Don't let your messy spreadsheets fool you: there is a better way to manage your customers—and one that doesn't involve clunky, confusing cells and columns. 

In the early days of your small business, storing information about your customers on a spreadsheet might have made sense. But as your business grows and interest picks up, so does the amount of prospects pouring in, hankering for your services. 

When that happens, you might find that your trusty spreadsheet is about as reliable as those illegible sticky notes you keep losing. 

It's time for an upgrade. Bigin by Zoho (an offshoot of Zoho CRM) is exactly the kind of springboard you need to take the plunge into successful sales. Geared towards small businesses who want something a little simpler, it skips the bells and whistles that Zoho CRM provides. 

At its core, Bigin lets you manage deals, track their progress, and keep all your customer interactions in one place. You can drag-and-drop deals across various stages in the sales pipeline, mark them as done as you've successfully closed them, and keep track of customer conversations, be they through Twitter, email, or phone calls. 

Bigin is user-friendly. Easy to use. Minimalist. (Like these sentences.) It also packs all the CRM essentials into its tidy framework, but without a lot of fuss and overkill features. 

Each pipeline view portrays key information about your deals at a glance. You can also receive real-time notifications and alerts for incoming calls from prospective customers. Once all your team members are notified, you can work together to close more deals. Plus, you can keep tabs on the number of products you've sold in one place. 

So: ready to graduate from spreadsheets? (Seriously, it's time.) Keep things simple: give Bigin a shot. And if you do become a CRM pro, then you can easily migrate to Zoho CRM.