Ep. 29 | Thinking About Ditching Your CRM for Airtable or Notion? Don’t Hit Cancel Yet

If you’ve been frustrated with rising CRM costs, overwhelmed by complicated platforms, or tempted to replace your CRM with Airtable or Notion, this episode is for you.

I’m walking through all the thoughts running through your mind right now — the overwhelm, the fear of starting over, and the struggle of trying to DIY your systems. As a client experience systems strategist and HoneyBook educator, I’ll help you understand why a CRM is still one of the most important tools for service providers in 2025 and 2026, what it should actually do for your business, and how to decide if switching tools is the right move.

What We Cover in This Episode

• Why rising CRM costs aren’t the only reason to cancel
• How much time and effort it takes to switch tools
• What a CRM should be doing for your business in 2025
• Why “duct-taping” multiple tools creates stress and errors
• When Airtable or Notion works — and when it doesn’t
• How to simplify your systems without losing functionality

What You’ll Walk Away With

• Clarity on whether a CRM is essential for your business today
• Confidence to make a smart choice about keeping, switching, or restructuring your system
• An understanding of the true value a CRM can bring to your clients and business
• Tips for streamlining your tech stack without sacrificing service

Resources Mentioned

• HoneyBook Beginner Tutorial (YouTube) to see a CRM in action
• Episode 28: How to Run a Quarterly Systems Audit
• Save 30% on Your HoneyBook Subscription

Need support on making this happen?
Head over to YourSystemsPro.com to book a sales call, and let’s talk through your unique business needs. Together, we’ll uncover where your systems need support and map out your next best steps to streamline, simplify, and scale with ease. 

🎙️ABOUT THE HOST

Hi, I'm Kenniqua Lewter, Client Experience Systems Strategist, HoneyBook Educator, and the host of the Systems Rehab Podcast. I help service providers create client experience systems that save time, strengthen client relationships, and build a business that runs with ease. 

➡️WAYS WE CAN WORK TOGETHER

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Transcript

Kenniqua Lewter (00:00)
With the rising cost of software this year from email marketing platforms to CRMs like HoneyBook, Dipsado and others, you might be asking yourself, is my CRM even worth the monthly calls? Maybe you're thinking I'm not even using all of these features. So why am I even paying for this? Or maybe it just feels over complicated, overwhelming, trying to get it set up for your service based business.

And now you might even be thinking about counseling your CRM all together and managing clients using other tools like Airtable or even Notion because you've seen people talking about this on threads.

I'm Konequia, I'm a client experience system strategist and a HoneyBook educator, and I've helped dozens of service providers in various industries streamline and automate their business so they can manage clients with ease using CRMs. And in today's episode, I want to share my perspective as your systems friend on why a CRM is still worth it for service providers, what it should actually be doing for your business.

and what to consider before making a switch are trying to DIY your systems with multiple tools. This year, I've seen service providers making big changes, switching from Zoom to Google Meet, moving email platforms from KIT to maybe Flowdust, literally re-evaluating everything that they're using in their business.

And while reevaluating your tech stack, that is very smart. It's something that I actually talk about a lot in episode 28, where I go over how to run a quarterly systems audit. One key part of the audit is reviewing the tools you're using, making sure that you're actually getting the most out of the tech that you already have. But here's the thing, when we evaluate our tech,

It's really important to do it from a lens that isn't just about calls. Rising software calls are normal and they're a part of doing business. And sometimes those calls increases, they feel sudden and we don't always get enough time to adjust. But cost is one of those realities that we just have to learn how to navigate. However,

The alone shouldn't be the only reason you decide to cancel or switch your CRM. A CRM when it's set up correctly should actually be able to save you time, keep your business organized, and help you serve your clients at a higher level.

So I remember when I first started my business, this was about seven, eight years ago, and I was piecing everything together. I had a lot of different tools. I had Acuity for scheduling. I had Adobe for signing contracts, Google for taking client intakes, and Payment Processor. And it worked in the sense that I could technically book clients, but it was messy, like really messy.

And things were just falling through the cracks, communications, the forms, the contracts, because I had to jump between multiple tools to see if someone actually completed a step. I even tried to go through and automate things with Zapier, but it was still just chaotic and it was taking too much of my time.

So eventually I realized that it's just not going to work out like this anymore. And my clients, they were getting confused. They were asking for forms. They were asking for contracts again. And I was spending a lot of time and energy just trying to keep everything together.

That's when I started looking for a CRM, a single system that I could use to actually handle it all. And that's how I found HoneyBook. Now I want to be clear that this episode, isn't specifically about HoneyBook. It's about having a CRM system in general and why it actually matters for your service-based business. Whether you're using HoneyBook, Dubsado, Moxie, at this point, it's just about having one central system where everything lives.

Now, once I implemented a CRM in my business, this completely changed the way that I do business.

I could cancel a whole bunch of other tools. No more scheduler over here. No more Google forms for intakes, normal Adobe for contracts. In fact, consolidating everything actually saved me money because I wasn't paying for multiple tools and I wasn't trying to go through and duct tape everything together. So I could manage client communications, proposals, contracts, invoices and payments.

All in one place. Nothing was falling through the cracks anymore. And my clients, they had a seamless experience. So for service providers that are running a one-on-one client work, a CRM is often one of the most important pieces of tech you can have. And personally, I like to keep my tech stack lean, but a CRM is one of those non-negotiables for me because it's the backbone of how I go through and I run my business efficiently and professionally.

Okay, so let's talk about a CRM and what it should actually be doing for your business. At its core, it's an all-in-one hub where you can go through and manage your clients from the inquiry stage to the off-boarding stage. This is going to include invoicing and payments, getting paid effortlessly with custom invoices, flexible payment plans, and there's going to be automatic payment reminders so you never have to chase another client again.

A CRM also handles your lead capture, so you never lose a potential client. You get automated form feeds directly into your system, letting you track the inquiries. You can track follow-ups and bookings all in one dashboard. And you can also go through and you can set up automated workflows for your onboarding, for your project management and follow-ups, emails, invoices, contracts, and reminders.

Those can all be done automatically through your CRM. And this is going to save you a lot of time and it's going to help you to create a seamless client experience for your clients. And with most CRMs, you can also create branded proposals and contracts. So you can combine service agreements, services, invoices, all in one interactive place.

And then with the scheduler, you can sync that with your calendar, letting clients book calls without all of the back and forth emails, because I dislike that highly. So this is going to be perfect for when you're doing your discovery calls, sales calls, coaching calls. And then the app integrations in your CRM let you go through and connect the tools that you're already using. So if you're using something like Google Calendar, Google for your emails, QuickBooks, Zoom,

You can even connect your third party Zapier and more and everything syncs together so you can track your meetings, manager finances and automate communication all from just that one place, saving you hours of manual work every single week. In fact, HoneyBook recently conducted a time and task study where their members reported saving on average 20 hours per week utilized in their platform.

I think that's incredible. And I personally do vouch for this because that has been my experience from my business, but also with my clients as well. I recently worked with a event decorator who was spending hours mainly creating custom proposals and emails. They were getting lost in the back and forth threads, but after, and her clients were getting very confused. And after we fully went through and we set up her HoneyBook account,

She's now able to go through, amongst other things, able to go through and craft her proposals, including her services, her contracts, and her invoices all inside of HoneyBook and having that sent to those clients in less than 15 minutes. So if you're not doing half of this inside of your CRM, then you're probably not using it to its full potential. And that's okay because most service providers, they don't know everything that their CRM could do. That's why it's my job.

as the system strategist to help you navigate the tech and utilize the features that work best for your business, the way that you work, and how you actually want to go through and serve your clients. But before you consider canceling or switching your CRM due to cost, I want you to pause really quickly and I really want you to evaluate the situation. There are a few things to consider first.

So you can make a decision that actually supports your business, your time, and your client experience.

Okay, so first I want you to think about the time you're invested time. How long did it take you to set up your current system? And if you were to start over somewhere else, how much time will it take for you to rebuild everything from scratch? Let's think about that. Next, think about the learning a new tool. Every system has a learning curve, even if it's a free or it's cheaper.

Are you ready to go through and invest that time again?

Then there's your tech savvy level. Not everyone enjoys building custom systems or maintaining them over time. Most of the service providers that I work with would rather be focusing on what they actually love doing than trying to go through and trying to tackle the tech. That's just the reality of it.

Also, I want you to think about the features that you may use, especially if you're going through and you're replacing your CRM with free tools or a mix of tools from other platforms. This is where things can start slipping through the cracks because now you're duct taping a scheduler here, invoices there, contracts somewhere else, and communication is all over the place. And if something were to break, you're the one that's spending hours figuring out what happened.

And then finally, the client experience. Your client shouldn't have to feel that they're being bounced around between different tools. Multiple emails from different platforms, or having to log into one system for forms, another one for payments, and yet just having the communication that is very confusing and everything is just everywhere.

Even if your clients are excited to work with you and they trust you, all of the friction can actually lower their client experience. And having a smooth centralized CRM keeps everything simple. It keeps it clear. So your clients that they feel supported, they feel guided, they feel confident that they actually chose to work with the right service provider.

All right, so now let's talk about the elephant in the room. Okay, using another tool like Airtable as your CRM. Okay, so Airtable has definitely been trending this year, especially on threads. You guys know I love threads. And with a lot of people saying that they're gonna ditch their CRM systems and just use Airtable to go through and manage it all. But here's the thing,

there are definitely good cases for using Airtable. Like I personally use Airtable myself. I have Airtable for my content management. I even have it as a client hub inside my Airtable where I use in conjunction with HoneyBook to enhance the client experience and I'll show you how I do this in a separate podcast episode or on YouTube. So I definitely will be showing you the behind the scenes of how I do this.

But Airtable is an amazing piece of software. I absolutely love it. Airtable is great for managing and tracking finances. You can track tickets, you can do and run your group programs and your memberships and things like that, like the customer service of it all Those things are wonderful inside of Airtable. And the list goes on because Airtable, you can build it out to be...

Almost anything right? if you're a coach you're a consultant and you have a membership or you have and you're working with groups Then in those cases

You may be okay with using Airtable as your full CRM because the processes, they are simpler. You don't have all the moving parts as you do with one-on-one client work. But if you are a service provider, okay, that's working one-on-one with your clients, Airtable alone isn't going to cover all of your needs. You'll end up duct taping things together. Your scheduler,

your payment tools, your contracts, your communication. And the more that you duct tape things together, the higher the chances that things are going to slip through the cracks. If you don't remember anything else about this episode, I want you to remember this. The simplest system is always the easiest system to maintain. I'm going to say that again. The simplest system is always the easiest system.

to maintain. Overcomplicating it with multiple tools increases the chances of stress, error, and having a whole bunch of additional admin work. So before you jump ship on your CRM, I want you to think about whether or not switching to something like Airtable or Notion as your CRM, will it truly support your business or are you just going through and complicating things and jumping ship because of the rising cost?

of an actual CRM system. All right, so after this, I hope that this conversation, you got a little bit of clarity of my intake as systems friend of what I think in my perspective of whether or not you should jump ship on altogether on your CRM or before you even decide to go through and switch your CRM. So if you're still on the fence,

about whether or not a CRM is right for your business. I want you to reach out to me. You, I want you to reach out to me. I want you to send me a message. You can send a text. If you're listening to the podcast, it's going to be in the show notes or you can also send me a message, a DM on threads or Instagram at kenniqua.lewter And I'll be happy to chat with you about your business, how you work and how you serve your clients and

share my feedback of what it is that you can use and do to be able to just manage your clients better. And if you wanna see our CRM in action, I've put together a full beginner friendly honeybook book tutorial on my YouTube channel. It's gonna show you step by step of how to use it. Again.

you do not have to go through and use HoneyBook. You can use other CRM systems if you find that those CRM systems will work best for your needs. But if you do want to see HoneyBook and you want to see it in action, you can go to the YouTube channel. And I do have a full video there as well as I will link all of this information, the show notes, along with a link to save 30 percent on your subscription. Now, over here.

At the systems rehab, we believe that strategy alone isn't enough. You have to implement to actually see results. So if you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and finally start using HoneyBook to its fullest potential and you want someone to strategically set this up for your business, mapping the client journey from your inquiry to your off boarding and streamlining every touch point and creating a client experience that is unique for you and for your clients.

head on over to yoursystemspro.com and book a call with me. Again, that's gonna be yoursystemspro.com and go ahead and book a call with me because we can get this set up for you in as little as four weeks. Thanks so much for tuning into this week's episode. Please be sure to share this with three of your business besties that would be greatly appreciated. And I will see you in the next episode.