On the hunt for the perfect CRM because our contacts are personal, we manage them in more than one role, and for many organizations

Here’s the use case or user story:

Because I am an executive in one company and a director of a nonprofit, my network involves both business leads for sales and potential donors to my nonprofit.

When I’m dealing with the my nonprofit contacts, I am always The Director. When I am dealing with my corporate clients, I am always emailing or call them as CEO. The email and phone numbers they have for me are unique to the way we are connected, and sending email or texts from the wrong number can be confusing.

All of these individuals are my contacts

For all these people in my personal and professional life, I am the hub. They are connections.

I need something to help me manage these relationships. That is, after all, what a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software or service is suppose to do!

It seems simple, and in the modern world CRMs should handle those of us who constantly move from job to job or hold many titles. I meet people all the time who hand out multiple business cards.

Most of us juggle address books on phones, sync on Google Contacts, or manage our contacts through some other imperfect backup and sync protocols. But, what do we do about integrated follow up calendars or task lists?

Infusionsoft and ClickFunnels

Tools like Infusionsoft and ClickFunnels handle bulk collection and campaigns to prospects very well. If you’re in it for the long game, there’s another level to contact management. Notes, reminders, meetings, materials, documents, etc.

Salesforce may offer the most commonly used centralized enterprise contact manager and sales automation tool on the planet, but does it handle relationships well?

This is the big ask!

How do we manage the multiple hats and multiple needs that our ever growing and demanding networks require?

To begin this journey, let’s start by listing all the CRM and sales automation tools on the market. Before we create something from scratch, let’s talk about what’s available.