Hey everyone, just got my P&C license and started selling last week. I'm looking for some advice on CRMS.
What CRM do you guys recommend for someone just getting started? Ideally, I'd like something that also allows me to purchase leads directly through the platform, so I can manage the leads and follow-ups all in one place.
We’ve just made the move from being a HubSpot provider to an official HubSpot partner.
It was a reasonably big call for us as a small agency. We’ve been implementing and supporting HubSpot for clients for more than 10 years and have been to INBOUND for the last two, so we know the platform well. What’s new for us is building the partner side of the business more deliberately.
For those who have already been through this, what actually helped you build your HubSpot pipeline before reaching the tiers where HubSpot starts sending opportunities your way?
Was it existing clients, implementation projects, specialising in a particular HubSpot problem, content, outbound, co-selling, or something else?
And what would you do differently if you were starting again?
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CRMs have so many features that it’s easy to end up using only a small part of what you’re actually paying for.
What’s one CRM feature you thought would be a game changer but ended up barely using?
Could be automation, reporting, lead scoring, AI features, integrations, anything really.
And what do you actually use every day that you couldn’t work without?
I’ve been building a CRM for small businesses, freelancers and agencies that combines lead generation and CRM in one place.
The main idea is simple:
I built this because I noticed a lot of small businesses/agencies are still manually searching Google/LinkedIn, copying leads into spreadsheets, and then struggling to follow up.
I’m currently improving the product based on real-world use cases.
If you run a freelance business, marketing agency, sales team, or small business:
What is the biggest pain you have with lead generation + CRM?
And if you already use a CRM, what feature do you wish it had that it currently doesn’t?
I’m especially interested in honest criticism — what’s useful, what’s unnecessary, and what would actually make you pay for something like this.
I’ve been working on a Notion CRM for small agencies and service businesses, and I’m at the point where I’d rather get honest feedback than keep adding random features.
The main workflow is built around:
Leads, companies, contacts and deals being connected
Deal health based on expected dates
Weighted pipeline value based on deal stage
Automatically organizing connected information when a deal becomes Won or Lost
I’ve included an example with realistic data so you can actually click through the workflow instead of just looking at screenshots.
If you were using this for your own business, what would you change, remove, or add?
Especially interested in anything that feels confusing, unnecessary, or like it would become annoying once the database gets bigger.
Hi there,
Are there any recommendations for how to collect/report/quantity the topics and problems customers contact customer service for?
Meaning the CS agent afterwards inputs what it's about, some context potentially etc.
Though effort and friction needs to be low to ensure adoption and usage.
If there are good commercial or open source solutions, I'd be happy to learn about them.
For moving forward, I'm at first thinking ieally DIY solutions as software implementation takes ages.
Hence successful DIY solutions that make use of, widely known office tools, Microsoft 365, excel, power BI or similar would be of special interest.
Wondering how to build up and grow the pre populated topic selection without insight into what's incoming yet? Any templates to get inspired by?
How's this kind of work step or software actually called in the CS/CRM field? Not even sure what to search for to learn about best practices...
Thanks a lot!
What CRM's do yall use to keep track of everything, and what do you like/dislike about them? Be as descriptive as you like lol
Our abandonment rate has been higher than I'd like for a couple of months and I haven't landed on a fix yet. People get most of the way through checkout or spend real time on a product page, then drop off without any clear signal why. Some recover on their own within a day or two. Most don't.
I've got a recovery flow running on email and I've been testing SMS on top of it, but I honestly can't tell how much of the return traffic is the emails doing their job versus people just remembering to come back on their own. Splitting the flow based on exactly what was in the cart versus sending a generic reminder feels like it should matter more than it does sometimes.
I'm stumped. What's actually working for people running abandonment flows right now? Email only, SMS on top, retargeting ads, some mix of those? And more specifically, how are you sequencing it, timing wise and message wise?
I'm not looking for the textbook answer, I'm more interested in what you've tested and kept because it worked.
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There are lots of features that are very specific to my company I wish I had available in a CRM, which don't exist in off-the-shelf tools.
Everybody says building CRMs (and indeed any software) has become absurdly easier thanks to AI. I'm not technical though, so I won't be be building this myself.
How can I hire someone to build a CRM for me? Where do I look for these people? And, most importantly, how much does it cost and how long does it take? Any hint would be extremely useful
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