CRM specialist career guide: Everything you need to succeed at an SMB

A CRM specialist is responsible for overseeing one of a company's most valuable tools.

It’s a particularly important role in an SMB, where a lack of resources and ownership often means these specialists are responsible for the entire CRM strategy.

In this article, you’ll learn what a CRM specialist does and the skills you should hone. You’ll also learn how to fast-track career growth, whether you’re breaking into the field or advancing your position.

Key takeaways for CRM specialists

• A CRM specialist oversees a company’s sales infrastructure by configuring CRM systems, training users and turning raw data into actionable insights.

• Essential skills for the role include technical proficiency, data analytics and problem-solving.

• CRM specialists can grow their careers by obtaining credentials, attending conferences and specializing in specific industries or CRM platforms

• Pipedrive’s user-friendly platform and extensive Academy resources make it an excellent choice for specialization. Try it free for 14 days.

What is a CRM specialist?

A CRM specialist is responsible for the adoption, management and evolution of a company's customer relationship management (CRM) software.

They keep the underlying technology and processes running smoothly so sales, marketing and customer success teams can nurture leads, retain clients and increase customer satisfaction.

Take data quality, for example. Almost half (44%) of CRM users say their company loses more than 10% in annual revenue because of low-quality CRM data. For an SMB, that level of loss is unsustainable.

It’s why a CRM specialist is necessary to establish practices that keep data accurate and consistent.

The thousands of CRM specialist positions listed on Indeed and other job sites, with various job titles and job descriptions, show that experts are in demand across industries – from e-commerce to finance to healthcare.

You can specialize in a particular sector, type of business, CRM software or a combination of the three. For example, some CRM specialists focus on SaaS companies and choose to work primarily with tools like Pipedrive.

Due to its intuitive design and outcome-focused features, Pipedrive is particularly well-suited for CRM specialists working in small and growing teams, where ease of use and quick adoption are crucial.

CRM specialists can work in-house at startups, small businesses, larger enterprises or as part of a CRM agency. In most cases, the role is full-time.

Working in an SMB often means gaining hands-on experience earlier in your career. You’ll typically have more ownership over the system and greater influence over how it’s used on a day-to-day basis.

Regardless of your workplace, the day-to-day role and responsibilities will be similar. You’ll learn about them next.

What does a CRM specialist’s career path look like?

If you want to set career goals, it helps to know what career progression looks like.

Here are the typical positions you’ll hold in an SMB:

Not every CRM specialist is concerned with climbing the career ladder. Many find fulfilling and well-paid careers as recognized experts or CRM consultants.

For those with aspirations of the C-suite, however, it’s possible to become a chief customer officer, overseeing all customer-facing operations.

You’ll be responsible for the entire customer lifecycle, from onboarding through to customer support and gathering customer feedback. Responsibilities will include designing the customer experience, developing retention strategies and coordinating with other department heads.

Whatever path you choose, building the proper skill set will be essential to long-term success.

5 key skills every CRM specialist needs to develop

The most successful CRM specialists are versatile employees who focus on making an impact, not just maintaining systems.

They have the knowledge to fix technical issues, the confidence to communicate with the sales team and the business intelligence to tailor the CRM to the business’s needs.

Here are the top skills that make this possible.

CRM proficiency

CRM specialists need a working knowledge of one or more CRM tools.

Knowing how to create a deal or change its stage is a start. It’s even better if you’re familiar with:

• Permission settings to prevent junior employees from meddling with pipeline settings

• Integration capabilities to extend the CRM’s potential

• Data security infrastructure to keep customer data secure

• Analysis and report building to create strategic reports

Ideally, you should know as much as anyone about your company’s CRM. If not more. You’ll be able to configure the system properly, train users effectively and troubleshoot issues.

Hands-on experience will also help you set up advanced workflows, such as automatic lead scoring and routing, event-triggered automations and multi-system integrations.

Analytical skills

CRM specialists must be comfortable breaking down complex systems into smaller, more manageable parts.

Your analytical capabilities will be the difference between being someone who simply maintains a CRM and someone who can strategically optimize it.

For example, an analytical CRM specialist will be able to look at a pipeline, pinpoint a bottleneck and suggest a new workflow that gets deals moving.

It helps if you’re good with numbers, so you can analyze lead source reports and quickly calculate which ones drive the highest ROI.

Having a CRM with strong reporting capabilities helps. Pipedrive’s reporting tools are completely customizable, allowing you to track the metrics most relevant to your organization’s objectives.

The CRM’s integrations let you pull in data from other business applications, like lead generation tools, project management software and email marketing platforms.

You can even import external sales data from Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets.

Problem-solving abilities

Solving problems is a large part of a CRM specialist’s job, whether it’s a workflow trigger misfiring or a sales manager complaining about the time their team spends on manual tasks.

You’ll need to identify issues, analyze causes, brainstorm solutions and implement your suggestions.

There are several ways a CRM specialist could reduce the time sales reps spend on admin. The key is asking the right questions and actively listening to diagnose the real issue.

That way, you won’t suggest the team adopt an AI email writer to save time when data entry is the real problem. Instead, you’ll suggest chatbot software that automatically collects and enters lead information.

Communication skills

CRM specialists need to be strong communicators, able to effectively communicate with sales teams to understand their goals and translate their requests into pipeline improvements.

Conversely, you also need to explain how a complicated piece of software works to non-technical team members and why it might not always do what they want.

Excellent communication skills will help you drive adoption through engaging training sessions and unlock CRM success. It will ensure that every employee understands how the system works and how to maximize its value.

Organizational skills

CRM implementations, migrations and system upgrades are massive undertakings that require exceptional organizational and project management skills to keep on track.

As a CRM specialist, you’ll need to handle these undertakings without letting your day-to-day responsibilities slip. That requires you to:

• Plan projects by defining scopes, creating schedules and allocating resources

• Manage risks by identifying, assessing and mitigating potential problems

• Track time, both your team’s and your own

• Prioritize tasks to meet deadlines

• Oversee budgets and track costs

A CRM with built-in project management tools, such as Pipedrive, can be helpful. You won’t have to leave your preferred tool to manage initiatives.

Projects by Pipedrive lets you manage tasks and projects directly inside the CRM. Here’s what it looks like:

You can map out even the most complex projects into a familiar kanban board view, create to-do lists, add subtasks and track projects with labels.

If you think you have the skills to become a CRM specialist, you’ll want to learn how to enter the industry.

How to get started as a CRM specialist

Starting a CRM career doesn’t require a computer science degree, expensive certifications or years of experience. There are fewer barriers to entry than in other tech roles and you can learn a lot by taking action.

Here’s how to start building hands-on experience:

• Sign up for a free trial. Get hands-on immediately with a free trial of CRM software. With Pipedrive’s 14-day free trial, you can get familiar with how CRMs work by building a dummy pipeline.

• Complete a free course. Start developing your skills by enrolling in a free course. Pipedrive has several entry-level courses – like Getting started with Pipedrive – that help you learn the basics at no cost.

• Consume industry content. Continue your education by reading blog posts from marketing specialist publications or CRM systems. Follow leading sales and revenue operations (RevOps) influencers on LinkedIn.

• Get relevant experience. If you already work with a company that uses a CRM, see if you can spend time helping the team responsible for CRM strategy. Look for internship opportunities or ask local CRM implementation agencies if they offer work experience.

• Find CRM specialist jobs. Once you’re ready to apply, review and update your resume to reflect your new skills and experience. Find CRM job opportunities on platforms like Indeed and LinkedIn.

Once you land your first role in a small or growing business, a clear plan can help you earn trust quickly and make your impact visible from the start.

30-60-90 day plan for a new CRM specialist

These plans work best when you tailor them to your role, team and goals. Use the framework below as a starting point.

Once you’re established in the role, the next step is to deepen your skills and take on more strategic ownership.

How to grow as a CRM specialist

CRM specialists can pull various levers to accelerate career progression – from acquiring new skills to specializing in specific platforms.

Here are some practical ways to grow your career.

Attend conferences and networking events

Meeting your peers at conferences and networking events is one of the most effective ways to learn new strategies and stay current with the latest trends.

Conferences are where you hear about new features, meet other people facing similar challenges and learn ideas that save weeks of work.

You also build your professional network, which becomes increasingly valuable as you advance.

Look for CRM conferences with hands-on workshops and dedicated networking opportunities. Here are some of the top ones:

• Gartner CSO & Sales Leader Conference

• CX USA Exchange

• CRMC

• Tableau Conference

• Crawford Technologies Industry Summit

Try to attend at least one conference per year. Many employers will sponsor attendance if you can make a compelling business case, which should be relatively easy, given your area of expertise.

Take courses and certifications

CRM software evolves rapidly, so ongoing learning is essential to stay effective in the role.

Continue taking courses and earning certifications throughout your career to stay up-to-date and advance your skills.

The best place to start is your CRM vendor. They typically release new courses or training modules alongside product updates, making it easier to stay current as features and best practices change.

Once you’ve completed the core CRM courses, consider expanding into adjacent areas that can strengthen your impact. Useful topics include:

• Statistics and data analytics

• Computer programming

• RevOps

When work gets busy, training is often the first thing to fall by the wayside. To avoid that, set a simple cadence – for example, committing to one course every quarter or once a year – and treat it as part of your role, not an optional extra.

Learn AI and workflow automation

AI and automation are becoming a core part of modern CRM work. In small and growing teams, they’re often the fastest way to reduce manual work and help sales reps focus on higher-value tasks.

When you automate routine tasks, such as updating deal stages, assigning leads or triggering follow-ups, sales reps get to spend more time speaking to prospects.

AI CRM tools can help teams prioritize deals, draft messages faster and surface insights without requiring advanced technical skills.

Start by getting familiar with your existing CRM’s workflow automation capabilities. Look for repetitive tasks the team performs every day and test simple automations that remove friction rather than add complexity.

In Pipedrive, for example, you can use pre-built workflow automations or create your own by defining trigger events and actions.

That might mean automatically moving deals forward when a task is completed or notifying reps when a deal needs attention.

As you gain confidence, explore your CRM’s AI tools or assess new systems with built-in artificial intelligence if your current system doesn’t offer any.

Pipedrive has various AI features that CRM specialists can turn on or off in the CRM’s settings. Used effectively, these tools help small teams move faster without overwhelming users or creating additional administrative work.

For example, the AI-powered Sales Assistant gives sales reps recommendations on which deals to prioritize and whom to follow up with. It makes them more efficient and increases the chances of closing deals.

Enabling Pipedrive’s AI email writer is a great way to save time. It automatically generates a personalized sales email from a simple prompt using customer information in your CRM.

Pipedrive in action: Full-service digital agency Spark Interact has used Pipedrive’s AI and automation tools to grow annual revenue by 12% year-on-year without increasing the team’s workload.

In particular, the AI-powered Sales Assistant feature helps reps prioritize conversations and take the most useful follow-up actions.“It keeps the team sharply focused and gives reps a motivational nudge,” says Marketing Technology Specialist Mackey Kandarajah.

Run regular training sessions

In small teams, CRM training doesn’t need to be formal or time-consuming to be effective. Short, focused sessions can prevent recurring issues and reduce the number of ad-hoc questions you need to handle.

Regular training is also a chance to improve your presenting and communication skills, which may help you secure a more senior position in the future.

To make training sessions more effective in an SMB:

• Make the training scenario-based so that it’s more memorable for sales reps

• Record training videos so employees can rewatch them in their own time

• Keep sessions short to ensure you hold their attention

• Track adoption rates to see if sales reps actually use the features you discuss

Make training a habit by blocking time off in everyone’s diaries once a month. It should be optional, but you can incentivize attendance with a free lunch or a similar benefit.

Consider platform or industry specialization

Specializing in a specific CRM platform or industry can help you progress faster, especially in smaller organizations where deep expertise has more value than general knowledge.

By focusing on one platform, you learn how to get the most out of its features, integrations and workflows. That depth makes it easier to solve problems quickly and deliver measurable improvements.

Specialization is beneficial if you’re considering freelance or consulting work, as it can lead to:

• Higher rates

• More interesting work

• An easier sell to new clients

• The chance to build a stronger network

For CRM specialists working with small and mid-sized businesses, Pipedrive is a strong option. It’s simple enough to manage independently, but flexible enough to support advanced automations, reporting and integrations as the company grows.

Many CRMs, including Pipedrive, also offer partner programs that support specialists through training, resources and visibility:

Pipedrive offers partners a range of benefits designed to support their success, including dedicated support, networking opportunities and a directory listing.

CRM specialist FAQs

Final thoughts

Learning how to use a CRM is just one part of becoming a CRM specialist. In smaller teams, if you develop the right skills, gain certifications and focus on real business outcomes, you can expect to have a long and successful career.

It all starts with hands-on experience. If you want to become proficient in one of the most popular CRMs, sign up for Pipedrive’s 14-day free trial. Explore the platform without limits and decide whether you want to specialize in the software.