers.
• Automation capabilities: Provides powerful automation tools for tasks like email marketing, lead nurturing, and sales workflows, helping B2B businesses save time and improve efficiency.
• Customizable dashboard and reports: Allows users to create customized dashboards and reports to track metrics and gain insights into B2B sales performance.

Cons

• High cost at higher tiers: Pricing can become expensive as you move to higher tiers, which may be prohibitive for small B2B businesses as they scale.
• Limited customization in free plan: The free plan and lower tiers have limited customization options, restricting flexibility for growing B2B businesses.
• Complexity in advanced features: Some advanced features, such as custom reporting and workflows, have a steep learning curve and may require additional training.
• Email marketing limits: Email marketing functionality in the free plan is restricted by limits on the number of emails you can send, which can be a drawback for B2B businesses with larger lists.
• Additional costs for add-ons: Many useful features, like advanced CRM capabilities and integrations, come as paid add-ons, increasing the overall cost.
  
  

Price and plans

Prices and plans on the CRM suite for an annual subscription are as follows.

• Starter: $15 per user, per month.
• Professional: $450 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $1,500 per user, per month.

3. Salesforce

Salesforce is a robust CRM platform for large enterprises, offering tools for sales, marketing, service, and analytics, with extensive scalability.

Key features

• Comprehensive ecosystem: A unified platform offering CRM, marketing automation, customer service, and custom app development, suitable for the varied needs of B2B sales teams.
• Customization and scalability: Highly customizable and scalable, Salesforce allows B2B companies to tailor the platform to complex workflows and manage significant growth.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) integration: Salesforce Einstein offers AI-driven analytics and automation, providing insights that help B2B businesses optimize their strategies.
• Extensive integration capabilities: With Salesforce's AppExchange, B2B companies can integrate the platform with a wide range of third-party applications, ensuring seamless operation across different business systems.
• Enterprise-grade security and compliance: Salesforce provides robust security measures and compliance features, critical for B2B organizations handling sensitive customer data.

Pros

• Comprehensive feature set: Salesforce offers an extensive range of features covering sales, service, marketing, and more, making it a powerful tool for managing all aspects of B2B customer relationships.
• Highly customizable: Salesforce is highly customizable, allowing B2B businesses to tailor the platform to their specific needs with custom fields, objects, and workflows.
• Extensive integration capabilities: Salesforce integrates with a vast array of third-party applications, as well as its own ecosystem of tools, enabling seamless data flow across platforms.
• Scalability: Salesforce is highly scalable, making it suitable for B2B businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises, with the ability to grow with your business.
• Advanced analytics and reporting: Salesforce provides powerful analytics and reporting tools, allowing B2B businesses to gain deep insights into their data and make informed decisions.

Cons

• High cost: Salesforce can be expensive, especially for small to medium-sized B2B businesses, with high licensing fees and additional costs for add-ons and customization.
• Steep learning curve: Due to its extensive feature set and complexity, Salesforce often requires significant time and training for users to become proficient.
• Complex setup and customization: Initial setup and customization can be challenging and often require expert help or certified consultants, which adds to the overall cost.
• User interface: Some users find the Salesforce interface to be outdated and not as intuitive as other modern CRM platforms, which can hinder usability.
• Overwhelming for small teams: Salesforce’s robust features may be overkill for smaller B2B teams or businesses, leading to underutilization of the platform’s capabilities.
  

Price and plans

• Starter suite: $25/user/month provides basic CRM features for small businesses.
• Pro suite: $100/user/month includes advanced tools for growing businesses.
• Enterprise plan: $165/user/month offers extensive customization and automation for large companies.
• Unlimited plan: $330/user/month provides comprehensive features for large enterprises.
• Einstein 1 Sales: $500/user/month provides AI-driven insights and advanced features for large enterprises.

4. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a web-based CRM for small businesses, offering lead management, automation, email integration, and customizable pipelines to optimize sales.

Key features

• Lead and deal management: Centralized tools to manage leads and customer data, interactions, and sales pipelines, helping teams act quickly on opportunities.
• Sales automation: Workflow automation to handle repetitive tasks, such as lead routing, follow-ups, and email sequences, allowing sales teams to focus on closing deals.
• Email integration: Full email sync, templates, and tracking features, enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Advanced reporting and analytics: Real-time data analytics and custom reporting tools to track sales performance, forecast revenue, and gain actionable insights.
• Customization and security: Options to customize pipelines, fields, and user permissions, with robust security measures to protect data.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: The intuitive and visually appealing interface makes it easy for users to navigate and manage their sales pipelines.
• Sales pipeline focus: Specifically designed for managing sales pipelines, offering a visual approach that helps sales teams track deals and activities effectively.
• Customization: Allows for a high degree of customization, enabling users to tailor the platform to their specific sales processes with custom fields and workflows.
• Affordability: Competitive pricing makes it accessible to small and medium-sized businesses without sacrificing essential CRM features.
• Automation features: Includes automation tools that help streamline repetitive tasks, such as sending follow-up emails and moving deals through the pipeline, saving time and boosting productivity.

Cons

• Limited advanced features: Lacks some of the more advanced CRM features, such as extensive marketing automation and AI capabilities, which are available in other platforms.
• Basic reporting in lower tiers: The reporting and analytics features in the basic plans are somewhat limited, requiring upgrades to access more in-depth insights.
• No built-in email marketing: Does not include built-in email marketing features, requiring users to integrate with third-party email tools for such functionality.
• Price increases with add-ons: The cost can increase quickly when additional features or integrations are added, making it less cost-effective for businesses with growing needs.
• Limited project management features: Primarily focused on sales, and lacks robust project management features, requiring the use of additional tools for project tracking.
  

Price and plans

Pipedrive's annual subscription plan basis is as follows.

• Essential plan: Starts from $24 per user, per month.
• Advanced plan: Starts from $44 per user, per month.
• Power plan: Starts from $79 per user, per month.
• Enterprise plan: Starts from $129 per user, per month.

5. Zoho

Zoho is a CRM system with a strong sales focus. It has journey orchestration, sales process management, and workflow automation features. There's also something for marketing teams, including event management and customer segmentation.

Key features

• Sales automation: Automates sales tasks like lead management, deal tracking, and follow-up actions.
• Lead and contact management: Manages customer information, tracks interactions, and segments contacts for targeted campaigns.
• Customizable dashboards and reports: Allows users to create and customize dashboards and reports for in-depth analytics.
• Multi-channel communication: Integrates with email, phone, social media, and live chat to manage customer interactions.
• Sales pipeline management: Visualizes and manages sales pipelines with drag-and-drop functionality.

Pros

• Affordability: Zoho CRM offers competitive pricing with various tiers, making it accessible to small and medium-sized businesses as well as larger enterprises.
• Customization: Extensive customization options allow businesses to tailor the CRM to their specific needs, including custom fields, modules, and workflows.
• Integration with Zoho suite: Seamless integration with other Zoho products (like Zoho Books, Zoho Projects, and Zoho Campaigns) creates a comprehensive ecosystem for managing different business functions.
• AI-powered features: Zia, the AI assistant, provides intelligent insights, predictive analytics, and task automation, helping to improve sales and marketing efficiency.
• Multi-channel communication: Zoho CRM supports email, phone, social media, and live chat, enabling businesses to manage all customer interactions from a single platform.

Cons

• Steep learning curve: The extensive customization options can be overwhelming for new users, requiring a significant time investment to master the platform.
• Complex setup: Initial setup and configuration can be complex, particularly for businesses without technical expertise or dedicated IT resources.
• User interface: Some users find the interface to be outdated or cluttered compared to other modern CRM platforms, which can affect usability.
• Performance issues: Occasional reports of slow performance, especially with large datasets or complex operations, can hinder productivity.
• Limited third-party integrations: While Zoho integrates well with its own suite of products, integration with third-party applications can be limited or require additional effort.
  

Price and plans

Zoho's free plan is limited to three users. After that, for more features and seats, an annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Professional: $35 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $50 per user, per month.

Conclusion

Choosing the best CRM for your B2B sales needs is a critical decision that can significantly impact your business's efficiency and growth. Each CRM platform offers unique features and strengths tailored to different business sizes and requirements. Whether you prioritize ease of use, extensive customization, or advanced automation, there is a CRM that will align with your goals. For startups and small businesses looking for a user-friendly and cost-effective solution, platforms like folk and Pipedrive offer excellent options. For larger enterprises needing robust features and scalability, Salesforce and HubSpot provide comprehensive tools to manage complex sales processes. Zoho strikes a balance with its affordability and extensive customization capabilities. Ultimately, the best CRM for your B2B sales will depend on your specific needs, budget, and the level of sophistication required. Try folk for free here.

Need a helping hand? Use our free tool to find your perfect CRM match.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What do high performing B2B sales teams use as a CRM?

High performing B2B sales teams often use CRMs like folk, Hubspot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Zoho. These platforms offer robust tools for managing customer relationships, sales pipelines, and automation, helping businesses streamline their sales processes and improve efficiency.

Do I need a CRM?

Yes, depending on the complexity of your sales process. A CRM can significantly streamline your operations, improve customer relationships, and enhance your team's productivity, especially if your business deals with a high volume of leads and customer interactions.

How much does a CRM cost?

CRM pricing varies widely, typically ranging from $15 to $500 per user per month. The cost depends on the features offered and the scale of the solution, with more advanced functionalities and higher user limits usually commanding higher prices.

Does folk’s CRM respond to B2B sales needs?

Yes, folk’s CRM is well-suited for B2B sales. It offers features like contact enrichment, LinkedIn integration, email sync, and AI-powered tools, which streamline workflows and enhance deal management. Its ease of use, customizability, and extensive integrations make it a valuable tool for B2B sales teams.