Should You Use a Project Management Software or a CRM?
We’ve noticed in our service-based community that there seems to be some confusion around CRMs vs. Project Management Systems. We get asked questions like “If I use Dubsado, will I still need to use Asana?” or “Is a CRM supposed to replace my Project Management System?” It’s understandable confusion, especially if you’re transitioning to using both but aren’t sure what their purposes are.
In this blog post, we’ll be answering your questions about CRMs versus Project Management Systems, which one you should use (or both), and hopefully making your life as a service provider a whole lot easier!
What is a CRM?
A CRM (Client Relationship Management) system is software that allows you to keep a database of clients and leads, your communication with them, notes, and overall helps you nurture them in one spot that’s easily accessible and even easier to keep track of.
There are tons of different CRMs, our favorite being Dubsado. With it, you can set milestones to organize your leads and clients, create and send forms, emails, and invoices, schedule appointments, create a portal for your clients, and create automated workflows.
There are more features that make organizing your leads and clients simply better than using something like a spreadsheet to track contact information. With a CRM like Dubsado, you can add tags to your lead and client profiles, create project statuses, create project sources to track where leads are coming from, export different bookkeeping reports, and much more.
What is a Project Management System?
The name is just what it is: It’s a system that allows you to plan, organize, schedule, and manage your projects, tasks, and everyday tasks. We use Asana as our Project Management System, and we’re able to organize all of the tasks that go into running our business. For example, different projects we have set up in our Asana are for things like our:
Blog posts
Podcast episodes
Social media content
Creative Template Shop schedule and planning
Email marketing
Incubator curriculum
Seasonal launches and promotions
Inside each of these projects are task cards that include every team members’ involvement with that particular task using subtasks. For example, our Blog project includes cards for each new blog post, and inside those cards are subtasks for the team members involved in the writing, approval, quality control, and publishing stages of each post.
Basically, we live and breathe in Asana! With a team of 9, it allows us to make sure everyone is on the same page with their new and recurring tasks, and we can track the progress of our projects seamlessly.
Should You Use a Project Management System or a CRM?
For many of you, the answer is both, though it’s up to you and your usual workflow, plus you should consider the capabilities of the tools you’re currently using. Many CRMs have very basic project management features, and most Project Management Systems are able to be used similarly to a CRM. The line can get blurry, which is what causes this confusion to begin with!
However, even if you are able to do something in one system, it’s probably best to use a system that’s designed for that purpose. (Sure, you can order coffee from McDonald’s, but wouldn’t you rather go to Starbucks?) This is why most service providers find it more beneficial to use them in conjunction.
HANDLING LEADS IN DUBSADO VS. ASANA
We have a project in Asana for tracking new applications that come in for The Incubator. These are technically new leads and they do get added to Dubsado as such as well, however there are clear differences for how we handle those leads in both systems.
In Asana, we have their application responses, notes about our conversations in the DMs on Instagram, subtasks for team members to reach out to them, multiple tags and fields to track their industry, how cold or warm they are, if we think they’re a good fit, etc. The layout and capabilities for these things are simply easier in Asana where we have our whole team versus Dubsado where only a few team members are.
In Dubsado, this is where we send all email communication to them and store their contact information. When they become paying clients, we also send their forms through Dubsado, schedule appointments, add private call recordings to their client portal, and we also have workflows we use to make onboarding easier.
How Can You Integrate Both Tools into Your Process?
Think about your usual process with clients and how both or either of these tools will work for you! As a rule of thumb try to separate the tasks that go into managing your leads and clients versus the tasks that are involved in completing client projects and deliverables. Client projects should be handled in some sort of project management software, while tasks like onboarding, sending emails and forms, scheduling appointments, etc. would happen inside of a CRM like Dubsado.
To make things even better, you can take Dubsado for a spin with their free trial that allows you to add 3 clients totally free with no limitations to features. Head here to sign up for your account and save 30% on your first month or year when you upgrade!
