It’s All about the Relationship

The Rolodex Is Over. Outlook Is Passé. Say Hello to CRM!
By Gary David Hall

AZR November 2009

     


Arizona REALTOR® Archives
2003 - 2010

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What is CRM? It stands for Customer Relationship Management. If you have been in this business for any length of time, you may have heard it called Contact Management Software and may be familiar with products like Top Producer and Agent Office. The most well-known contact manager is Microsoft Outlook–essentially a glorified electronic Rolodex. A contact manager is to a CRM as a tricycle is to a Hummer. You’re not going to be cresting any mountains on a tricycle. If you invest a little time, a good CRM will take that Rolodex and turn it into a pot of gold, a stress reduction aid and an assistant who never calls in sick–all rolled into one.

It takes time. Do you like to do things the easy way or the hard way? Of course you prefer the easy way! But as long as you continue to work hard without a CRM, you’re choosing not to work smart. Are you willing to invest an hour a day, first thing in the morning before you answer emails or phone calls, for a month to change your business for the better?

I have personally used CRM in my real estate business and taught it to classes, teams and offices since 1987. I assure you, it works. Those who have implemented a good CRM will tell you in no uncertain terms that they could no sooner go back to paper or Outlook than give up faxes and email. Why is it that everyone is not hooked on CRM? Too many people are either unwilling or unable to make the time to transition from unorganized and inefficient to organized and efficient.

Don’t get me wrong. Not everyone needs a CRM solution. I know agents who are content to continue to do the same amount of business they are doing. They really didn’t want to get any busier. And if you’re at lower levels of production, you may not be working all that many hours that you need the efficiency required at higher levels of production.

What will a CRM solution do for you? When you communicate with someone by phone, email or in person, you gather information from them and enter it into your CRM. Over time, you add to that initial information, and use it over and over again, many times, for many reasons. You can do the following:
  • Prospecting. Get suspects, turn them into prospects and turn them into sales by knowing who they are, what they want and when they want it, all in significant detail. Be reminded to capitalize on that information automatically.
  • Lead source tracking. Know where your business is coming from so that you spend your marketing time and money accordingly.
  • Referral tracking. Know who is referring you the most business so that you know who to do more for in return.
  • Contact management. Everyone: suspects, prospects, clients, vendors, friends, relatives, neighbors. Know how to find any information on anyone, even from many years ago, with a few clicks virtually instantly.
  • Time management. Have automated to-do lists and organized methods of consistent follow-up. Decide what you want to do once and automatically follow up that way every time
  • Email management. How many emails are in your inbox? They should be with your contacts, or with the property, where you can find them quickly–not in your inbox.
  • Listing coordination. The biggest complaint lodged against real estate agents is poor communication. A comprehensive, automatically executed listing plan enables you to turn those complaints into praise automatically.
  • Closing coordination. Too many details can fall through the cracks. The busier you get, the more details you have swimming around in your head. Each day you have to make many decisions regarding what actions you need to take for which transactions. Even the best paper list and file methods are rife with bottlenecks and inconsistencies. Having all the information you need in one place and an automated to-do list posted on your calendar makes your job far easier and more stress-free.
  • Post closing follow-up/client retention. Not staying in touch with past clients is one of the single biggest causes of loss of income in the real estate sales industry. Never lose another referral due to your failure to stay in touch.
  • Risk reduction. Knowledge is power. Having complete records of phone calls, letters, emails, appointments and so forth insures that you will enjoy a much better position from which to defend yourself if the need arises.
  • Staff training and accountability. Personnel retention is a problem that never goes away. Having a system in place with notes built into the CRM task lists significantly diminishes the impact of a lost staff person. It enables you to have the new person step right into a tried and true system, and none of the details are lost in the transition. Additionally, it provides a clear picture of exactly who is doing what each day in the daily tasks.
A CRM solution may well be the single most all pervasive choice you make in your real estate career with regards to the day-to-day administration of your business. Invest the necessary time to truly learn, develop and use a good CRM as more than just a glorified Rolodex. If you do, you will look back some day and wonder how you ever grew your business, stayed in business and kept your sanity without it. I’ve never known anyone who made a solid effort and did not feel that way.

If you want to grow your business, save a significant amount of time, and reduce your stress, incorporate a CRM into your long term plans. Stick with it, and monitor the results, and you will see dramatic positive changes for the rest of your career.
Gary David Hall became a real estate agent in 1987 after working as a computer operations manager. With his technology background, he successfully put many automated systems into practice in his real estate business. When it became evident that the industry needed this technological efficiency, he founded RE-ACT, LLC to share his knowledge. Gary's primary focus is helping agents improve their transaction management, lead generation and follow-up efficiency through CRM software. Have questions? Email AZCRM@GaryDavidHall.com.
A Selection of CRM Products
Different Products Fit Different Needs

AdvantageXi – If you’ve been looking for one that can generate customized reports, this is the one! Some other unique features include: a referral tree that shows you who referred whom and how much money those referrers have earned you; the ability to create an email rule to add leads and launch a drip campaign automatically; a spreadsheet of the tasks due for your listings and closings based on the activity plans you launch. It’s like an automated white board for your transactions.

Top Producer – It’s hard to beat the amount of content included with this product. Pre-written emails, letters, fliers, postcards and activity plans make it easy to stay in touch. Another feature is the ability to automatically post a status report, which uses your closing plans on a webpage for clients to view 24/7. A great wow factor!

PlanPlusOnine – The ability to customize this one to your individual needs makes it unique. Team leaders/rainmakers like this one because part of it is set up specifically to track leads given out to team members and check to ensure they are followed up. If you liked the Franklin Covey system, you’ll feel right at home with this one!

Agent360 – Clean and simple are the words that come to mind. Although it is relatively powerful, it stops short of some of the depth that others have. As a consequence, it is easier to learn and faster to use. I get good feedback on this one for those reasons.

These products and others are available at www.GaryDavidHall.com.

CRM or TM?

By Ron LaMee, AAR Vice President, Information Services

Both CRM and TM (transaction management) systems help agents and brokers manage the details of their daily business lives. Successful brokers and agents realize that every closing is the beginning of a new sales cycle—repeat clients are far less expensive to maintain than finding new ones. With long in-between times in the real estate sales cycle, CRM systems can be extremely valuable in helping you stay on track with turning those past clients into repeat clients.

When you look at a simplified real estate sales cycle (see below), much goes into process and the actual transaction is only a small part:



CRM systems attempt to encompass the entire sales process, but TM systems like AAR TM (SureClose®) are specifically designed to streamline the transaction process. They are much better suited than CRM systems for collecting and saving documents, managing workflow, coordinating communications among all the parties, and providing event-based notifications and reminders. Unfortunately, while TM systems are uniquely-suited for working through a transaction, they aren’t capable of doing customer relationship management. This leaves a gap in the sales cycle.

When TM systems and CRM systems share information, you realize the best of both worlds. However, data integration is often difficult. We don’t promote CRM products, but currently, the only CRM system we know of that offers some level of data integration with AAR TM is Top Producer.

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