Tools

CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Also called: CRM Software, Customer Relationship Management, Sales CRM

Definition

Software that tracks interactions with prospects and customers, manages the sales pipeline, and gives the team a shared record of every deal, contact, and communication.

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management platform) is the system of record for your sales team. Every contact, every company, every deal, every email thread, and every call note lives in the CRM. Without one, pipeline visibility depends on individual reps remembering what happened in each deal — which breaks down quickly as the team and deal count grows.

Most common B2B CRMs

  • Salesforce: The enterprise standard. Highly customisable, complex to administer, expensive. Most common at $20M+ ARR companies.
  • HubSpot: Free CRM with paid Sales Hub add-on. Easiest to set up, strong for SMB and growth-stage. Most common at seed → Series B.
  • Pipedrive: Pipeline-centric CRM built for small sales teams. Simple, visual, fast to configure.
  • Close.io: Built specifically for outbound-heavy sales teams. Strong calling and sequencing features baked in.

CRM and outbound integration

Most modern sequencing tools (Apollo, Outreach, Salesloft, Instantly) sync bidirectionally with CRMs: contacts created in the sequencer appear in the CRM; replies and meetings automatically log activity. This means sales leadership can see which outbound contacts are entering the pipeline without manual data entry.

What a CRM doesn’t do

A CRM tracks relationships — it doesn’t generate them. It records calls and emails but doesn’t make them. The common mistake is implementing a CRM before fixing the prospecting and outreach motion — adding data infrastructure to an empty pipeline is wasted effort.

CRM sits downstream of prospecting and sequencing. RevOps manages CRM configuration and data integrity. Pipeline visibility and forecasting are CRM outputs.

Related Terms

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