Don't overload your early stage sales efforts with too much process too early. Try using simple spreadsheets to bootstrap your CRM.

1. HotProspect.com
398 Fifth Street, San Francisco, CA 94105
hello@hotprospect.com
Sales for Startups: Don’t Waste your Time on CRM… Yet.
It’s probably obvious that too little structure can kill the effectiveness of your early
stage selling efforts. But in my experience, too much structure too early can be
just as deadly, and one of the biggest culprits is CRM. I’ve seen startup founders
jump head first into a complex CRM system like Salesforce.com before they’ve
even made their first sales call. The truth is that if your startup is just starting to
sell, you probably don’t need a CRM yet.
The main issue with adopting a CRM before you’ve fleshed out your initial sales
process through trial and error is that it causes you to guess about a lot of things
that won’t become clear until you’ve gotten a handle on the basics of your sales
model. Sure, you could just make a best guess about some of the specifics like
the exact phases stages of your sales process and the critical bits of information
that you should be capturing. But, guessing wrong can introduce a bunch of
duplicate work down the line when you have a better perspective on exactly how
you’ll be selling and to whom.
Don’t get me wrong. In order to build a successful revenue engine you’ll need to
introduce a strong, somewhat rigid set of sales processes within your company
and this will most definitely include a CRM system of some sort. But, starting to
define these processes too early in the lifecycle of your sales effort can introduce
lots of overhead that takes away from your primary goal; to discover the
repeatable sales model that will allow you to scale up your efforts.
So, how should you track your startup sales efforts?
Spreadsheets are the ultimate early stage CRM system. They don’t require any
special knowledge or skills, are easy to maintain, endlessly customizable and
easy to share. Plus, just about every web based CRM system has a CSV upload
option which makes it easy to get your data imported to it’s new home once you
are ready to make the next step.

2. HotProspect.com
398 Fifth Street, San Francisco, CA 94105
hello@hotprospect.com
The beauty of spreadsheets is that you can simply add a new column as you find
new bits of data that you want to track. But, be wary of “input creep”. I wouldn’t
waste time inputting anything into your CRM spreadsheet that is already stored
elsewhere. For example, your contact’s email address and cell phone number
are likely easily accessible in your inbox.
Once you a have good understanding of the types of information that will be
important to your sales process you can make the jump to a full-blown CRM
system armed with the knowledge of the best structure for your needs.
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