As a home-based or other small business owner, you’re used to having to wear many hats at once.  That being the case, chances are that on more than one occasion you’ve cursed the amount of time you’ve had to spend doing simple tasks like organizing your database of leads, cherry picking targeted contacts for various marketing and outreach activities or scrambling for notes on the last conversation you had with a hot prospect more than a month ago.  And all the time you’re spending on that stuff?  Well, the old adage that time is money couldn’t be more accurate when you’re spinning your wheels.

Thanks to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software and a whole host of other cloud computing options, much of that is in the past.  Hundreds of companies are now offering business owners of all shapes and sizes a vast array of affordable applications and services of this kind that can save them considerable time and money.  For home-based, work from home and other small business owners in particular, CRM can be a lifesaver.  In fact, it’s the sales and marketing assistant you always wanted but couldn’t afford…until now!

With free-trial offers being the norm and initial monthly rates as low as $15 or $20 for smaller businesses, CRM software and other cloud computing solutions can pay off in as little as a day or two.  Just take a look at some of the many time-saving―and therefore money-saving―features and benefits that CRM can provide:

• Organize and cross-reference leads from multiple sources
• Track individual customer exchanges over time, always remembering your past-call status with any given prospect at the touch of a button
• Generate and track emails, as well as telephone communications and/or any customer’s response to your company’s use of various social media
• Keep detailed meeting notes and generate them for all parties involved
• Analyze your sales pipeline so you can know what is working and what isn’t
• Create in-depth and readily accessible customer profiles
• And so much more!

The bottom line is that CRM allows you to manage your leads as well as all aspects of your ongoing customer relationships in an integrated way that saves you countless hours on a whole host of mundane tasks.  And when those very tasks that have taken up so much of your valuable time for so long become more manageable, your bottom line will thank you.

You’ll be left wearing fewer hats for a change.  And the ones you’re still wearing will be those that actually allow you to focus on the big picture as opposed to the day-to-day minutia―all the stuff that drags you down and distracts from your business’ being able to reach its maximum profit potential.