A real CRM vs. a spreadsheet for outreach

A real CRM vs. a spreadsheet for outreach
Everyone says: "Graduate from the spreadsheet to a proper CRM the moment you get serious."
Myth. For most solo and small-team outreach, the CRM is heavier than the work it manages — you spend more time maintaining stages and custom fields than talking to creators. A spreadsheet with a next-touch column and a status flag handles a few hundred conversations fine and never logs you out. You graduate to a CRM when handoffs between people break, not when volume grows. It's not maturity, it's coordination overhead — buy it only when you have the overhead.