Can Basecamp be used as a CRM?

Available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon and more...

Summary

I hate “it depends,” so here’s the answer: yes, you can use Basecamp as a CRM. I do it myself. The catch is there’s no real reporting because Basecamp is basically a piece of paper, but the card table gives you a simple pipeline. If you’re in sales and need reporting, use pipe drive or daylight, otherwise Basecamp works fine.

Raw

I hate it when you ask a question and the answer is, it depends. I can’t stand it, it’s annoying, because it’s either a yes or a no. There shouldn’t be, it depends.

So the question is, can you use Basecamp as a CRM? The answer is yes, however, it’s not a depends, it’s a however. So I do use Basecamp as my CRM. I kind of toyed with the idea of using an actual CRM, like pipe drive, daylight, all the other ones. And they’re all good and they all have their uses. So depending on the type of work you’re doing, you should choose the right tool. So there is a depends to a certain degree.

But having base camp or using base camp and actually having a CRM within it, yes, it is possible to do it and you can do it. I’ve done it. There are other people that do it as well.

Now this question came up. Someone asked the question in the Basecamp private forum. And obviously, a lot of people went in and gave their views on it. It was all positive in the sense that, yes, you can. However, there are cravats to that.

Now, the cravats to that is there is no kind of, there’s no real reporting. There is no reporting because Basecamp isn’t a database-type project management tool, like Asana, for instance, because it has drop downs and some, and, you know, there’s calculations that it can do. Basecamp doesn’t. It’s literally a piece of paper.

And that’s the thing that I like about it. And I made a video about Basecamp being a piece of paper and base camp being a Rolodex. It’s so simple that you can actually do anything with it. Like with a piece of paper, you can make airplanes and throw it and it’ll fly in the air. And Basecamp for business, you can make it do, you could make it have CRM capabilities because it now has that, the, they don’t call it Kanban, car table, which is like a Kanban thing. So you have like a Trello type thing on it.

So you can have your pipelines, sorry, your pipeline as a card table and your stages, you can still have those stages, and move the cards over. So you can do it, and there is ways of doing it. Now, should you do it is a different matter, meaning if you’re in sales, you probably need reporting and so on, so use something like pipe drive or daylight, etc. If you’re an individual or a small company that just need to track, you know, some clients with their information and what you want, you know, a lead effectively, then yes, you can use Basecamp to do it in the car tables and so on.

So again, there is no depends because Basecamp can do it. There is a however depends on whether you’re a salesperson that needs reporting or just someone that wants to track things simply. I said that twice, but I think you understand the point.

If you have any questions about Basecamp, let me know. There’s a link somewhere here, have a chat. As always keep it simple. That’s why I use base camp to run my business. Have a good one. I’ll see you in the next one. Ciao.