When it comes to Sales and Marketing tools, Grady Booch’s quote: “A Fool with a Tool is still a Fool” says it all.

For many years, I have experienced the famous SAAS CRM products with no or minimal customisation. Or worse still, I had to use the (configured) CRM of the parent company that I worked for - which had completely different sales processes.

No matter how smart your sales and marketing tools are, they are just tools. 

All vendors will sell the dream of an easy implementation. Do not fall for it! 

“You must not be a passenger in the sales process.”

Before you spend your company’s hard earned money , first work out what your business process is. Get in a consultant to map out your sales process, and then go shopping for the tool that best suits your requirements.

I see this problem with startup founders all the time. They fall for the glitzy image of a great enterprise product.

Until you have 30+ active opportunities you should be able to manage everything on a spreadsheet. And if you use Google Sheets it should be 100% free.  

Do not scale a generic sales process for your business. Make sure it works on a small scale before launching it.   

Once you are confident you are going in the right direction, by all means use the tools to accelerate!

Good luck! 😀