Sales system and CRM for a small manufacturer: what it needs

A sales system for a small manufacturer has to solve three things in a single tool: building the quote with your product rules, following up with each customer until they buy, and knowing how the business is doing. A generic CRM covers the second one; the first, which is what eats up the most time in a factory, is almost always left out.

Here is which modules are worth having, what the options are and how I solved it for EQUIBOX, a horse stable manufacturer in Berazategui, near Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Why does a factory need something different from a store?

In a store, the product has a price and the sale is ringing it up. In a factory that makes products to measure, every sale starts with an open question: “how much for one of these sizes, with these doors, installed at this location?”. To answer it, someone on the team has to understand what the customer wants, price that combination, add shipping and installation, offer a payment option and send it out looking professional.

Then comes the follow-up: the customer thinks it over, asks for a change, comes back two weeks later. If all of that lives in a notebook, in each sales rep's WhatsApp (the main business channel in Argentina) and in a spreadsheet, information gets lost and the owner does not know how many quotes are open or which ones are about to close.

If you run a store, the approach is different, and I covered it in apps for shops and stores. This post is for people who manufacture.

What modules should a sales system for a manufacturer have?

You do not need everything from day one, but this is the full list worth keeping in mind:

• A quoting tool with your product rules. Sizes, models, options and which combinations are possible. This is the core: if quotes are still built by hand, the rest of the system helps very little.
• A pricing engine. The price is calculated automatically from what was chosen, with discount coupons, payment plans and installments.
• Shipping and installation. If you charge by distance, it should be calculated from the customer's address, not eyeballed. I explain it in how to calculate shipping per kilometer.
• PDF quote sent over WhatsApp. A clean document, the same for every sales rep, generated in one click. More detail in automatic PDF quotes.
• CRM. Every customer with their status, the date of the next contact and their quote history.
• Payment tracking. What has been collected, what is still owed and by whom.
• Roles. The admin sees and configures everything; the sales rep quotes and follows up with their customers.
• Reports with charts. To see how sales are going without asking anyone for a summary.
• Automatic alerts. An email every time a quote request comes in, so none goes unanswered.

Spreadsheet, generic CRM or custom system?

A generic CRM can be the best option if your sale is simple. A custom system makes sense when the quote is the hard part.

Why separate admin and sales rep roles?

Because not everyone needs to see or change the same things. The admin loads prices, creates coupons, sets payment plans and looks at reports for the whole team. The sales rep needs to quote fast and follow up with customers, without being able to change the price list by mistake.

One detail that matters: at EQUIBOX those permissions are not only on screen, they are enforced by the system itself. If someone tried to get around the interface, they would still be denied what they are not allowed to access. This is especially important when there is a public side: anyone can request a quote without an account, so the system also limits how many requests can come in from the same place.

What about customer data?

It belongs to the factory, not to the sales rep or to the system. Keeping it in your own database means that if a sales rep leaves, their customers and their history stay. It also means looking after it: that is why in my portfolio I show how the EQUIBOX system works, but never real prices, CRM data or contacts.

How much does a custom sales system cost?

It depends on three things: how many modules from the list above you need, how many products it has to quote and whether it has to work without signal. Tell me how you sell today over WhatsApp or email and I will send you a fixed quote within 48 hours. I explain what defines the cost of each type of project in how much a website costs in Argentina, and why custom sometimes beats a template in custom website vs template.

A sensible way to start is with the module that takes up the most hours today. In most factories, that is the quoting tool.

What should you have clear before asking for one?

• How a price is calculated today. Even if it lives in one person's head, it has to be turned into rules.
• What happens after the quote. How many times the customer is contacted again, who does it and when the deal is considered lost.
• Who uses the system. How many sales reps, whether there is an admin team, whether the owner wants to see reports.
• Where you sell. Office, site visits, fairs: if there are places with no signal, you need to know from the start.
• What you want the customer to see. Whether the price will be public or handled only by the team.

Frequently asked questions