If you’ve worked on or with small teams considering Salesforce, you’ve probably heard a warning along the lines of, “yeah it’s free… like a puppy.” Salesforce, and any CRM, requires investment to customize, maintain, and become good at. Over the last decade(ish), North Peak has advised many small orgs trying to determine whether the work and resources it takes to successfully adopt Salesforce are worth it.

The short answer is yes, we think it’s worth it. Teams of any size can be great at CRM. With a clear vision for the system, a right-sized solution*, and a commitment to using it well, CRM can be a game-changing asset. But of course it’s more complicated than that– here’s why.

*We should note: We’re defining “small” as orgs with revenues in the sub-$1M to 3M range. For small orgs with limited in-house technical expertise, designing a right-sized, high-quality CRM likely requires the advice, technical skills, and training of an outside expert.

Why we think CRM is a good investment for small orgs

These days, it’s table stakes for organizations to have strong technology powering their operations so they can work smarter and faster. But let’s get specific about how a CRM makes orgs smarter and faster: implementing a single-source-of-truth system forces a reckoning on how teams work and share information. Do you have multiple program staff who each have their own unique approach to recruiting participants? Time to decide on some standards. Are Marketing and Development each keeping data in separate systems that could help the other team communicate with supporters more effectively? Time to get coordinated. 

This reckoning can yield huge benefits: 

• Reclaim time that staff used to spend updating spreadsheets or multiple systems
• Provide analytics that staff used to have to manually compile, and check, and double-check (if they could get the data at all)
• Create standards for process to ensure teams are working as efficiently as possible 
• Build infrastructure to support institutional knowledge, which boosts resilience as organizations change
• Enable more collaboration within and across teams to increase the value of their work

All of these benefits help organizations increase their impact. For example: We have seen a team of 2 create a membership and grants management system that took them off spreadsheets and gave them visibility into information that they can use to better tailor member communications. We’ve worked with a $1M organization that moved to Salesforce from siloed systems, which enabled them to consolidate donor data and grow online fundraising by 13% and overall fundraising by more than 50%. 

Some will argue small teams won’t reap enough value from CRM compared to the effort and resources they spend standing up a system. Or that these teams won’t be able to sustain the system and its value will diminish over time. But failure is far from inevitable. Let’s get into what small teams can do to set themselves up for success.

How small teams can maximize their success with CRM

Make it part of the org culture

Every person at the organization needs to understand why the CRM is important for the org’s success and how they’re expected to use it. This starts with leadership. Leadership needs to answer these questions and share the message with the team, starting well before the CRM project begins and for the entire lifespan of the system.

When the CRM is in place, leaders need to encourage accountability and reinforce the org’s commitment to this new way of working. That can be as straightforward as asking for reports and other data from Salesforce consistently. And nothing compares to executives leading by example in actually using the database.

Consider starting small and building over time

The cost and change management required to bring all teams into one system at once can be a lot to take on. Consider starting with one or two business areas and expanding to others later and/or building a lean solution to start. This might look like designing a solution for programs to capture essential program data, but waiting to integrate with online forms for participant sign ups. 

Your CRM will never really be “completed”– just like your team and your operations, it’ll evolve over time. Thinking practically about what technology is sufficient and necessary in a defined time period (for example, over the next 12-18 months) allows the system to adapt with you. And it means you have time to build up your team’s capacity to manage it–more on that below.

Assemble a well-rounded project team

Salesforce implementation partners like North Peak can provide the strategic guidance, technical expertise, training for users and system administrators, and project management for your project. If a full-service approach isn’t feasible for your budget, volunteers can be great resources. We’ve had small clients lean on volunteers to help with data cleaning, for example. And Salesforce offers a pro bono program for up to 20 hours of support. 

No matter how you staff your project team, your internal team needs to take on these roles in the project: 

• Executive stakeholder— We wrote about key responsibilities here. The gist: they define the vision, build buy-in across the org, weigh in on big decisions, and help manage risks.
• Subject matter experts— These are staff who know the ins and outs of the workflows your system will support. They need to share their knowledge with the person who’s translating process into technology. 

Make a plan to manage the system long-term

It’s one thing to build a CRM, it’s entirely another to manage it over time. Processes and teams will change, and your organization will need different things from your system. Even with minimal internal change, users will need training and support. And they’ll have ideas for improvements as they better understand their data and what the system can do. 

Teams can approach this a few ways: 1) do it in-house; 2) outsource it; 3) some combination of the two. Here’s what to consider for each path.

*Note: Orgs relying on an in-house administrator with limited technical skills will likely need to plan to invest in some external resource every couple years or so to do more thorough maintenance, tackle substantial changes, and possibly help ease the transition of the former expert who’s advanced to a new role or moved on from the org.