Top Producer Updates

Direct from Top Producer:

Market Snapshot is officially Mobile!
We’re happy to report that Market Snapshot now appears flawlessly on any device—including smartphones!

smartphone
New Pipeline “inactive” Status:
This one’s for those contacts in your database that just aren’t an opportunity—now or never—but you don’t have the ♥ to delete them from your database. Who knows what the future holds, right? These Synch over to FiveStreet too!

Importing from Market Leader is easier:
I’ll spare you the technical jargon— our fields match up with theirs a bit better.

Fivestreet can now push Social Profile data from leads to Top Producer CRM:
So now when FiveStreet sends a lead, if the lead’s social media profile can be found, here’s what you’ll get in Top Producer CRM:

  • Their picture and gender
  • The company they work for (including location and their title)
  • Links to their social media profiles & whether their phone # is valid so you’ll know a crazy amount about the lead before you even say hello!

Realvolve announces new Desktop

Some months ago, Mark Stepp (one of the people creating Realvolve) shared an image of the their proposed new desktop with me and it was a radical and exciting departure from what they have and from the “norm” if you will. And now it’s almost here! They’re at Inman now – announcing it. Below is their announcement as well as an image of it.


 

If you would like to learn more about Realvolve, trial it, or purchase it, click here and get my Trans-Plans Listing & Closing Emails installed for free.


 

“A lot of you having been asking, ‘When is the dashboard coming?’

I’m happy to report that it’s almost ready. Development took longer than expected because we wanted to build something that mattered — something that was innovative and groundbreaking. And we did it.

Our new system is no regular “dashboard”… it’s the world’s first “Predictive Revenue Engine.” Based on the scientific principals of propinquity, our heads-up display quantifies the return of your activities, the value of your relationships, and the value of your people portfolio as a whole. The Real Estate industry has never had such a tool. We believe it will direct you towards better relationships, more income, and in turn, a healthy business and life.

The Realvolve team will be unveiling the beta version of the business analytics dashboard next week at Inman Connect San Francisco. You’ll likely see the first stages of the new dashboard in your own account in the next 3-4 weeks. When we release it, we’ll present a deep dive webinar to introduce its power and nuances.

And as with anything this groundbreaking – there will be a process of evolution…an iterative exploration of metrics and algorithms to give you the confidence that you are building a business to fuel the life you want.”

New desktop

Contactually acts Fast!

Contactually has been working on the problem I mentioned in my other post about Facebook and LinkedIn terminating parts of their data sharing. Contactually has another source to get some of the information and has implemented it. It doesn’t have the same capabilities but give them time and we’ll see what shakes out. Click here for an article from them announcing the work-around.

Curious about Contactually? You can get more information or trial it here.

 

Facebook, LinkedIn and your CRM

Facebook and LinkedIn decided to stop sharing data with many vendors, including many CRM vendors. An excerpt from an article in Small Business Trends:

“On April 30, Facebook will no longer allow third-party apps to export your data — including your Facebook contacts, profile photos and messages — into other applications.”

LinkedIn actually started doing it last July, before Facebook, so the same situation exists with that as well.

It first came to my attention yesterday when I saw it with Contactually and I’ve since determined that Top Producer and Wise Agent are affected as well. In other words unless I am misunderstanding the issue, none of the CRMs will have access to the data in Facebook and LinkedIn the way they used to. Point being don’t start running around trying to find a Real Estate CRM that pulls data from them because it will be a fruitless search. It’s not your CRM’s fault.

Contactually used to be able to gather new information like phone numbers and email addresses from Facebook and LinkedIn and no longer can. Top Producer used to display the Facebook status, and you could Like, Comment or View the Status right from within the contact record. No more. Wise Agent also interfaced with Facebook and LinkedIn but has removed them.

So the ability to interface and pull information from Facebook and LinkedIn was very handy but is probably gone for good. I saw a comment by someone who was angry with Contactually because she thought they mislead her about what it could do with regards to interaction with Facebook and LinkedIn. I responded to that post with essentially this: If you have to be angry with someone or something because you no longer have those capabilities, be angry with the Facebook and LinkedIn, not with the CRM vendor who is more upset about it than you are.

A potential upside is that from my conversations with the developers and CEO’s it sounds like the CRM vendors are working on a solution that will provide similar information. Whether they will find one remains to be seen, but it is in their best interest, because it is in your best interest. And they want to keep you happy.

Contactually gives you Insights!

In a new feature recently released in Contactually – you get simpler, more informative contact management. See the size, health, and composition of your network, and your team’s. It graphically shows your Relationship Strength, Contact Activity, Contacts Reached, and Response Rates.

CRM is all about knowing whom to touch and when. Contactually is as good as it gets in that context and they only continue to make it better. They have been cutting edge since they came out and they’re not letting up.

contactually crm

To learn more about Contactually, click here. If you’re interested in trialing Contactually, please click here.

IXACT Contact adds Keep-in-Touch Features

I can’t say it better myself so I’ll just post essentially what they sent me…

IXACT Contact today announces new high-value Keep in Touch features including automated Spouse/ Partner Birthday Reminders, Move In Anniversary Reminders, and Keep in Touch Call Reminders.

What’s New:

Spouse/ Partner Birthday Reminders:

Now you can also get birthday reminders for spouses and partners. Reach out and wish them well! It’s a natural way to get in touch.

Move In Anniversary Reminders:

Get notified automatically when a past client is celebrating the anniversary of moving into their home. Offer your congratulations and remind them of your expertise in all things real estate related!

Keep in Touch Call Reminders:

Be reminded automatically when it’s time to give each client a Keep in Touch call. Activate with one click pre-configured keep in touch call reminders. Options include bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual.

For more information on IXACT Contact – click here!

Wise Agent Reporting Dashboard now Live!

You can now track the effectiveness of your marketing, the productivity of yourself and your team, and the source of your leads and closings.  You will notice a dashboard icon to the left of the Welcome button – just click there to see the available reports.  If you would like a personal 5 min webinar to see a quick demo of the new features, just contact me!

WiseAgent Dashboard Reporting

Top Producer Suite on Sale!

I just got a notification that the 5 Street Suite Bundle has been reduced to $94.95/mo. from $99.95/mo. That includes Top Producer 8i (the current version), Market Snapshot, and Five Street. If you’re interested give me a call to get this sale price at 215.345.5222.

IDX feeds into CRMs are Trending

CRMs are all about making us more efficient in what we do. The more you can do from within it, without having to go out to other programs, the more efficient you are.

So we’re clear, let’s define what an IDX feed is. It is part of your MLS database being fed to your web site. It is what enables your web site visitors to search for listings. There are many IDX providers but if you have property search capability on your own site, odds are that it is provided using an IDX feed. Traditionally your web site is the only place that IDX feeds to.

But you do your searches and automated follow-up with buyers in your MLS. You get a buyer, you add their criteria, set up an automated search, and they get any new listings that become available.  If you are in your CRM and you get a call from your buyer, you have to go into your MLS, find that buyer and look up what you’ve sent them. Typically it does not show you what you actually showed them. How long does it take to do that? Not long but…

Historically, we:

  • Get a buyer prospect
  • Add them and their preferences to our CRM
  • Go into the MLS and add those same preferences and set them up on an automated search
  • We then show them some homes and record what we showed them in the CRM, manually.

Anything wrong with this picture? It’s the back and forth between the CRM and the MLS. Not a big deal but wouldn’t it be sweet if you could do almost everything MLS related right in your CRM instead? No more back and forth? And have more features and options to choose from than your MLS?

That’s exactly what has been happening lately. Some CRMs are having the IDX feed directly into the CRM. When you view a buyer in your CRM you see what you’ve shown them, what you’ve sent them, and much more. If you get a new listing, you can do a quick search for buyers in your CRM that may be interested in that listing and send it out to them, branded to you, not your MLS! This is something that agents have been asking me for for years. It addresses one of the last major inefficiencies when having to use multiple programs to do our jobs.

It seems to me that in the relatively near future all the better CRMs will be going this way. It’s long overdue and more than welcome. So who has it so far? Masterdigm, Propertybase and Tribus. So far, out of the three, Masterdigm is far and away the most cost effective and it will be interesting to see what new CRMs coming in with this feature will charge. If you’re happy with your current CRM, then this one feature should not typically be enough to change CRMs. But if you’re already sniffing around for a new one this can be very interesting.

Agentdesks adds a few new features

Agentdesks keeps getting better. They announced today that the following features have been added and more to come!

1) Documentation – Agents can now add documents to their account and choose to associate them to a certain number of Active clients / Send it to them.
2) In the mobile app, they have added the notes section where agents can add notes to each client. This will be displayed both on web and mobile.
3) Profile pages – Every agent will have profile pages that displays their contact information and properties that they choose to display on there. Every property will have two statuses – Public and Private. “Public” properties will be displayed on the profile page. So, new leads will be generated from there.