Top 6 things to look for in a CRM for consultants

Since then though, CRMs have evolved into something much more. Businesses today, especially consultancies, are more relationship-oriented than the old CRM model allows for. Every client or prospective client, is different, with a different journey and set of needs. The rigid view of the customer journey that traditional CRM was built around is now obsolete. Flexibility is everything when it comes to choosing a CRM, today.

Luckily, modern CRMs now come packed with a variety of features designed to help drive business success. These days your standard CRM is able to identify sales opportunities, assist with lead prospecting, and help manage all types of operational data.

If your consultancy isn’t using a CRM yet, it might be time to change that. Why? Because 91% of businesses say a CRM helps them cut customer acquisition costs (CAC), with nearly half saving between 11% and 20%. And if that’s not convincing enough, businesses using a CRM can see their revenue jump by up to 245%. That’s a serious game-changer.

The right CRM should make your life easier—helping you manage clients, streamline your workflow, and boost your bottom line. So, if you’re ready to make the switch, choose a CRM that works for you, not against you.

What that means is that if your consultancy isn’t already using a CRM, like Copper, then you need to change that now.

However, what that doesn’t mean is that you need to use the same enterprise-level CRMs that Fortune 500 companies use. As a small-to-medium-sized consulting business, you'll want a CRM that works for the specific needs of your business, not someone else’s.

The right CRM should make your life easier—helping you manage clients, streamline your workflow, and boost your bottom line.

With that in mind, here are the top six things to look for to make sure that your new CRM is a good fit for your consultancy.

The first thing you should look for in a CRM is that it’s powerful enough to handle all your current requirements, and to adapt to any future challenges within your business.

As your consultancy scales, the right CRM for marketing campaigns should be flexible enough to handle an increase in different sales channels, help you keep track of new leads, and assist in your business’s operational abilities. Otherwise you might end up relying on a CRM that impedes your business’s ability to grow.

When picking a CRM, you should first take stock of what kind of features your consultancy currently needs, and what you’ll most likely need in the future. Take a look at what kind of integrations it supports and if it matches up with what you’re currently using.

For example, if you’re looking to grow your consulting business by starting an online community, then you need a CRM that allows for community management and analytics already pre-packaged (or that has options for third-party integrations). If your consultancy ends up heading in a different direction, you should also be able to easily remove that community management feature and any other unnecessary features from your CRM. (More tips on how to market a consulting business here.)

While the primary focus of a CRM for consultants is to manage the relationship between the consulting business and its clients, the best CRMs are the ones that also improve communication within the business itself.

According to a study by the data science team at Gong, you’re 258% more likely to close a deal when adopting a collaborative approach in comparison to when you go at it solo.

What this tells us is that for businesses that want to close more leads and increase their revenue, it’s vital that salespeople can easily communicate with their colleagues (Learn everything you need to know about team selling strategies here.)

When choosing a CRM for your consulting business, consider its ability to facilitate communication between your team members. For example, your CRM should allow members of your team to gain all the information they need about clients and prospects including what stage of the customer journey they’re in and the issues they’re experiencing—without needing to hop between multiple windows and programs.

Ultimately, biggest challenge isn’t finding a CRM, it’s actually getting your team to use it. In fact, over 70% of CRM projects don’t meet their goals, often because of poor planning, lack of user adoption, or just not enough training.

That’s why picking the right CRM is about more than just fancy features—it needs to be something your team will actually want to use. And what’s the most in-demand feature? Ease of use. According to Forbes Advisor, contact management is one of the most requested CRM features because it helps businesses organize and manage customer relationships effortlessly.

It’s important to acknowledge thoughts and feedback your team might have about any CRM you’re planning to adopt. A common complaint among salespeople is that they feel that management is using a CRM to micro-manage them or that the chosen CRM is too complex or unintuitive.

Pay attention to the user experience and how a CRM fits into your existing systems and procedures. Implementing any new technology or system into a business requires a period of adjustment as everyone figures out the new best practices.

Sidestep that problem by looking for a CRM that’s flexible enough to fit your current process instead of reworking your entire business to fit the CRM.

Ask if you require specialized training or onboarding for your team and what level of customer support the vendor can provide. Take advantage of free trials so your marketing or sales team can properly evaluate its features and benefits themselves.

If your CRM doesn’t support email marketing, it’s time to rethink your setup. A well-integrated CRM lets your team manage, send, and analyze emails directly within the platform—no more copying and pasting between tools. Plus, it helps streamline operations by providing valuable insights like open and click-through rates, so you can fine-tune your campaigns and maximize engagement.

Personalization is key to standing out in today’s crowded inboxes. By syncing your email marketing with your CRM, you can tailor messages to individual clients and deliver the personalized experience that 85% of CRM users say is a top benefit. Instead of blasting generic emails, you can send targeted messages that truly resonate with your audience.

If you're using Copper CRM, you get even more tools to make email marketing effortless. With Copper’s built-in email automations, you can set up follow-up sequences and lead nurturing emails without lifting a finger. Plus, Copper’s AI-generated email templates take the guesswork out of crafting the perfect message—just tweak and send. Need more advanced email marketing? Copper integrates seamlessly with Mailchimp, so you can sync contacts and run larger-scale email campaigns with ease.

One of the biggest advantages of using a CRM is automation—it’s a game-changer for efficiency. Instead of your team wasting time on repetitive tasks, automation takes care of the busy work so they can focus on what really matters: building relationships and closing deals. In fact, 45% of CRM users consider automation the most important feature, and for good reason—it removes bottlenecks, ensures consistency, and helps businesses scale faster.

With Copper’s automation features, you can streamline your workflows and eliminate manual effort. Imagine this: as soon as a new deal is added to your pipeline, Copper can automatically trigger a series of actions—creating a task for your sales rep to send a welcome email, setting a reminder for a project kick-off call, or moving the deal to the next stage once certain criteria are met. These automated workflows keep your team aligned and ensure nothing slips through the cracks.

And the best part? You don’t have to change the way you work. Copper integrates seamlessly with Google Workspace, so you can manage everything—emails, calendar events, tasks, and contacts—right from the tools you already use. No switching between platforms, no extra logins, just a smooth experience that fits into your existing workflow.

Beyond just sales, automation can also enhance your referral marketing efforts. Instead of manually tracking which clients are ready to refer, you can set up an automated customer scoring system. Once a customer reaches a certain score, Copper can trigger a referral campaign, ensuring timely outreach without anyone on your team having to remember to send a follow-up.

And that’s just the beginning. Copper’s automation isn’t limited to sales pipelines—it extends to your entire consultancy. Whether it’s tracking project milestones, setting up automated email sequences, or ensuring key client interactions happen on time, Copper helps you work smarter, not harder. The less time your team spends on admin work, the more time they have to focus on delivering value and growing your business.

As a consultant, data is everything—it’s how you track success, spot opportunities, and prove your value to clients. That’s why your CRM should go beyond just organizing contacts and deals—it should provide powerful data-driven insights to help you make smarter decisions.

And the numbers back it up:

• 78% of companies have increased their data-driven marketing budgets this year, proving that businesses are doubling down on strategies that rely on real numbers, not guesswork.
• Firms using data-driven marketing see a 4% higher ROI compared to those who don’t—because when you know what works, you can invest smarter.
• 62% of marketers say data-driven marketing is their top priority for 2024—it’s no longer optional; it’s essential.

But here’s the thing: data isn’t just about marketing and sales. A CRM for consultants should help you analyze everything—from client interactions to vendor relationships—so you can optimize your business across the board.

For example, automated CRM reporting lets you track daily, weekly, or monthly interactions with vendors. Instead of relying on memory or scattered spreadsheets, you can pull up reports that show which partnerships are driving value and where improvements can be made.

But, beyond marketing and helping with the sales process though, your a CRM for consultants should also help you provide data-driven solutions to improve the relationship you have with not only clients, but also vendors and partners.

For example, this could be as simple as generating daily, weekly, monthly, and even annual reports of interactions with vendors. This gives your business the ability to better track and measure the results of working with a particular vendor and could even potentially reveal opportunities on how to improve those results.

On a more complex level, you can also take advantage of a CRM’s reporting features to help you better forecast trends and opportunities in your industry.

Bottom line? A CRM for consultants isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s your data-driven secret weapon for making better decisions, optimizing operations, and proving your impact to clients.

And there you have it—the top six things to look for in a CRM for consulting. By now, it’s pretty clear that a CRM isn’t just a “nice-to-have” anymore. It’s a must-have if you want to grow your consulting business, strengthen client relationships, and keep everything running smoothly without drowning in spreadsheets and email threads. The right CRM should take work off your plate, not add to it—helping you stay organized, automate tasks, and make smarter business decisions with real data.

As you start exploring your options, here are a few key questions to ask yourself:

• Can I customize this CRM to fit my business’s unique needs?
• Will this improve or complicate communication within my team?
• What does my team actually think of this CRM? (Because buy-in matters!)
• Can this help me level up my email marketing efforts?
• What processes can this CRM automate to save me time?
• Will this give me the insights I need to make better business decisions?

Bottom line? The right CRM will feel like an extension of your business, helping you work smarter—not harder. If you’re ready to see what a consulting-friendly CRM can do for you, try Copper for 14 days for free. You might just wonder how you ever managed without it. Happy CRM hunting!