Yes.
You need a simple CRM — but not for "sales." You need a memory system for a long government deal cycle you're running alone.
What's really going on
Fed and public sector deals move in months and quarters, not weeks. One missed follow-up with a contracting officer or program lead can cost you a cycle. You're the whole company — the context lives in your head, and heads leak. The problem isn't "sales process." It's that nobody is reminding you to call Karen back on the 14th, and nothing is holding what Karen said last time.
What to do instead
- Pipedrive (~$14-15/user/mo — check current pricing) — one pipeline with stages that match federal reality (Identified → RFI → RFP → Proposal → Award). Use the Activities feature so every contact has a next step with a date, or it screams at you.
- HubSpot Free CRM (free) — if you want to spend $0 and you live in Gmail/Outlook, the email integration auto-logs threads and attaches notes to each contact. Enough for one person.
- Today, in 30 minutes: open whichever one you pick, create a contact for every person you've spoken to in the last 90 days, and set one "next touch" date on each. Nothing else. Just that.
What you're being oversold
Someone will pitch you Salesforce Government Cloud, GovWin, or an Apollo/ZoomInfo seat. Wrong stage. Those are for teams of 20+ running outbound at volume, not a solo president nurturing a handful of agency relationships. You'll pay four figures a month to feel professional and still forget to call Karen. Doing nothing costs you deals you've already half-won — in B2G, the follow-up IS the sale.
When to revisit this
When you hire a second BD person or a capture manager — then you need shared pipeline visibility, not just personal memory.
The part worth getting right
The real fork is whether your work is relationship-led or capture-led. If it's relationship-led — same 40-80 agency contacts, nurtured for years — a light CRM with great notes and reminders is the whole answer, and Pipedrive or HubSpot free will carry you for years. If it's capture-led — chasing specific RFPs and teaming with primes — you need opportunity tracking tied to solicitation numbers, teaming agreements, and proposal deadlines, and the generic CRMs will fight you inside six months. Pick wrong and you'll migrate everything in a year, with half your notes lost in the move.