What exactly is a CRM?
A CRM system is like a software version of a trusty sidekick. It helps businesses manage their customer interactions, and can be used by freelancers to keep track of clients and prospects, as well as manage sales and marketing activities.
By using a CRM system, freelancers can stay organized and efficient in their customer management, which can lead to more sales and happier customers.
Can a CRM help your freelancing business?
As a freelancer, you know that there are a million and one things to juggle at any given time. So it’s no surprise that you’re always on the lookout for ways to streamline your business. Enter the CRM, or customer relationship management system.
This tool can be hugely helpful in managing your client relationships, by keeping track of contact information, communication history and project details all in one place. In other words, it can save you time and help you provide better customer service.
So why not give it a try?
Awesome CRM features to look out for
Simple to use
One thing that I strongly believe about any tool or piece of software is that if it’s not easy to use, people won’t use it.
That’s especially true for users where their is a great existing solution and the software in question is only slightly better.
Most freelancers already have a difficult enough time setting up and figuring out how to use the big CRM systems and so it’s crucial that any CRM specifically designed for freelancers and solopreneurs has a dead simple onboarding process, an intuitive dashboard, and makes their lives much more easy and efficient in the process.
If any CRM you trial is confusing to you, move on.
Update records with interactions
Most CRMs have the following:
- Contact information (name, phone number, picture, etc)
- Deal stage (proposal, negotiation, closed – won, etc)
- Pipeline overview and deal value (how many customers did you close this month? How much are all of your new sales worth this year to date?)
However, one thing I haven’t seen in every freelancer specific CRM is the ability to record interactions that you’ve had with your prospects in a simple and structured way.
Some of these platforms allow you to record “notes”, but over time these will become clunky and you can’t really look back and gain any insights from the data that you have.
When you’re choosing a CRM for yourself, make sure that it gives you the ability to connect a specific interaction (meet in person, phone call, email, etc) to a specific deal that you have in the works, and to a specific prospect or existing customer.
When you’re able to do this, you can see:
- which interactions most frequently lead to sales
- when the last time you spoke to a customer is
- how many times you need to follow up with someone before you actually get a sale which can dramatically impact your business.
Shows where each prospect is in the sales cycle
This is one of the most important features to your small business as a solopreneur, the ability to see at a glance where each potential customer is on their journey to purchasing something.
Any CRM worth its salt will have a high level overview of different stages that your users or customers are going through. In fact, many CRMs give you the ability to define your own stages that make the most sense to you.
Here’s what i’ve used in the past back when I was using Google Sheets as my CRM:
- Lead
- Contacted
- Meeting
- Proposal
- Won
- Lost
But ultimately what stages you choose should align with your business model and your needs from an understanding standpoint.
Your ideal customer relationship management system should also allow you to get information about how many people are in each stage as well as the individual status of each lead or prospective customer.
This is important if you need to follow up with someone or analyze which stages your target customers are getting stuck at or which processes are leading to more deals.
Forecasts future revenue
The final and most important feature for your freelancer specific CRM is the ability to predict what your future sales and revenue will be.
If you’re already working with a bookkeeper, CPA, or software that does this, the CRM will still be extremely valuable here.
Once you’ve got the enough historical data in your CRM about the average value of a single sale to the business, how many sales you get per month, how often you get a sale, etc, your CRM will use that information to project out what your future revenue will be.
This crucial information will allow you to make better decisions about spending, budgeting for your personal life, and even making a hiring decision down the road.
Having access to this kind of information is incredibly powerful and will eliminate the guesswork or getting surprised if your sales aren’t where you were expecting them to be.
Top 6 CRM software for freelancers and solopreneurs
It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for.
We’re past all of the what, when, and why. It’s time to discuss my top 8 picks for the best CRM tools for freelancers and solopreneurs.
Let’s get into it.
1. Capsule CRM – Best Overall CRM For Most Freelancers
Description:
Capsule was the clear favorite when I reviewed each one of these CRM systems. You can tell that despite serving companies as well, they put a tremendous amount of thought into their solution. Their tagline is “The smart simple online CRM” and they come through with that promise.
Free plan: Yes, up to 250 contacts
Price: $18/month for Professional tier
Standout features:
- Awesome mobile app
- Drag and drop visual kanban style overview of your sales pipeline
- Can forecast new sales and revenue by entering probability of deals closing and assigning products or services as recurring, one time, quarterly, yearly, etc
Verified freelancer reviews:
- “I use Capsule to manage my freelance work and contacts. I needed a CRM that was budget-friendly and could help me keep on top of contracts and my sales pipeline. Capsule CRM is a simple but effective CRM.” – Maire on Trustradius
- “I use the free version of Capsule CRM for my business to keep track of clients. Capsule is a great CRM for those who want to use contact management and sales cycles without any complicated features or difficult to use programmes.” – Verified user on Trustradius
2. Streak – Best Freelancer CRM for gmail power users
Description:
Streak isn’t purely a CRM but it’s a tool i’ve used for that purpose and one that i’ve loved for years now. It’s designed to help you keep track of emails, understand and record interactions that potential customers are having with you, and automate sales related activities. The beauty of Streak lies with it’s simplicity and native integration with gmail. If you’re in your inbox all day like most freelancers, this won’t disappoint.
Free plan: Yes, up to 500 contacts
Price: $15/month for Solo tier
Standout features:
- Direct integration in gmail email editing
- Use mail merge to scale outreach and follow up with prospects
- Automatically tag prospects and companies with visual tags in your inbox to prioritize replies
Verified freelancer reviews:
- “I was on a very tight budget when I used it, that’s why Streak was my rescue. Streak allowed me to do things for free that no other software that I tried would.” – Rodion from Capterra
- “I’d never really thought of using CRM software before, as I’m not the typical target audience for that kind of product , yet ended up installing Streak for the extra tools in Gmail. After installing and playing around with it a little, I suddenly found I WAS using the CRM features, albeit in a probably unintended way, to manage pretty much all my work.” – Alasdair from Capterra
3. Clientjoy – Most Affordable Full Feature + Kanban Style CRM for freelancers
Url: https://www.clientjoy.io/
Description:
I love everything about Kanban. If you aren’t familiar, Kanban is where you have 3 or more columns where you can neatly place items into categories in a visual way. It’s super helpful to see where each of your potential customers is in the sales process visually and then drag and drop them into the next stage. Clienjoy was also delightful to navigate with a really intuitive dashboard. With a current price of $9/month and a $129 lifetime deal, it’s a no brainer.
Free plan: Free trial
Price: $9/month to start or $129 for lifetime access
Standout features:
- Awesome user experience and simple to navigate
- Intuitive feature set that isn’t too overwhelming, exactly what you need as a freelancer
- Kanban style lead flow management
Verified freelancer reviews:
- “Amazing experience so far, exactly what I needed to track leads, invoices and clients. Saving me time and money, making my business more efficient.” – Luke from Capterra
- “After 2 years of use, I have never looked back. Client Joy has a wealth of tools to help any business (small, medium and large) save time, money and look professional at the same time. They are continuously developing this amazing SaaS, with constant updates and improvements.” – Alex from Capterra
4. Bonsai – Best CRM for freelancers who need an all in one solution (proposals, client management, etc)
Url: https://www.hellobonsai.com/
Description:
Bonsai was created and designed specifically with freelancers and solopreneurs in mind. Their CRM is more of a client management and project management functionality combined, but for a busy freelancer doing it all, this can be just what you need. Bonsai combines the functionality of a proposal software, project management software, accounting software, and CRM solution combined in a unique way that is made for the average freelance pro. You won’t be disappointed with them.
Free plan: Free trial
Price: $24/month
Standout features:
- Entire workflow to land a new client all the way through to completing a project with them
- Easy task and time tracking to get your sales activity done well
Verified freelancer reviews:
- “Very professional, definitely one of the big dogs when it comes to this style of product for small businesses and freelancers.” – Ryan from Capterra
- “It does it all. Really. Does it all. Seems to be wonderful features and all that.” – Nathan from Capterra
5. Flowfu – Best CRM for freelancers with advanced sales and marketing automation
Description:
Flowfu really impressed me with it’s flexibility and range of sales automation features. You can honestly do just about any range of normal prospecting or sales activities that you can think of. Including scheduling sales follow up emails based on a certain period of time after a recorded interaction with your contact. Also, having a free version made this very high on my list for freelancers specifically who are starting out. The dashboard was intuitive and easy to use, and creating a new contact was dead simple. Two thumbs up here.
Free plan: Yes
Price: $29/month
Standout features:
- Can create tasks to do and assign them to contacts within the CRM
- Easily set up time saving automations for your sales process
- Wonderful Kanban style dashboard with a high level overview of sales pipeline
Verified freelancer reviews:
- “All in all, Flowlu is much better than I expected. Ofc. any SaaS is constantly evolving and there are always some features that are missing, but to my surprise I haven’t come across any “missing features” with Flowlu, as of yet. I am sure there are some things that don’t work as you’d like, or something just simply is missing, but to be honest… This is by far the best experience I’ve ever come across with any SaaS when comparing to my initial expectations.” – Atte from Capterra
- “I was looking for a CRM tool that is powerful, intuitive & easy to use, and I also wasn’t quite satisfied with previous PM tools I had been using. Stumbling across Flowlu has been a gift that keeps on giving. It’s a powerhouse platform for managing work and relationships.” – Chris from Capterra
6. Monica – Best open source CRM for freelance developers and techies
Url: https://www.monicahq.com/
Description:
Monica is truly one of a kind. A free and open source CRM for freelancers that gives you complete control of your experience. This is definitely not geared towards non technical freelancers or folks who aren’t familiar with CRMs to begin with. However, if you’re up for a challenge and know exactly what you want out of your CRM experience, Monica is the framework that will allow you to build the tool of your dreams.
Free plan: Yes
Price: $9/month
Standout features:
- Easily add notes and personal information about your contacts
- Straightforward activity logging
- Simple interface for no nonsense work
Verified freelancer reviews:
- “Unlike your traditional business-based CRM, Monica is more of a “PRM” (Personal Relationship Manager) that is meant solely for individuals to keep track of details about and interactions with family and friends. For those familiar with traditional CRMs, you can consider it as a watered down version of that, consisting only of a contacts module, with a few more related mini-modules including notes, tasks, and activities, and even debts.” – u/rotorcowboy from Reddit
Big takeaway
As a freelancer, you’ve got a million things on your plate, grabbing at your attention every 5 minutes. So when you think of your needs and next steps, a CRM isn’t always the obvious choice.
However, when used properly, a CRM can help you close more deals, more quickly, and actually save you tons of time from your manual sales processes and spreadsheets.
As you grow, you’ll continue to interact with more potential partners and customers. One of the best things you can do for your future self, is to start organizing those contacts now, so you can make the most of them later on when you need them most.
Happy freelancing!
