A simple CRM for sole traders: what you actually need

If you have ever searched for a CRM you will have met the wall: lead scoring, sales sequences, marketing automation, a "starter" plan that is per user per month, and a demo you have to book with a sales rep. All of it built for a team of twelve with a quota.

A sole trader's problem is smaller and more personal. You have fifty or two hundred customers, you do the work yourself, and the thing that costs you money is not a lack of automation. It is the quote you forgot to chase and the customer whose history is somewhere in your inbox. This guide is about what a CRM should do for you, and what you can safely ignore.

What a CRM is, in plain words

A CRM is a list of the people you deal with, with everything about each of them in one place, and a way of making sure you do what you said you would. That is it. The letters stand for "customer relationship management", which is a grand name for remembering things and following up.

The five things you actually need

1. Every person, with their history. Name, company, how to reach them, and underneath that a running log: what was said, what was quoted, what happened. When they ring, you open their page and know where you are before they finish saying hello. This is the core. If a tool does this badly, nothing else matters.

2. Follow-ups with a date. "Chase the quote on Thursday." "Check in with Dana in January." Each one tied to the person, each one with a date, and a way of seeing them in order. A CRM that makes you set reminders in a separate app has missed the point.

3. A pipeline for the work you have quoted. Not a forecasting engine. A list of open jobs with a stage (quoted, agreed, in progress, invoiced, paid, or whatever your work looks like) and a rough value, so you can see at a glance what is in the air and what it adds up to. The stages should be your own words, not a sales team's.

4. One screen that answers "what today?" Overdue follow-ups, today's follow-ups, and open jobs that nobody is chasing. This is the screen you open with your coffee. If you have to build it yourself out of filters and saved views, the tool is too big for you.

5. A way out. Export everything, in a format a spreadsheet can open, whenever you like, and delete your account yourself. Your customer list is the most valuable thing your business owns. Do not put it somewhere you cannot get it back from.

What you can ignore

• Email integration. It sounds essential and is rarely used by one person. Your email already has your email in it. What you want is the note that says "quoted £450, she is checking with her husband", and that takes ten seconds to type.
• Automation and sequences. Automated "just checking in!" emails are how a small business starts to sound like a big one, and not in a good way. Your advantage is that you are a person.
• Dashboards and reports. A count of open jobs and a total is a dashboard. Anything more is for a manager, and you do not have one.
• Integrations. Zapier, accounting sync, calendar sync. Each one is a thing that breaks. Do the work in one place and copy what you need.
• Per-user pricing. You are one user. If the plan is priced per seat, the product is not built for you.

The pricing traps

• "Free" that needs a card. A free plan that asks for payment details up front is a trial. Look for the words "no card needed".
• Contact caps that jump. Free to 50 contacts, then £39 a month. Check what the step after free actually costs before you put your customers in.
• Annual-only. Paying for a year of a tool you have used for a week is how people end up with three CRMs. Monthly first; annual once you know.
• Cancellation by email. If you cannot cancel from a settings page, assume you will be paying for a while after you stop using it.

Questions to ask about your data

Your customers' names, numbers and notes are personal data, and you are responsible for them. Three questions worth a minute each:

• Where is it stored? For a UK business, UK or EU hosting keeps things simple.
• Can I export all of it? Not "contact support for an export". A button.
• What happens when I delete my account? The answer should be that it is gone, including from backups within a stated number of days.

A ten-minute setup

1. Export your current list (spreadsheet, phone contacts, wherever it lives) as a CSV.
2. Import it. Check that names, emails and phones landed in the right columns.
3. Rename the pipeline stages to the words you actually use.
4. For every open quote, add a follow-up with a date. This is the step that pays for the whole exercise.
5. Tomorrow morning, open the today screen and do what it says.

That is the entire system. Everything else a CRM can do is optional, and most of it is optional forever.