Small business owners might think that Customer Relationship Management or CRM is just for bigwigs and head honchos who run mega corporations.

It’s not for the little guy, right? Wrong. CRM can benefit a small business in several ways, and it can help them grow their small business into a big business.

Give yourself an advantage early on

Half of new small businesses fail within the first six months, and part of the problem is small business owners are not managing their contacts well enough. They think they will only need CRM when their client list grows to a certain threshold – that’s a rookie mistake. What they should be thinking is that with CRM they will maximize the follow-up, repeat order rate, and word-of-mouth of their existing customer base.

Furthermore, they might not even realize how much of a drain it is on their time and energy to update a spreadsheet or basic database manually. Even if they think it’s a breeze  and actually enjoy doing it chances are they could be spending their time on more productive things. The tedious upkeep of updating, maintaining, and understanding customer interactions can add up to a lot of time and effort they could be using elsewhere.

The price isn’t so bad.

Small business-friendly tools, software, services, sites, and service subscriptions are not expensive. They can be, but most subscriptions are under $30/month and some are as low as $15/month.

2 major objections hold small businesspeople back
Sadly, many small businesspeople say they are good just the way they are, and they do not need to change. They may have a narrow mindset, and it won’t lead to growth. They need to break through their mindset and try a real CRM solution. Use it enough, and they will see how much more efficient, aware, customer-focused, and profitable it makes their business.

Another objection small businesspeople have to CRM software is that they cannot get a custom solution. They think it’s just mass market-ready for big old companies that have different objectives and concerns.

Those objections are the most common, but there are loads more. It’s hard to get people to change. But there is really no excuse. Software-as-a-Service makes it simple for any small business to adopt a CRM system.

There are many benefits of adopting a CRM system. Small business can maximize the traffic, leads, and customers they do have and turn their business into a big business!