“We outgrew our old CRM.”
As a Salesforce consultant, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that phrase from customers. Some small businesses shy away from Salesforce because, as the CRM market leader, they think of it as a “premium” product. So they opt for a smaller competitor, but when they discover it can no longer fit their needs, they end up switching to Salesforce and are stuck with a costly “rip and replace” project. In some cases, these businesses would have saved money by choosing Salesforce from the get-go.
In my time in the CRM world, I’ve seen why Salesforce works for companies of every size. It all boils down to its ability to grow with companies and meet the use case of any business. Here’s how:
3 Reasons Why Salesforce Fits Any Size Business
Reason 1: Scalability
Put simply, Salesforce designed its CRM with scalability in mind. Top to bottom.
Its standard functionality allows small businesses to start using the tool with little setup and training. On the other end of the spectrum, it can match the intricate and far-reaching needs of the world’s biggest corporations. Salesforce offers unparalleled customizability, for example, so that it can handle any challenge thrown at it. This trend holds true at a performance level as well — Salesforce’s architecture is capable of accommodating millions of users. From application speed to data storage, you can feel confident that Salesforce will keep up with your users, no matter how many you have.
The platform’s features offer your internal teams this same sort of scalability too. Features such as process automation, assignment rules, queues, and account teams allow you to build processes that don’t rely on any single person. No matter the size of your business, you can create the most efficient workflows possible on the Salesforce platform.
Reason 2: A Diverse Selection of Products and Broad Ecosystem
Never worry that Salesforce won’t fit your use case. Its portfolio of products include both flexible industry staples like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and Pardot, as well as industry-specific solutions such as Health Cloud and Financial Services Cloud.
The benefits of choosing the CRM market leader also include its expansive ecosystem of add-ons and pre-built integrations. The Salesforce AppExchange includes over 4000 products, meaning that the vast majority of other tools your team uses probably connect to Salesforce. So whether you’re a two-person sales team that only needs Gmail connected or a multinational corporation with a dozen other systems to integrate with Salesforce, the platform has you covered.
Reason 3: Flexible Pricing
Pricing is the very reason some smaller businesses shy away from Salesforce, to be honest. For a long time, many competitors offered lower-cost alternatives. Salesforce recently changed that equation with the release of Salesforce Essentials. Now, small teams can purchase an easy-to-use platform at a much lower cost than Salesforce’s other editions.
What this means is that Salesforce now offers a full scale of editions and pricing options that can meet any budget. Pair that with the scalability mentioned above, and you can be confident that Salesforce can work for your business at any stage of growth.
When small businesses are choosing a CRM, we recommend that they start small but dream big. Even if you’re a two-person shop working in a startup garage, you shouldn’t limit yourself to a CRM you might grow out of. You should instead choose one that can not only meet a small business’s budget but can also grow with you. So why Salesforce? Because it provides the scalability, product portfolio and ecosystem to do that.
And it certainly helps to have the right Salesforce partner to help you navigate your choices. If you need assistance, feel free to contact us — we know our way around the landscape and can provide the guidance you need to find the best solution for your business.
