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Adding contacts to your CRM – Some suggestions when adding contacts

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If you have everything on paper, start entering them according to the ideas suggested below. If you already have them in an electronic format, you have to import them. A common question is if you should clean them up in the old database first, or clean them up in the new one. By cleaning up, we mean getting rid of contacts when we do not know who they are, or filling in a last name on contacts that have none, etc. One difference that may affect that decision is that if you do it in the new one, you are learning the new one, so maybe that’s the better way to go. If you do it that way, but the existing database is such a mess that it creates problems with the import, then you have your answer. Just delete the trial import and clean it up before you import.

As soon as you get the new database in and cleaned up – BACKUP immediately, twice!

As you are adding your contacts, click around in the menus. Try right clicking everywhere and see if anything happens. Experiment! That is part of getting a new CRM. The more time you spend with it up front, the sooner you will feel comfortable and more efficient with it, and the more you will use it.

Add everyone – If you have to call, e-mail, or write to someone once, put them in your database. You never know when you may need it again. Text takes virtually no space on a computer. Taking up too much space is not a factor. Many people have the concern that they did not want to clutter up their database. Some agents want only the names of the people to whom they want to mail in their database. That thinking is probably a throwback to when we had all our names and addresses on a piece of paper that we used to copy onto a sheet of labels to do our mailings.

People will often say they do not want to have to sort through names they do not need. What sorting? You start keying the name of the person you want in the search box, and it comes up. If you have 50 names or 5,000, it is the exact same procedure and result.

After you use a CRM for a few years, if you put everybody in there, you will be amazed at how often you will not have to look someone up because they are already in there. In many markets there are hundreds of ancillary service companies. Title companies, loan originators, termite inspectors, home inspectors, etc. After a few years and a number of transactions, a great many of them will be in your database. When you add a new transaction, many times, many of the parties to the transaction will already be in there. If you need to call or e-mail someone, you will have his or her contact info already. It gets to be a tremendous time saver.

A little advice about what to put in some of the fields. Much of this may seem very basic, but you might surprised how often it is not done.

First name – Only put the first name of one person in the first name field. Do not put Bob and Karen. Karen goes into another field, which exists specifically for that person. Do not put Mr. or Mrs. or anything else in the first name field either. Always include a first name. If you do not have a first name, use the last name as both first and last until you get the first name. Why? Because sooner or later when you are creating a report or doing some kind of look-up, it will matter. And if you ever create an a template e-mail or letter and decide to use “Dear first_name” as an opening merge field, it will be blank. It’s better to have their last name there than a blank.

Middle name – Only use the middle initial, but always use it if you have it. It helps with duplicate names. It would be great to always have one of course, but a full middle name can be problematic. More databases than not do not have room for a full middle name. Most only allow for the middle initial, and sometimes two or three letters. So if you are using a CRM that does have a field for the full middle name, but then you export that data to move to one that allows for only two letters, then you can have a mess to clean up.

Last name – Always put a name in the last name field. If you only have the first name, put the first name in both the First name and the Last name fields until you get the last name. Another option is to put TBD (to be determined) in the last name field. Then, on occasion, you can easily call up everyone with TBD in the last name field, and work on getting those last names. Without going into great detail, not having a name in every field can cause problems when doing searches, ordering names in a list, and other things you may end up doing.

E-mail address or phone number – A name in a database without an e-mail address or phone number or at the very least an address, is probably not worth having unless you are certain one of them is forthcoming. And if it is, create a task to remind you to make sure you got it. Always have at least one of them.

Address – Whenever possible get a postal address regardless of what kind of contact it is. If the City field has an auto fill feature, use it. Auto fill is where you can key in the name of the city and it will remember it and retain a list. In the future, as you start to key in that city, it will complete it for you after the first few letters. It sounds trivial, but saving a few thousand key strokes over a years time adds up.

Company – If the person works for a company, take the time to put the company name in the company field. If it has auto fill, definitely use it. This is more important the city field. The reason is that it is very easy and common to key in a company name differently from one time to the next. You might key in RE-ACT for one person, and RE-ACT, LLC. for the next person. The problem then becomes that if you do a search for everyone in your database who works for a given company, the results can be wrong.

Category – Always put a contact in a category such as Buyer Prospect, Seller Prospect, Appraiser, etc. and always put some kind of note in there on them if possible. The goal is to always have something in the contact record that will jog your memory about them. You would be surprised at how little it takes to remember someone you have spoken with, even years later, if you have them categorized and have a sentence or two about your conversation with good keywords.

Different CRMs call them different things. Categories, Contact Types, Classifications, or maybe Groups. It is a field that identifies what that person is to you. Buyer-Past, Seller-Active, Gold Partner, Title Rep, Mortgage Processor, etc. For you to truly interact with your database in an expedient and accurate and profitable manner, being able to categorize your contacts is at the core of what you are trying to accomplish. The versatility here is critical. You should require that you at least have the ability to add as many categories as you choose, and that a contact can be included in as many categories as you need. Keep in mind though that you want to have an organized rational approach to adding categories. Think it out first before you start adding them haphazardly. If you are working in a team, there should be one person who is designated the Category Cop. That person is the only one permitted to add or delete categories, either on their own, or by committee review/agreement.

To get started, consider the following core categories:

  • Buyer Past
  • Buyer Active
  • Buyer Pending
  • Buyer Prospect
  • Seller Past
  • Seller Pending
  • Seller Active
  • Seller Prospect
  • Settled 20XX (XX = year /closed/settled).

Referral – Always put in the name of the person who referred this contact to you if that was the case. A good CRM can show you a referral tree of who referred whom. A really nice feature of a CRM is when it tracks a commission dollar value to each referee. Then you can see not only who that person referred to you, but how much money they made you by giving you those referrals.

Source – If it was not a referral then you need to record the source from which they came. Such as Homes and Land ad call (note that you should not just say ad call). Be specific because in a good CRM you can generate a report to show you where your business came from. This is the kind of thing people are talking about when they say that you need to run your business like a business.

If you know exactly where your business is coming from, it allows you to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and where to continue to spend money, and where to stop. Business people have an annual budget. You should generate a report that shows you how many transactions can be directly related to specific types of advertising. Now you can see that you spent $3,000 on Homes Magazine ads last year, but only earned $2,500 on one commission from a lead from it. The argument can be made that the $500 net cost to be in that magazine is a reasonable amount to maintain a presence in that magazine. But the fact is that you are now making that decision based on ROI and tangible information.

Mail Preference – When you meet someone and get their contact information, you should try to determine with which mode of communication they are most comfortable. When getting their e-mail address, do not ask them if they check it often or daily etc. Ask them how often they check it. Their answer will tell you if e-mail or postal mail is better. If your CRM tracks it, you should note their mail preference. In some CRMs, that can automatically determine whether or not they get an e-mail or a printed letter when something is sent to them in their follow-up campaign.

Date of initial communication – Whatever CRM you pick, make sure that it both date and time stamps your notes when you key them in. This comes in handy for many things including risk management down the road. Copious and accurate notes frequently stave off hours of wasted time and unnecessary finger pointing and posturing. It is absolutely amazing how quickly someone will defer to you when they become aware that you have an accurate point by point record of date and time stamped phone calls, notes, e-mails, and letters all at your fingertips. In the future if you have another transaction with them, they will remember. What will happen is that eventually you will get a reputation for being accurate and organized, and other agents will sometimes recommend your offer over others because they are confident that their transaction with you will go smoothly.

Follow-up reminder – If this new contact is a lead of any kind, you should have a reminder either to call or e-mail them at some point in the future. You should also have everyone in your sphere of influence receiving something on at least a monthly basis. There is no doubt that sending something that is clearly valuable information is the best thing to do. That said, if ti is taking too long to come up with that perfect follow-up piece, do something in the interim. If you stay in touch regularly with you SOI, you are one of a small percentage of agents who do, and you reap the rewards.

In summary, every effort should be made to insure every contact has information in the following fields:

  • First name
  • Middle initial
  • Last name
  • Postal address
  • Company
  • E-mail address
  • Phone number
  • Web site address
  • Note about initial conversation or communication with the date of that communication if other than e-mail
  • Category
  • Referral person or source
  • E-mail or postal mail preference
  • Calendar item for next contact – at least one if not a plan

People often ask “What does a CRM do?” This article covers one aspect of the answer to that question. There are many others. If used correctly, eventually your CRM will be the hub of your business, and it will be a much more efficient and organized business.

Remember, not everyone thinks they need a CRM. But if you want to grow your business, while having more of a life, with less stress, with less mistakes, with better service, with less staff, with more compliments, with more referrals, then you do.

Exporting CRM Data – The rest of the story

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This an excerpt from my book – Choosing and Using a CRM.

A common misconception agents have about Real Estate CRMs is that some of them intentionally make it difficult to export your data. In interviews with over 30 Real Estate CRM developers, that does not ring true. It is true that some export more fields than others and some do it in more usable formats. However, how many different data fields your existing CRM will export is only half the equation. How many of those fields your new CRM will import is equally important and sooner or later you may decide to switch CRMs.

When you started in Real Estate, you did your due diligence to decide in which office you wanted to work. Are you still there, or have you moved on to a different office? Choosing a CRM can be just as, if not more difficult. Optimally you will find the right CRM the first time and you will stay with it. However, it doesn’t hurt to anticipate some aspects of switching to another CRM down the road when you are purchasing your first one.

Much has been said about software vendors holding your data hostage. The reality is that that is an emotional reaction to learning too late what happens when you move from any CRM to another one. There are two kinds of data in this context. That which can usually be exported, and that which can not. What is usually exported by almost all CRMs is the contact data. That is names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, Web site addresses and categories. Notes are often the most unpredictable. Most CRMs export all of the above, but you do need to check. Agent Office is an example, as it does not export categories or notes. There are two CRMs that use the Agent Office database file and extract notes and categories as well as other fields instead of using the Agent Office export, but they are exceptions.

There are many other types of data that can be exported, but are often not, which is probably where the hostage statement has its origin. Some examples are:

Calendar data – it is relatively rare that this information can be moved from one CRM to another.

Property data and notes

Transactional notes

Transaction documentation stored within the CRM

Showings

Template content (letters, fliers, post cards and activity plans) – NOTE: Even if the content is capable of being exported, you still have to modify the merge fields in all of it. Most agents would have to do that manually, although in some cases it can be done with some kind of utility or some knowledge of database manipulation

Tasks/To-do’s

History – not to be confused with notes – this is the record of dates and times of appointments, phone calls, mailings, etc., from the contact or the property screen.

Even if all the above types of information can be exported from your existing CRM, an equally important question is how much of it is capable of being imported to your new CRM? In a few CRMs, literally every field is capable of being exported. Unfortunately, most of that export can only be opened in a spreadsheet/database type of format, such as Excel or Access, as opposed to being able to import it into the new CRM. So yes, the information may be there in the export, but it is not of much use if it can not be imported in to the new CRM.

It is important to note that in most cases you will not be able to move historical information or e-mails associated with transactions from one CRM to another. That could turn out to be a huge disadvantage if you ever needed to defend yourself in litigation. If you switch CRMs and lose that information, a prudent step to take would be to print out transaction reports and e-mails from your existing CRM first, if that ability exists. Making it a practice to add that kind of report to your paper file for each transaction is a good idea. How much information is contained in those reports varies dramatically, but anything is better than nothing.

The vast majority of the time you will be able to import most of the contact fields into a new CRM. You want to make sure that the one you choose exports virtually all of the contact fields, making particularly sure that notes and categories are included. In addition, the more phone number, e-mail address, and Web site address fields it can export, the better. You want to make sure that when it exports those latter fields, that each field is identified. For example, if I export a phone number field that is labeled Work1, then it should export it in such a way that I will know where to put it in the new CRM. Note that phone numbers are often problematic because no two people label their phone numbers the same way in the same order. Having a systematic approach to ordering and labeling those fields from the start can be a huge help when switching to another CRM.

The bottom line is that you do want to identify what information your CRM will export and in what data format, before you purchase it because it is an important factor in choosing a CRM. That said, recognize that for the most part, only common contact fields will survive the move to another CRM. Taking appropriate measures to systematically retain the information that may be lost in a transition to another CRM in either a printed or digital file is a good business plan.

via Exporting CRM Data – The rest of the story.

Top 10 features to look for in a CRM

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While everyone has their preferences of what are the most important features to them, the following should be basic requirements for everyone. Each of the following is a topic which I have written about extensively in my book, but the following is a brief description of each.

  1. E-mail stored with the contact record – This is a major issue about which I have written an entire article in the past. Please click here to see that article.
  2. Bulk e-mail – If you don’t already do a periodic e-mailing to your sphere of influence, you should. It musthave a good perceived value if you expect it to be opened, and you can’t overdo it. You can do this with any number of third party solutions such as Constant Contact or others, but that requires maintaining two separate databases which is a waste of time. Your CRM should allow you to either send that out through their servers, or have a relationship with a third party solution that allows you to mail directly through them without maintaining two databases.
  3. Document storage – Paperless is good, but we still have to retain the documents for potential future retrieval. Your CRM should provide the capability to store your contract paperwork as well as any related documents in a manner that provides a way to associate them with a transaction or contact record.
  4. Ease of use – Not to be confused with Easy to learn or Intuitive. Easy to use means that some CRMs require too many clicks to perform simple tasks such as adding or retrieving contact or property information, starting a follow-up plan, or making an appointment with a contact. One caveat is that while some CRMs may be a little more cumbersome to use, if they also have a number of other features that are unavailable in other CRMs, the overall efficiency may be worth it.
  5. Tech support – Phone support should be available at least during business hours, with extended hours being desirable. When you are trialing a CRM, make sure to call support at different times of the day and different days of the week. If you don’t really have any questions, make some up! Seriously, you need to check their response time, willingness to resolve your issue, and familiarity with the product before you purchase.
  6. E-mail drip campaign capability – Your CRM should have the ability to create a variety of e-mails that go out to a contact at pre-determined intervals when you launch that campaign. Some CRMs have campaigns already included, whereas some enable you to create them, but do not already have the e-mail templates. Either is acceptable, but the latter requires that you either create them yourself, or purchase a set of templates/campaigns and import/install them into the CRM.
  7. Activity Plan capability – One of the primary features that set most real estate specific CRMs apart from many generic CRMs is the ability to create a set of tasks, including but not limited to to-do’s, phone calls, e-mails, and letters, that are posted to your task list automatically at a pre-determined number of days after the launch of the plan. This is the kind of plan you would use to be reminded to call a prospect, or follow-up with past clients to stay in touch, with something other than an e-mail. You would also use activity plans for listings and closings to keep you on track with the many details associated with a transaction.
  8. Calendar with appointments linked to contacts – When making an appointment, it should be linked to a contact or a transaction so that as the appointments or tasks are completed, they become a part of the history of that contact or transaction that can be referred to. Optimally that can be used to automatically create a status report for the client’s reference.
  9. Cross platform capability – Optimally, when you select a CRM, you should hope to never change to a different one. Choosing one that works on both Windows and Mac, any kind of phone, or any kind of tablet computer, prevents being limited to what kind of hardware you choose to use in the future.
  10. Phone synchronization – Having your address book and calendar information shared between your CRM and your phone should be a basic requirement. There are essentially two ways to accomplish this. One is that the information is synchronized between the CRM and the phone, which essentially compares the existing data on the devices and then merges whatever is different. While this is the most common way to share the data between the devices, there is no perfect synchronization method to date. The other is for the devices to all essentially be sharing the same database in a live real time environment. The most common method to accomplish this is with an “exchange” environment, well known to Outlook users. More recently though, some CRMs are using what is essentially a “window” into the CRM data with a link that provides access to a limited number of features such as address book, calendar, leads, and in some cases basic transaction information.

Your goal for a CRM should be for it to be the hub of your business as much as possible. Eliminating redundant data entry by having to use many different applications is key to be being efficient. Using different applications typically enables you to have the best of each kind of feature, but it also reduces overall efficiency. Accepting less than the best of each function when the CRM provides adequate alternatives is the best overall solution in my opinion. This is something I have been promoting for many years, and I am finally seeing a trend towards that end in CRM purchasing decisions. Find a CRM and commit to using it to truly run your business, and you will be amazed at how much more efficient you will be, how much better your customer service will be, and how much stress you will see eliminated from your daily life.

It takes time to learn and integrate a CRM into your business. You have to be ready to make the commitment necessary to make the best of it. It is a mindset. From my book:

“You do not have to like the time you invest into becoming proficient with a good CRM. But if you want to grow your business, while having more of a life, with less stress, with less mistakes, with better service, with less staff, with more compliments, with more referrals, then you need it.”

Not using all of your CRMs features. That’s OK.

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There is a common complaint with agents feeling that if they don’t use all the features of a CRM, that they are spending more money than they should for features they don’t use. Developers have to build a CRM to suit the needs of the many, so there will undoubtedly be features that not everyone wants. It’s one thing if all you want is an electronic Rolodex. If that’s the case then just use Outlook or Google and be done with it. But if you want other features, chances are you’re going to have to take a CRM that has what you do want, as well as additional features you don’t want. Fortunately there are many different choices so you can usually find one that doesn’t have too much more than you want or need.

I liken it to purchasing a car. If you want very basic transportation, you buy a very basic car. But if you want electric heated seats, then you have to move up to the next level of cars. When you do, there is a new feature set that comes standard and you can’t pick and choose. If it comes standard with cruise control and you don’t want it, you get it anyway. If you want the car, you buy it with the cruise because that’s the way it comes.

Web based versus Desktop Contact Manager/CRM Solutions

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A statement is often made that having a Web based CRM is clearly superior to a desktop CRM. The reality is that there are pros and cons to both. While there are many arguments over which is better and why, let’s address a few of the most common misconceptions.

The first thing to do to is to realize that desktop does not mean what it used to. It is likely that many people form their opinion on the limitations of having a desktop CRM based on the most well known original ones – Howard and Friends, Agent Office and Top Producer. None of those could be shared remotely other than by a manual synching procedure. There are desktop products available now that can. Advantage Xi for instance can share its database remotely because it has the option of having their server hold a copy of the database which is then synched via the Internet to the other computers. REST uses one of your computers as the server for the database much like Outlook Exchange. Advantage uses a free Google account to synch to your phone and allows you to receive and reply to emails on your phone, and have them all stored with the contacts. When you get back to Advantage, the emails you deleted on your phone have been deleted in Advantage as well, eliminating the need to delete them once again.

When people say they have to have a Web based CRM because they need to be able to access the same database from “anywhere”, the question then becomes “Can you define ‘anywhere’?” The vast majority say they mean they need to be able to access it from both their home and office computers. If that is the case, both Advantage and REST satisfy that need. The next questions is “How many times have you needed to access your CRM database from a computer other than your own in the last year, for information other than the address book or calendar which is synched to your phone from the CRM.” The answer is almost always very seldom if at all. Most of the time the only true exception is for agents who do not have their own computer in their office so they use a community computer in the office. That puts them in the category of truly having a need for a Web based CRM.

Another concern voiced about Web based versus desktop is having your database all in one place and being vulnerable to loss. Since you have multiple computers with the database on them, and a server with a copy as well, that concern is eliminated.

Since having a Web based CRM is most often not really as necessary as is perceived, it still comes back to which one has the features that are most desirable for the agent. For example, if having your email fully integrated with the CRM such that all emails incoming and outgoing are directly stored with the contact record in the CRM automatically, then Advantage has an advantage that almost no Web based CRM has. So it still comes back to feature sets, more so than Web based versus desktop.

There are many misconceptions about Web based versus desktop. For the most part they are promulgated by what seems to be common sense. Unfortunately, in this case common sense does not often work because there is too much information lacking, with which to make that common sense decision. Another source of these misconceptions is the vendors themselves. Developers of Web based solutions promote the benefits of being Web based, and purposefully do not mention the downsides. In contrast, the developers of desktop CRMs do the same thing.

When you are making your selection, don’t be so quick to discount desktop solutions without first discovering the real pros and cons, versus the assumed ones.

via Web based versus Desktop Contact Manager/CRM Solutions.

Computer hardware and software purchases are not independent decisions

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When smart phones first gained popularity, people started buying them without first finding out what CRMs would synch with them. When Mac started doing its marketing push and agents started going out and buying Mac desktops and laptops, they bought them and then came to me to find out if the CRM they had been considering would work on them. They were often disappointed.

Now the same thing is happening with tablet computers.

The point is that hardware comes and goes. Phones, desktops, laptops, phones, and tablets get replaced every few years. If you pick the right CRM, you may end up using it the rest of your career.

Before purchasing hardware you need to try to determine what software purchases are in your foreseeable future. Before you buy hardware or software, find your preferences for both, then find out which works with which, then make your purchases accordingly.

via Computer hardware and software purchases are not independent decisions.

A Brief History of CRM & who will survive? – Part 2

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Revised Feb, 2015

So what determines which CRMs will survive? One trend that is clear is that the desktop applications business model (vs web based/SAAS) cannot support a product in this niche. A one time fee for the purchase of the software is simply not enough money. They also charge for support and upgrades but most users do not get support after the first year and most do not upgrade regularly. The fact that there are only a handful of desktop applications left and that they are on their way out bears that out.

There are certainly no hard and fast rules because there are far too many variables. Issues to take into account other than the obvious, “Is it a good CRM?” are:

  • How long have they been out of beta? (meaning when they finished testing and started selling it)
  • How big is their user base?
  • How many people are in the company?
  • Are they part of a larger company that can support it for a while, or is it a mom and pop using personal funds?
  • How is their support?

While the length of time a CRM has been out of beta is important, more significant is how many people are using it. If they have at least a thousand users in the first year or two and are continuing to grow, that’s a good sign. The problem is that vendors are understandably reticent to share the size of their user base. All you can do is ask. Also, speak to at least three users who are in no way affiliated or have a long standing personal relationship with the developers. But they have to be power users. Ask them how stable it is. In other words, does it do what it is supposed to do the vast majority of the time without locking up or giving you errors? Always keep in mind that it is human nature for people to not like to think that they made a bad choice, so there is a tendency to sugar coat issues. Ask probing questions. What do you like/not like about it specifically? What do you like/not like about support? Do they know the support people by name because there are only one or two?

I personally used a CRM that had only two support people, other than the programmer who is also the owner. They also had a bookkeeper and sometimes subcontracted some programming work. They have been in business for many years and only added a second support person about two years ago. Until then, they were rapidly falling into a downward spiral due to lack of support. Once they added that second person, their reputation for support has become stellar. It was touch and go for a while and they damaged their reputation by waiting too long.

Another factor to look at is whether the CRM is their only product. Some of them have other products that are already established and can support the fledgling CRM until it becomes viable on its own. That is the case with several of the CRMs. I have been more willing to recommend those companies despite the fact that they are newer, when other positive factors are in place.

Lastly, it doesn’t matter how good a Contact Manager/CRM is if you can’t get help when you need it. So how do you know you will get it?

There is no reason to purchase a CRM without trialing it first because they all provide trial periods. When you are testing the software, test the support as well.

Tech support is one of, if not the most costly expense a CRM company has. There is a tendency for CRM vendors, especially when they are newer, to try to put off the cost of hiring support people as long as possible. It’s difficult to spend money on those personnel when there is insufficient revenue coming in to support them. It’s a cart-before-the-horse situation and I have watched CRM companies go out of business fighting that battle. It’s very hard to build a good user base when people are not recommending the product because the support is lacking. If the support is lacking, the user base does not grow, the revenue does not come in, and the support doesn’t improve. It’s a vicious cycle. So how do you know if you’re jumping into that fray?

Some products are easy enough to learn and use, and stable enough that they require very little support so you don’t use it when you’re in the trial period. So when you first get the CRM, call them even for little things like how-to’s. Call them and ask them how to do something and see what the response time or wait time is. Call them at different times of the day, and different days of the week. Start tracking the names of the people with whom you speak to see how many they have. If you are talking to the same person each time, that can be a red flag. Is that the only person they have? Ask them point blank how many tech support people they have. Is the person you are talking to one of the principals or programmers? When a company starts out, that is very common. It doesn’t mean they are destined for failure at all. But it probably does mean that they are a very small company, personally funded, and that you now have to wonder if or when they start growing, will they be able to keep up with the demand.

When asking associates who use a CRM how they like the support, again ask probing questions.

Who makes the support calls, you or an assistant? Assistants tend to be available throughout the day, so they can keep trying to reach support. Additionally, if they get a call back, they are available to take it. They are often more satisfied with support for those reasons. If it is an agent on their own and they try to reach support but do not get a response quickly or are not available when support returns their call, you’ll probably get a different opinion.

It’s very difficult to determine whether any kind of company will survive in the long run, and CRM is no exception. There are no guarantees, no matter how much homework you do, but being aware of the issues discussed here should help.

A Brief History of CRM and Who Will Survive – Part 1

Are you using your CRMs Workflows?

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It’s a shame so few people use their CRM for Transaction Management. Many agents use the CRMs activity plan/campaign/task series capability for following up with leads or for post closing follow-up. But very few understand the value of tracking your listings and closings with that same feature.

For those of you who have ever created a prioritized checklist of tasks for the day, you know what it feels like while you are burning through that list. It is so much easier and faster to complete your tasks for the day for a couple reasons. One is that you do not have to think about whether or not you need to do them. You already decided that. That’s why it’s on the list! The other is that you don’t need to decide which task you need to do first, because you already decided that as well. These two characteristics make getting through your task list much easier, faster, and stress free. And the satisfaction when you complete it is almost palpable.

Now apply that to listings and closings. The majority of what we do for each listing and closing is the same every time. Put up a sign, put on the lockbox, put it in the MLS, send out a thank you email/letter etc. Then when it sells, send a congratulations email/letter; is the second deposit in yet; is the appraisal in yet; is the home inspection scheduled; are the home inspection results in?; has the homeowners insurance been ordered, and so on. All these tasks can be put on a list and scheduled to occur X number of days after the listing date, or before the expiration date, or after the contract date, or before the closing date, etc. What you end up with is the ability to click a button and have the CRM post what task you need to on the days that you need to do them, automatically. The end result is that you start each day with an automatically generated to-do list for that day for the majority of what you need to do for all your listings and closings.

One of the reasons this business is as stressful as it is, is because we start every day and go throughout each day making the same decisions over and over and over again. Do I need to check on the appraisal for Vine Street today? No. OK – Do I need to check on the second deposit on Tower Hill Road today? No. And I go through that every day and then the next day I ask myself the same questions until the answer is yes, and then I do those tasks. Imagine what it would be like if you didn’t have to waste time and energy every day asking yourself those questions over an over again. And you wouldn’t even have to sit down and create a new to-do list each day, because it would be done for you automatically. Well that is exactly what using plans in your CRM will do for you.

 

The end result is that it:

·         Reduces your overall stress level more than ANY other single action you can take

·         Stops the details from “falling through the cracks”

·         Keeps you in touch with automated letters or e-mails for your buyers and sellers throughout the listing and closing process

·         Dramatically improves your level of customer service both in reality, and in the client’s perceptions of you

·         Gives you a comprehensive “Action List” to present to buyers and sellers in your initial presentations with them

·         Significantly reduces the time necessary to train a new assistant, or give your assistant a comprehensive list of their responsibilities. One that you can track!

·         Enables you to create and maintain a detailed history of your transactions for future reference

·         Provides an instant to-do list for someone helping you out while you’re on vacation

·         Enables you to provide automatically generated detailed “Client Reports” for your buyers and sellers

·         Gets you FAR more paperless

·         If you have a team, everyone is automatically assigned their individual tasks for each listing and closing, which appear on their calendar – not yours!

·         If you have a team – you will stop playing “Who has the file?”

 

The point is that if you have a good CRM, you have this capability sitting right in front of your nose already. Maybe you already knew all this, but have not “had” the time to do it. If you wait until you have time, you may never get to it. You have to “make” the time. I have worked with many teams around the country helping them develop their transaction management plans. I have yet to see anyone who used them and honed them, eventually stop using them. Once they realized how much more efficient it made them and how many benefits there were, they all look back and say “How did I do this before without them?”

 

via Are you using your CRMs activity plans?.

A Brief History of CRM & Who Will Survive? – Part 1

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Revised – March, 2015

Currently, there are around 35 Real Estate specific CRMs (Customer Relationship Managers) and they are surprisingly unique in many respects. Can the industry support them all? If not, how do you pick one that is most likely to survive? When I originally wrote this in 2012 there were about 40 Real Estate CRMs. There would be about 50 now but about 11 12 13 14 15 have gone out of business and been replaced.

Why is that significant? Moving from one CRM to another is costly in terms of loss of data and the investment of time in a new learning curve. If at all possible, you want to pick the right one the first time.

The very first Real Estate specific CRM was Howard Sanderson’s Howard & Friends in 1982. It has since been reincarnated as Star Contact, and then Agent’s First Choice. During Howard & Friends tenuous tenure, another Real Estate Specific (RES) program came out in 1986 called, interestingly enough, RES – Real Estate Specialist. I started using that one in 1989 and I discovered the true value of CRM by using that one for about 5 years. I worked with a couple named George & Mary Tharpe on that one.  Top Producer was released in 1989, followed by Online Agent in 1992 (which was later renamed to Agent Office in 2002 considering it was not an online CRM). Agent Office has also been ‘branded’ by various franchises over the years as ‘RE/MAX Agent 2000’, ‘Century 21 Power Pack’, and Realty Executives’ ‘Executive Agent’.

George Tharpe once related a very enlightening story to me about Top Producer. At the time we thought it was funny but in retrospect it may well be the reason Top Producer soon became the 800 pound gorilla in the industry. In those days one of the very best ways to get the word out on a product was at conventions and trade shows. George told me he used to see the original developer/owner of the then fledgling Top Producer sleeping in his car at the shows. His name escapes me. The reason? To spend the money he saved on marketing. He later sold it to what is now Homes.com which owns both Realtor.com and Top Producer. And now Homes.com is owned by News Corp.

Howard & Friends was a much loved product and many still speak of it fondly. It was extremely user friendly but it was a bit too cutesy for me. I was coming from a computer operations background and having little wizards pop up to tell me to wait for Blinky to gather my contacts was a little silly to me. I preferred Real Estate Specialist. It was incredibly versatile and a shame it didn’t survive. Both of them were DOS applications! Howard & Friends took too long to make the transition to Windows and Real Estate Specialist never did and went out of business. They were both such small companies that they couldn’t afford to do some of the things necessary to remain competitive. Imagine how small the market for CRM was (everyone called them Contact Managers then) at that time and how difficult it was to get the word out pre-Internet. They also lacked marketing funds and expertise. While Top Producer started gaining ground, Howard & Friends and Real Estate Specialist couldn’t keep up. Top Producer has always been aggressive in their marketing and has retained the number one market share for single agents and small teams to this day (my guess). Note that there are now a couple CRMs claiming to be number one. Given that there are no independent statistics to tell us how many users all of these CRMs have, that can not be known and those claims are suspect at best. Some of the vendors have shared their numbers with me but in confidence. It does give me some insight into who is going gangbusters and who is not though. Top Producer then became the CRM of choice  for Century 21 and that, as they say, is history. Agent Office was released in 1992 and RE/MAX very quickly promoted them as their CRM of choice. Agent Office was then promoted on the RE/MAX Satellite Network featuring Jim Casey doing training videos. Thousands of agents around the country were exposed to it as a result and Agent Office took off, maintaining the number two market share for many years.

From 1992 through approximately 2005, the only Real Estate CRMs of which the vast majority of agents were aware were Top Producer and Agent Office. Both were good programs, but there was certainly room for improvement.

By 2008 there were so many CRMs that I couldn’t keep track of which one did what so I created a Matrix. It compared 30 Real Estate specific CRMs across 350 features. In the process of building it I spent three to five hours with the CEO’s and developers of every one of them except Top Producer and Agent Office. Those I already knew. I have kept in touch with many of the owners since then, some more than others. To build this site I went back and visited with them all again to make sure I had accurate information for their pages here.

Most Real Estate specific CRMs currently available were released after 2006. One of the things I learned from them was that most were developed by people with a software background who became real estate agents. As agents they looked for a CRM but all they could find was Top Producer and Agent Office. Coming from a software background those CRMs were not cutting it for them. Deciding they could do better they left Real Estate sales on a mission to build a better CRM. In 2006, these entrepreneurs would have seen a market of Real Estate licensees comprised of 2.63 million according to ARELLO. If that was the only number they looked at, it was reasonable to project that there was room in the market to compete with Top Producer and Agent Office.

But there were two factors that could not have been foreseen.

One was that the number of agents was about to drop by 20 percent. Today the numbers are going back up. There are approximately 2.2 million licensees. 1.2 are Realtors®. which theoretically are the only ones actually making a living selling real estate. Of those, only about half did any transactions at all. Of those remaining, many did six or less transactions per year. Now ask yourself how many of your associates use a CRM. Apply that percentage to about 500,000 agents. For a software product that sells for on average about $35/mo., that’s not a very big market.

But what about factor number two? What none of those developers could have known is that they were one of many working on the “new best CRM”, all at essentially the same time.

There were a few CRMs here and there that were being released over the years, such as Advantage Xi in 2002, but 2005 was when the pace started to pick up. About six were released between 2005 and 2007 including Agent360, Agent’s 1stChoice, Busy Agent Pro, and Realty Ware. In 2008 though, the flood gates burst wide open. About 15 new CRMs came out that year! Among them were: Address Two, Agent Business Builder, CRM Real Estate, Easy Broker, Market Leader, Masterdigm, More Solds, My Real Estate Tools, Net Aspects, Plan Plus Online for Real Estate, Realty Promoter, Prospects, Sharper Agent, and Simple Remote. In the last four years, 11 12 13 14 have gone out of business, including 360 Agent, Agent 360,  (yes, they are two different CRMs), Agent Business Builder, Agent Manager Solutions, Agent’s 1st Choice/Howard & Friends, Bizkinetic, Busy Agent Pro, Eurekaware,  RealeSeller Real Estate Specialist, Real Time 2020, Respond, Simple Remote, and Symplifi. I think another one is about to go down as well, and it is a relatively well known one. I have to confirm it before I can write about it. But more CRMs just keep coming. Since 2008 you can add IXACT Contact, Real Estate Client Management, Realvolve, Agentdesks, eOmni, Bizkinetic, Leading Agent, Propertybase, RealeFlow, RealtiVA, Real Estate Digital, MoxiWorks, MyTheo, Homekeepr, and BrokerMint. And there are others I haven’t gotten to yet.

It is significant to note that also in 2008, Emphasys Software bought Agent Office from FNRES. The last upgrade to Agent Office had come in 2007 to make it Vista compatible. When Emphasys bought it, they maintained with me that they were going to continue to upgrade it, but eventually opted not to do so. My assumption is that they felt it was a better idea to create a new CRM than to re-write the old one converting it to a better/newer software language.  Several years ago, my contacts at FNRES had told me that was what really needed to happen for Agent Office to progress. So after 20+ years, the Agent Office that many of us came to know and love will eventually be phased out. Emphasys Software has now created a completely new and different product that is an Outlook add-on and they are calling it Agent Office Personal Edition. It bears no resemblance to Agent Office other than its name. Given that four of six Real Estate specific Outlook add-ons have gone out of business, the writing is on the wall for Personal Edition. Emphaysys’ decision to abandon the Agent Office, with the second biggest user base in the industry and not re-write it is the most questionable decision I have seen in this industry to date.

There are now about 40 Real Estate CRM products competing for a probable maximum of 4-500,000 users. My best guess is that the top four or five CRMs, of which Top Producer, IXACT Contact, and WiseAgent are three, comprise a user base of at the very least 100,000. That leaves 3-400,000 for the other 40 CRMs. There have been 11 failures in the last four years and I would expect a good number more in the next few years.

A Brief History of CRM and Who Will Survive – Part 2

If you have any historical information that is relevant to this article, please by all means let me know and I will add you as a contributor. So far this is all my memories and research on the topic which is why no one is listed.

IXACT Contact Real Estate CRM Celebrates a Record Breaking 2011

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Full article on PRWeb

“…The company also worked with renowned real estate CRM Consultant Gary David Hall to make Mr. Hall’s Trans-Plans available to IXACT Contact customers. Trans-Plans are comprehensive real estate transaction management plans that help REALTORS® ensure that nothing is forgotten or missed in the complex process of buying or selling real estate. Mr. Hall is the author of myriad real estate CRM publications and is known as the “guru” of real estate database and CRM systems….”