April 05, 2022
Have you ever found yourself scrambling, trying to remember who you met with last week, two weeks ago, even a month ago? You know you have to follow up, but you’re just not sure with whom. It’s a terrible feeling, and one we’ve all felt before, especially in the investment sales business.
However, as we’ve said time and again, following up after a meeting is critical. It can mean the difference between building a relationship and getting an allocation and being forgotten, and we all know which outcome we want. After all, you’re not putting in all that work to set the meeting in the first place for nothing, right?
Right.
That means, you need to be diligent about following up, and we whole-heartedly believe that you can’t do that without a CRM.
At Dakota, we eat, sleep, and breathe our CRM, using it for everything from following up after a meeting to reporting and keeping up to date on meeting notes. For this, we use Salesforce, but we know not everyone’s budgets or needs are the same.
Which is why, in this article, we’re going to highlight five of the best CRM platforms specifically for RIA firms. By the end of the article, you'll have a better idea which is right for your firm's needs.
Salesforce is made for businesses to build stronger customer relationships. With a subscription to this platform, you will have access to sales and customer support tools, manage contacts, accounts, and support cases, track emails and meetings automatically, create custom reports and dashboards, and manage support across email, phone, chat, and other social channels.
In Salesforce's own words, you’ll increase customer leads 3x, receive 998% return on investment, and save 4 hours each week.
This is all done through features of the platform such as managing your contacts better, tracking relationships and deals, responding to customers faster, running your business from your phone, viewing the health of your business in one place, and integration with your everyday apps.
For one year, Salesforce can cost anywhere from $25 per user per month (the Essentials options), to $300 per month (the Unlimited option). However, if you’re hesitant to commit to one year they offer the option of $35 per month. There is also a 14-day free trial to test the waters before you make a commitment.
The Salesforce Essentials platform received a 4.2 out of 5 rating from G2.
Redtail offers several tools to help you and your team’s efforts strengthen client relationships, improve your team’s collaboration efforts and efficiency, increase revenues and profits, decrease client attrition, and engage in other business building activities.
The main features of Redtail include: workflows, integrations, reporting, calendar management, notes, seminars, opportunities, a mobile app, and a retriever cloud that allows two-way synchronization of contacts and activities bi-directionally between platforms.
Creating workflows will make a proper checklist to ensure each task is completed and nothing goes unfinished, while the reporting feature offers expansive standard reports and exports to custom reports you and your team can create. The calendar feature grants you the ability to stay on top of your schedule, as well as everyone in your office with color coding and view customization. Notes allows you to track conversations and jot down important conversation points so you can follow up appropriately.
Per database Redtail charges $99 per month for 15 users.
Redtail received a 4.3 rating out of 5 on G2.
In Wealthbox’s own words, this platform keeps you connected with clients, prospects, and staff with ease. This platform is best suited for financial advisors, enterprise firms, and broker-dealers.
There are several helpful features of Wealthbox, including contact record page, which gives you the full picture of your clients, click-to-call, email dropbox, and custom fields. In addition, you can improve efficiency with the tasks, streams, workflows, calendar, and mobile features. You and your team will also be able to increase sales and opportunities through the opportunity tracking and reports features.
Wealthbox offers a 30-day free trial.
Annually, the basic version will cost you $35 per user per month that gives you access to core CRM features.
The Pro version allows email synchronization and is billed annually at $49 per user per month.
The Premier version offers advanced features at $65 per user per month annually.
Finally, the Enterprise version offers customizable, multi-workspace features and pricing can be found through contacting a Wealthbox representative.
G2 has given Wealthbox a 4.5 out of 5 rating.
In DealCloud’s own words, they are the leading provider of capital markets software for sourcing, origination, and deal management to hundreds of principal investing firms, investment banks, and operating companies worldwide. The platform creates solutions for dealmakers with relationship management, pipeline management, and business development and marketing.
DealCloud’s flexible technology allows you and your team to complete complex transactions with reporting on deals by several unique categories, leveraging interactive dashboards, sending reports to your team and stakeholders with a single click, and removing administrative burdens as a whole. If this isn’t enough, the platform puts data directly into your hands with their mobile app.
Pricing for a DealCloud subscription was not provided on their website, but can be identified through scheduling a demo with one of their representatives.
DealCloud received 4.7 out of 5 on G2.
From Pipedrive themselves, Pipedrive is the first CRM designed by salespeople, for salespeople. It’s a platform that requires four simple steps: set up your pipeline stages, focus on sales actions, track progress towards goals, and optimize and grow.
In order to help prioritize deals, track performance, and predict revenue, Pipedrive contains many attractive features. You can manage leads and deals straight into your pipeline and customize metrics on reports to measure company performance. In addition, you’re able to track communications. Lastly, you can access Pipedrive from your phone and integrate it with other apps for around the clock access. In turn, these features help to grow your sales.
For each user each month, The Essential level price for this subscription is $12.50, the Advanced level is $24.90, the Professional level is $49.90, and the Enterprise level is $99.00. There’s a 14-day free trial offered as well.
Pipedrive received a 4.3 out of 5 rating on G2.
We know that the needs and budget varies by firm, but there are a few factors to consider as you make your decision among the platforms listed above.
If you...
If Salesforce is your CRM of choice, and you want to ensure that it's constantly be updated with fresh, clean data, Dakota Marketplace for Salesforce can help achieve that. Click here to find out more or schedule a demo.
Morgan Holycross is a Marketing Manager at Dakota.
