Discover folk - the CRM for people-powered businesses
| Main points |
|---|
|
Who this guide is for
For advisors managing teams of 20-50 people, whether in finance, consulting, or other professional services, having an effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is essential for coordinating client relationships across your growing organization. A dedicated CRM helps advisory teams of this size streamline client interactions, manage appointments efficiently, and personalize services to better meet client needs while maintaining consistency across all team members.
👉🏼 Try folk now to manage contact-based reminders with your team
The best CRMs for medium-sized advisory teams are specifically designed to handle the complexity of managing multiple advisors, offering features like automated follow-ups, detailed client profiles, team collaboration tools, and compliance management capabilities that scale with your organization.
In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore the top CRM solutions for advisory teams of 20-50 people, highlighting platforms that provide robust features, intuitive usability, and secure data management to help your team build stronger client relationships and accelerate practice growth.
Why your advisory team needs a CRM
Without a robust CRM system that aligns with the specific requirements of a 20-50 person advisory team, you may find that coordination becomes increasingly difficult as team members constantly switch between multiple platforms to access contact information, manually update client details, and struggle to maintain visibility into the collective pipeline. Below we explore the common challenges medium-sized advisory teams face without a CRM, the benefits you should expect from a system that aligns with your team's needs, and key features essential for teams of your size.
Challenges without a CRM
If your 20-50 person advisory team doesn't have a centralized CRM in your tech stack, you're likely experiencing these challenges across your organization without fully realizing their impact.
- Team coordination breakdown: Tracking client interactions across multiple advisors becomes chaotic without a centralized system that provides team-wide visibility.
- Missed opportunities at scale: Lack of coordinated follow-ups and shared insights across your team leads to lost potential clients and revenue opportunities.
- Inefficient team processes: Manual processes across 20-50 team members consume significant collective time and exponentially increase the risk of errors and inconsistencies.
- Limited team insights: Without consolidated data analytics across your team, it's challenging to make informed decisions and identify performance trends at both individual and organizational levels.
- Inconsistent client communication: Maintaining uniform and timely communication standards across all team members and client relationships is nearly impossible without centralized automation and templates.
Benefits of a CRM for medium-sized teams
With the right CRM system designed for teams of 20-50 people, your advisory organization can expect significant benefits across these critical areas.
- Unified team dashboard: All client and advisor data is centralized in one platform, providing every team member with immediate access to complete client histories and current status.
- Enhanced team efficiency: Automate routine tasks across your entire organization, allowing all advisors to focus on high-value client relationships and strategic initiatives.
- Consistent client experience: Track interactions and standardize personalized communication across all team members, leading to higher client satisfaction and retention.
- Data-driven team decisions: Utilize comprehensive analytics to make informed business decisions and track both individual advisor performance and team-wide metrics.
- Scalable revenue growth: Efficiently manage leads and coordinate follow-ups across your entire team to dramatically boost conversion rates and revenue per advisor.
- Standardized communication protocols: Ensure uniform and timely communication across all client relationships through automated workflows and approved templates.
Key features of a CRM for advisory teams
For medium-sized advisory teams of 20-50 people, these essential CRM features will maximize your team's effectiveness and coordination.
- Team automation Streamlines tasks by automating repetitive workflows across all team members while maintaining consistency.
- Contact enrichment: Automatically discovers client email addresses and contact information for leads, investors, customers, and investment opportunities, enhancing team-wide efficiency.
- Multi-user pipeline management: Tracks leads, investors, customers, and investment opportunities through defined stages with clear ownership and handoff processes between team members.
- Collaborative email sequences: Increases team communication efficiency with shared follow-up templates and automated sequences that maintain brand consistency.
- LinkedIn integration: Enables seamless import of leads, investors, customers, and investment opportunities from LinkedIn across all team members while tracking conversations within the centralized CRM.
- Team analytics and reporting: Provides essential data analysis and predictive insights for both individual performance tracking and team-wide planning.
How to evaluate and choose a CRM platform for your team
With numerous CRM options available, selecting the right platform for your 20-50 person advisory team requires careful consideration. Below are the key steps your team should follow when creating your shortlist.
1. Define your team requirements
Before exploring CRM options, it's crucial to identify the key features that will benefit your 20-50 person financial advisory team the most. Look for functionalities like multi-user client management, collaborative workflows, team analytics, secure document sharing, and role-based permissions. The best CRM for advisory teams of your size should also offer robust integration capabilities with other financial tools your organization uses, ensuring seamless collaboration across your entire team.
2. Budget considerations for growing teams
Your budget planning becomes more complex with 20-50 users, making cost-per-user and scalability critical factors in your selection process. While it's tempting to choose the least expensive option, it's essential to balance cost with the return on investment across your entire team. Consider the long-term benefits of improved client relationships, enhanced team productivity, and potential revenue growth multiplied across your organization. Investing in the right platform upfront can lead to significant per-advisor savings and revenue gains as your team grows.
3. Team-focused selection process
Choosing the right vendor for a medium-sized team requires thorough research and stakeholder input. Start by reading reviews and testimonials from other financial advisory teams of similar size. Look for vendors with a proven track record supporting organizations with 20-50 users in the financial advisory sector. Request demos that showcase multi-user scenarios and ask for case studies demonstrating how their CRM solutions have benefited similar-sized firms. Include key team members in vendor discussions to address specific departmental needs.
4. Get a comprehensive team demo
Once you've shortlisted a few CRM platforms, take advantage of extended trials that allow your entire team to test functionality. Encourage representatives from different roles within your 20-50 person organization to test each platform and provide detailed feedback. Compare the ease of use, collaborative features, user management capabilities, and customer support offered by each vendor. The best CRM for advisory teams of your size will be the one that aligns with your firm's collaborative needs, budget constraints, and growth trajectory. To get started, you can schedule a demo with folk and see how it specifically addresses the needs of medium-sized advisory teams.
👉🏼 Try folk now to never miss a follow-up across your advisory team
3 tips for implementing a CRM across your team
1. Migrate and organize existing team data
Transitioning your 20-50 person team to a new CRM involves carefully migrating all existing client data while maintaining data integrity across multiple user accounts. Most CRMs allow you to export your team's collective data as CSV files, which can then be systematically imported into your new system. Assign data champions within your team to clean and organize information before importing, ensuring user permissions and data ownership are properly configured for your team structure.
2. Design collaborative pipelines
Once your team data is imported, establish standardized pipelines that work across your entire 20-50 person organization. For advisory teams, this typically includes stages such as "Lead Captured," "Initial Team Assessment," "Advisor Assignment," "Client Consultation," "Proposal Development," "Team Review," "Negotiation," and "Client Onboarded." Design your pipeline to reflect your team's collaborative workflow, including clear handoff points between team members and approval processes that maintain quality control across your organization.
3. Execute comprehensive team onboarding
Successfully onboarding a 20-50 person team requires a structured training program that addresses different user roles and responsibilities. Conduct role-specific training sessions to ensure that each team member understands how to use the CRM's features relevant to their position, whether they're senior advisors, junior staff, or administrative personnel. Create internal champions who can provide ongoing support and establish clear protocols for data entry, client communication, and reporting standards. The more systematically your team adopts the CRM, the more effectively you'll manage client relationships and drive organizational productivity.
The 5 best CRMs for advisory teams of 20-50 people
1. folk
folk is a modern CRM platform specifically designed for growing teams, offering customizable pipelines, AI-driven tools, and seamless integrations that make it the ideal solution for advisory teams of 20-50 people managing complex client relationships and collaborative workflows.

Key features
- Contact enrichment: Automatically enriches contact details across your entire team by finding emails and LinkedIn URLs, enabling efficient outreach for all 20-50 team members without manual data entry or additional per-user costs for email services.
- LinkedIn integration: Seamlessly import contacts from LinkedIn across all team members, track conversations within folk's centralized system, and use shared templates for consistent, streamlined communication across your advisory team.
- Email integration: Full email sync with team-wide templates and tracking features, enabling your entire 20-50 person team to manage all communications directly from the centralized CRM platform.
- AI-powered team features: AI tools assist your entire team in managing contacts and relationships, automating routine tasks across all users, and suggesting coordinated actions to improve collective productivity.
- Extensive integrations: folk connects via its open API and native integrations (e.g., Kaspr, Allo for calling, Salesforge for LinkedIn/multichannel outreach, PandaDoc for contracts), and through Zapier and Make to 6,000+ other tools, allowing your 20-50 person team to centralize workflows and eliminate manual data entry across your organization.

Pros
- Perfect for growing teams: folk is specifically designed for teams of 20-50 people, with intuitive interface and quick onboarding that minimizes the learning curve across your entire advisory organization.
- Complete team solution: folk eliminates the need for multiple tools by allowing your team to import contacts from LinkedIn, automatically discover emails, coordinate outreach through customizable sequences, and track all interactions in unified pipelines, saving your organization significant time and money.
- Collaborative LinkedIn integration: Your entire team can seamlessly import contacts, track conversations within folk's centralized system, and use shared templates for consistent, professional communication across all client interactions.
- Team-wide customizability: Extensive custom fields, collaborative pipelines, and shared workflows that scale perfectly for medium-sized advisory teams.
- Scalable integrations: With over 6,000 app integrations, folk grows with your team, centralizing workflows and reducing manual work across your entire 20-50 person organization.
Cons
- Advanced reporting and analytics: Advanced reporting and analytics are available, including pipeline and deal stage analytics, forecasting with weighted probabilities, performance breakdowns by owner/channel/industry/region or any custom field, and revenue insights.
Price and plans
folk offers exceptional value for teams of 20-50 people with a 14-day free trial. The transparent monthly or annual subscription plans are cost-effective for growing advisory teams.
- Standard: $20 per user, per month (ideal for teams starting their CRM journey)
- Premium: $40 per user, per month (perfect for established 20-50 person teams)
- Custom: Starts from $60 per user, per month (enterprise features for larger operations)
2. HubSpot
HubSpot CRM is a comprehensive platform offering integrated tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, and operations, though it can become expensive and complex for medium-sized advisory teams.

Key features
- Marketing Hub: Includes email marketing, ad tracking, landing pages, and lead generation tools, though these features require significant setup for advisory teams.
- Sales Hub: Provides deal tracking, pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting, with basic functionality in lower tiers.
- Service Hub: Offers customer service tools like ticketing, live chat, and knowledge bases, though primarily designed for larger enterprises.
- Lead scoring: Prioritizes leads with predictive scoring, but advanced features are limited in affordable plans.
- Operations Hub: Syncs and automates business processes, though setup complexity can be challenging for medium-sized teams.

Pros
- User-friendly interface: HubSpot offers an intuitive interface, though it becomes complex as team size grows.
- Free plan available: Offers a basic free version, but with significant limitations for teams of 20-50 people.
- Marketing integration: Strong marketing tools integration, though this adds complexity for advisory-focused teams.
- Automation capabilities: Provides automation tools, but advanced features require expensive upgrades.
- Reporting features: Customizable reports available, but comprehensive analytics require higher-tier plans.
Cons
- Expensive for teams: HubSpot's pricing becomes prohibitively expensive for 20-50 person teams, often costing $9,000-22,500+ annually for Professional tier.
- Limited free plan functionality: The free plan lacks essential features needed by medium-sized advisory teams, forcing expensive upgrades.
- Over-complex for advisors: Many features are designed for general sales/marketing teams rather than the specific needs of financial advisors.
- Steep learning curve: Advanced features require extensive training across your team, increasing implementation time and costs.
- Hidden costs: Many essential features come as expensive add-ons, significantly increasing total cost of ownership for growing teams.
Price and plans
HubSpot's pricing can be challenging for 20-50 person teams, with annual subscription costs adding up quickly.
- Starter: $15 per user, per month ($3,600-7,200 annually for teams).
- Professional: $450 per user, per month ($108,000-216,000 annually for teams).
- Enterprise: $1,500 per user, per month ($360,000-720,000 annually for teams).
3. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a web-based CRM focused on pipeline management, offering lead management, automation, and email integration, though it lacks some advanced features needed by larger advisory teams.

Key features
- Lead and deal management: Basic tools for managing leads, investors, and customer data, though team collaboration features are limited.
- Sales automation: Some automation for repetitive tasks, but lacks the sophisticated workflows needed for larger advisory teams.
- Email integration: Email sync and templates available, but advanced email marketing requires third-party integrations.
- Reporting and analytics: Standard reporting tools, though advanced analytics require expensive upgrades.
- Basic customization: Some pipeline and field customization, but less flexible than solutions designed for larger teams.

Pros
- Simple interface: Easy to navigate for basic pipeline management, though limited for complex team workflows.
- Pipeline visualization: Clear visual approach to deal tracking, but lacks team collaboration features.
- Some customization: Basic customization available, but insufficient for medium-sized team needs.
- Automation tools: Basic automation features, though not as comprehensive as specialized team solutions.
- Standard reporting: Adequate reporting for small teams, but limited insights for larger organizations.
Cons
- Limited team collaboration: Lacks advanced features needed for coordinating work across 20-50 person advisory teams.
- Basic reporting in lower tiers: Team-level analytics and performance tracking require expensive upgrades.
- No built-in email marketing: Requires additional tools for comprehensive email marketing, increasing costs and complexity.
- Limited support availability: Customer support hours may not meet the needs of growing advisory teams.
- Costs escalate quickly: Adding features for team collaboration and advanced reporting significantly increases per-user costs.
Price and plans
Pipedrive's pricing can add up for teams of 20-50 users, especially when advanced features are needed.
- Essential plan: Starts from $24 per user, per month ($5,760-14,400 annually for teams).
- Advanced plan: Starts from $44 per user, per month ($10,560-26,400 annually for teams).
- Power plan: Starts from $79 per user, per month ($18,960-47,400 annually for teams).
- Enterprise plan: Starts from $129 per user, per month ($30,960-77,400 annually for teams).
3. Zoho
Zoho is a comprehensive CRM system with sales focus, offering journey orchestration, sales process management and workflow automation, though it can be complex to set up and manage for medium-sized teams.

Key features
- Lead and contact management: Manages leads, investors, customers, and investment opportunities, but requires extensive setup for team environments.
- Customizable dashboards: Allows creation of custom dashboards and reports, though complexity increases significantly for larger teams.
- Sales pipeline management: Visual pipeline management with drag-and-drop functionality, but lacks intuitive team collaboration features.
- Multi-channel communication: Integrates with email, phone, social media, and live chat, though setup can be challenging across multiple users.
- Workflow automation: Automates routine tasks and processes, but requires technical expertise to configure for team use.

Pros
- Competitive pricing: Reasonable per-user costs make it accessible for medium-sized teams, though hidden costs emerge with advanced features.
- Extensive customization: Many customization options available, but requires significant time investment to configure properly.
- Zoho ecosystem integration: Works well with other Zoho products, but creates vendor lock-in that may limit flexibility.
- Multi-channel support: Supports various communication channels, though setup complexity increases with team size.
- Mobile accessibility: Offers mobile app functionality, but performance can be inconsistent across different devices.
Cons
- Steep learning curve for teams: Complex setup and customization options require significant training time across 20-50 users, increasing implementation costs.
- Complex team setup: Initial configuration for medium-sized teams requires technical expertise that most advisory firms lack internally.
- Performance issues at scale: Reports of slow performance with larger datasets and multiple concurrent users can impact team productivity.
- Limited third-party integrations: While Zoho products integrate well together, connecting with external tools used by advisory teams can be difficult.
- Data migration complexity: Moving existing team data to Zoho can be time-consuming and often requires manual adjustments across multiple user accounts.
Price and plans
Zoho offers competitive pricing for teams, though costs increase with necessary add-ons and advanced features.
- Standard: $20 per user, per month ($4,800-12,000 annually for teams)
- Professional: $35 per user, per month ($8,400-21,000 annually for teams)
- Enterprise: $50 per user, per month ($12,000-30,000 annually for teams)
4. Capsule CRM
Capsule CRM is a straightforward customer relationship management platform designed for small and medium-sized businesses, though it lacks some advanced features needed by larger advisory teams of 20-50 people.

Key features
- 1 sales pipeline: Basic pipeline management for leads and investment opportunities, but limited for complex team workflows.
- 30,000 contacts: Adequate contact storage for most teams, though organization becomes challenging without advanced segmentation.
- Activity reporting: Basic tracking of interactions and follow-ups, but lacks comprehensive team analytics.
- Key integrations: Connects with essential tools like Mailchimp and QuickBooks, but integration library is limited.
- Basic automation: Some workflow automation available, but insufficient for complex team coordination needs.

Pros
- Simple interface: Easy navigation for basic use, though simplicity becomes limiting for team collaboration.
- Contact management: Straightforward client information organization, but lacks advanced team sharing features.
- Basic customization: Some customization available, but insufficient for complex advisory team needs.
- Essential integrations: Connects with core business tools, though integration options are limited compared to specialized team solutions.
- Competitive pricing: Reasonable costs for basic functionality, but advanced features require expensive upgrades.
Cons
- Limited team collaboration: Lacks advanced features needed for coordinating work across 20-50 person advisory teams.
- Basic analytics: Insufficient reporting and analytics capabilities for medium-sized team performance tracking.
- Limited email marketing: Basic email features require third-party tools for comprehensive marketing campaigns.
- Minimal customer support: Email-only support may not meet the immediate assistance needs of growing teams.
- Scalability limitations: Not designed for rapidly growing teams with complex CRM requirements and collaborative workflows.
Price and plans
- Starter plan: Starts from $21 per user, per month ($5,040-12,600 annually for teams).
- Growth plan: Starts from $38 per user, per month ($9,120-22,800 annually for teams).
- Advanced plan: Starts from $60 per user, per month ($14,400-36,000 annually for teams).
- Ultimate plan: Starts from $75 per user, per month ($18,000-45,000 annually for teams).
Conclusion
Choosing the best CRM for your 20-50 person financial advisory team can significantly enhance organizational productivity, streamline collaborative operations, and improve client relationships across your entire organization. Among the CRMs discussed—folk, Hubspot, Pipedrive, Zoho, and Capsule—folk CRM stands out as the clear winner for advisory teams of your size. folk CRM combines intuitive design, comprehensive team features, and cost-effective pricing that scales perfectly with 20-50 person organizations. Whether you prioritize seamless team collaboration, automated workflows, or extensive integration capabilities, folk CRM delivers the complete solution your advisory team needs. Remember, the right CRM will not only support your current team processes but also scale efficiently as your firm continues to grow. To see how folk CRM can transform your team's productivity and client management, try it for free here.
Need a helping hand? Use our free tool to find your perfect CRM match.
FAQ
What features should advisory teams prioritize in a CRM?
Prioritize multi-user pipelines, role-based permissions, shared email templates, LinkedIn/contact enrichment, automated follow-ups, team analytics, secure document storage, and integrations for email, calendar, e-signature, and billing.
How much does a CRM cost for 20–50 users?
Plan for $400–$6,000+ per month depending on users, features, and tiers. Value options run $20–$40 per user/month; suites with advanced hubs can be far higher once automation, reporting, and support add-ons are included.
How do advisory teams choose the right CRM?
Define requirements, involve stakeholders, shortlist 3–5 tools, request demos with multi-user scenarios, test with a pilot group, score usability, collaboration, analytics, security, and TCO, then negotiate terms and onboarding services.
Is folk CRM a good fit for 20–50 person advisory teams?
Yes. Designed for growing teams, folk offers shared pipelines, LinkedIn import, contact enrichment, team email templates, automation, and analytics, making it a strong fit for advisory firms with 20–50 users.
Discover folk CRM
Like the sales assistant your team never had
