it costs businesses $1.13 to earn $1 from a new customer. I'm no mathematician (I barely passed calculus in college), but I'm industry leads pretty sure $1.13 is greater than $1.00. The average business spends more than it earns on customer acquisition. How can you reduce this cost? Well, customer acquisition falls under marketing and sales. Your customer relationship manager (CRM) is the central database of customer and prospect information needed to industry leads close the sale and retain your customers . CRM software is everywhere - and everyone says you "should" use it. But what does it actually bring you? How can you use your CRM to get more customers (in less time)? Marketing and sales depend on CRM to add customers. How to optimize your CRM? 66% of companies derive little or no benefit from their CRM information! It's hard to close sales industry leads when you don't know who you're selling to. It's also hard to keep customers when you can't remember who they are. In this article, we'll cover 9 best practices for optimizing your CRM.