I received two replys from people who thought they had the SOAR MLS manual, but they did not have it after all, so I still need it, so I am re-posting.
This will bring back memories for some. I used to be involved as a reseller with a product called SOAR MLS back in the mid 90's, that did automated MLS searches before IDX came along. I am doing some research for someone, and I need a copy of the "SOAR MLS" manual. I need one that is dated 2001 or prior. To help compensate you for the time you take looking for and delivering it, I will be happy to pay $100 to the first person to provide any of them.
I am now expanding the request to include old manuals for Fusion MLS, Web MLS, Net MLS, or Tempo.
If you have one and want to send it to me, please contact me first so I can provide delivery information.
This will bring back memories for some. I used to be involved with a product called SOAR MLS, that did automated MLS searches before IDX came along. I am doing some research for someone, and I need a copy of the "SOAR MLS" manual, or the "SOAR E-MLS manual. I need one that is dated 2001 or prior. To help compensate you for the time you take looking for and delivering it, I will be happy to pay $100 to the first person to provide one.
If you have one and want to send it to me, please contact me first so I can provide delivery information, and announce that I no longer need one.
If you don't know what a Customer Relationship Manager does, how can you know if you need one?
Do you run your business like a business? You're probably tired of hearing that old question, but it's one of the many things a CRM helps you do better. So what doe s a CRM do? If you want to do the following things, or do them better or faster, then you should be looking at CRM solutions.
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, and being reminded to capitalize on that information automatically
Lead source tracking - knowing where your business is coming from and spending your marketing time and money accordingly/wisely
Referral tracking - knowing who is referring you the most business, so you know who to do more for in return
Contact management - That means everyone! Suspects; prospects; clients; vendors; friends; relatives; neighbors. Knowing how to find any information on anyone, even from many years ago, with a few clicks virtually instantly
Time management - having 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 from then on
E-mail management - how many e-mails are in your inbox? They should be with your contacts, or with the property, where you can find them, quickly, not in your inbox or in a folder somewhere
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 effortlessly, 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. And 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.
Document management - store all the documents relevant to a transaction right with the record of that transaction and/or with the client
Word processing and desktop publishing- enjoy being able to easily do any kind of mailing you want to, right from the database itself rather than farming it out to third party if that is your preference. OR maintain your mailing list and easily send it out to third parties with a few clicks when needed.
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 an automatically generated centralized easy to reference complete record of phone calls, letters, e-mails, appointments, etc., insures that you will enjoy a much better position from which to defend yourself if need be.
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.
CRM is the software you need to do these things for you. Therefore, if you need to do these things, you need a CRM solution.
You cannot really grasp how much it will help you.
Occasionally when you are working with a buyer or a seller, do you find yourself thinking, "They have absolutely no clue how incredibly complex this whole transaction is from start to finish. They can read all they want about it, feel they have become quite expert on the subject, and still have no real appreciation for it all."
Until you use a CRM to the point where you can no longer see yourself getting along without it - you too, cannot appreciate how much of an impact it will have on your business, and even on your life.
If you invest the necessary time to truly use and develop a good CRM as more than just a glorified Rolodex, it is an absolute fact that you will look back some day and wonder how you ever grew your business, stayed in business, and kept your sanity without it. It will be the single most all-pervasive choice you will make in your entire Real Estate career concerning the day-to-day administration of your business. It will become a growing thing and believe it or not, you will actually come to like it a great deal.
DO NOT BUY A CRM...
...unless you are committed to:
making the time to learn it - note the use of the word making as opposed to gettingthe time. It's so very important to understand that this one point makes all the difference in the world between someone who implements the CRM and reaps the benefits, and someone who eventually simply regrets spending the money, and blames it on the CRM. Maybe you have heard the time management axiom that a project or meeting takes as long as the time you allot to it. The same goes for your Real Estate day. You cannot keep putting off learning your CRM until the time that you need to spend with it presents itself. For many of us, that time just does not come. When you put one hour into learning your new CRM first thing in the morning, before you answer any calls or e-mails, you get it done, and then you somehow miraculously manage to get everything else you need to get done that day, done!
learning to use it as more than just a glorified Rolodex. If that is all you are going to use it for, stick with Outlook or something like that.
As a Real Estate licensee, we wear many hats. No one likes all of them. There are those who will tell you that the reason most agents do not use a CRM is because they are too complex, and they need to be easier. Maybe they do, but selling Real Estate needs to be easier too, but it is what it is. You learned how to use Outlook, MS Word, and maybe MS Publisher too. You spent hour after hour playing with them until you got a handle on them and never complained because you had no choice. What is so different about learning a CRM?
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.
Make that determination right here and now. In order to accomplish the above, you must make a commitment to investing the time to learn how to use a CRM. You then must either create, or purchase and tweak, pre-written e-mails and letters; fliers; post cards; prospect follow-up campaigns, etc. This does not have to be done all at once! It's an elephant. Eat it one bite at a time! If you are not yet an organized professional business person in Real Estate sales, and want to become one, what are you waiting for?
My timing in my career in Real Estate sales was impeccable - not!
I started in 1987, when the market was starting its decline, and I got out in 1994 when the market was turning to the good once again. In my first year, I sat new construction for my broker, and that community's sales were virtually nil for everyone sitting them. When I wasn't sitting the samples, I was sitting "on floor/opportunity time" for that same broker. Well no one was getting many opportunities in that market either. I was doing BAD!
Finally after the better part of a year, I stopped doing both, and started doing my own prospecting. Once someone's name got into my database (I used one called Real Estate Specialist in those days - a DOS program) they got followed up with until they would either, as Steve Stewart would say, "Buy or Die"!
So over the next 5 years, with no pre-existing sphere of influence to speak of, I went from 0 sides in 1988, to 43 sides in 1993, in a very slow, buyers market. How? By mailing or calling everyone who had the misfortune, I mean good fortune, of finding themselves in my database.
I ended up going from a non-producer in a mom and pop shop to the number two agent in transactions in a 100% RE/MAX office simply because I followed up consistently. The other agents in the office called me the ‘King of follow-up' because they knew I consistently did business with people months and years after I first met/spoke with them at an open house, ad call, sign call, door knocking, local pub, golfing, or whatever. I never let them forget me. And I was able to do that easily and efficiently by using my CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software.
So are you, you know, using yours?
If you own a CRM, and you ever have that phone conversation that contains the words - "Oh thanks for calling, but we already bought a house", then you are not using follow-up plans with your prospects!
Any time you speak with someone, and they said something like "Oh we're not doing anything until Bobby graduates in June, always made sure you get something personal out of them like that he liked to golf, or that Bobby was going to major in photography. That goes into that prospect's notes. You then continue to mail/e-mail them - consistently - until it gets closer, and then you call.
You have a pre-arranged follow-up "Plan or Campaign". As soon as you get that lead, you click a couple buttons, and select the plan you have specifically created for that kind of lead. It would be a Hot, Medium, or Cold plan, and when the plan called for that phone call somewhere down the road, it will come up on your to-do list.
When I called him back many months and sometimes years later and asked if Bobby was still interested in photography, you could hear a pin drop on the other end of the phone. There was always one of two reactions. He either marveled at my memory, or he said something like, "You use follow-up software don't you?" Either way I had them, especially if he said the latter, because he knew I was organized. Buyers and sellers like organized!
Now, I teach people to track those things in the right manner. So let's say you find out about a special golf outing in your market area. You can do a quick search, find the golfers, and shoot an e-mail out to them to let them know.
Or maybe Doylestown Borough just announced a tax break in the local paper. How many people read the paper any more? Before they find out by word of mouth, you can do a quick search on your past buyers who bought in Doylestown Borough, and let them know about it. Are you not just the best darn Real Estate person they have ever known!
And what are you doing each time you send out these notes? You're staying "top of mind" with them, and of course, you are asking for referrals.
DO NOT neglect your past clients with regards to follow-up. Are you proud of the job you did for them? Did they like the job you did for them? Then capitalize on it! Make absolutely sure you ‘touch' them at least once each month by mail or e-mail, and annually or semi-annually by phone. And again, always ask for a referral.
If you are not consistently in your past client's face, guess who will be? Right! The neighbor or the brother-in-law who just got in the business. They are hungry and prospecting. If you are not top-of-mind with your past clients, you will lose money.
If your CRM does not have its own "Content", that is, pre-written e-mails/letters, then write your own. Just make sure to use spell check, and have someone else critique and edit them.
If the thought of writing scares the Dickens out of you, buy some like "Dave Beson's LetterWriter". And remember what I said in a prior post about pre-written content., the value is in the concepts, not the wording. Or do a search on "Real Estate Prospecting Letters". Be careful though. Some of them are really dated.
A contact manager is a glorified RolodexTM. Outlook is a good example of a contact manager. What you have, or should have, is a CRM, which stands for Customer Relationship Manager. Operative word being Relationship. Its job is to help you maintain a relationship with your suspects, prospects, and clients, by targeting specific groups of people, with customized plans for follow-up.
You customize by categorizing them, such as hot buyer, past seller, etc., or by keeping certain information on them such as that they like golf, or are a graduate of Penn State, or that they like wine, etc. All of this information enables you to target market to them, as opposed to doing what all the other agents who do not know them do, which is generalized non-targeted marketing. Which do you think works better?
The point is, you have a tool to make you more money already. Start using it! Do not let your CRM solution suffer the same fate as that poor Nordic Track® you have, sitting in the corner being used as a lingerie rack!
Based on many conversations I continue to have where certain issues keep coming up, I think it is time to re-visit a few points about trying to find, and learning how to use, Contact Management and CRM Solutions.
1) Do not judge a CRM by its graphics alone. There are several products available that may not appeal to the eye aesthetically, but if you look past the graphical appearance, you might be surprised. There is one product I have in mind in particular that definitely looks dated, but in actuality it has been improved more frequently based on user suggestions, and for a longer time, than any other product of which I am aware. They have a Catch 22 going on. This particular product puts user suggestions higher in priority than the appearance of the product, and they end up with people passing their product by based only on its dated look. I keep encouraging them to put a higher priority on giving it an updated look, but it is still on the list. Be aware of the 'Shallow Hal' tendency in yourself with CRM's if you have it.
2) Do not spend too little time evaluating a product. Do not rush through 10 of them. You need to narrow it down to 2 or 3, and then spend the time necessary to evaluate them well. On a regular basis I see people discount a product because they think it does not do what they want. That is because they have not taken enough time to properly evaluate it. The interesting thing is that even after I point out that it does do that function; ofttimes they have already talked themselves out of the product due to those falsely inferred negative feelings! So do not let yourself count out a product for lack of doing something you want it to, until you confirm with the company or myself, that it does not do it.
3) Stay with a technical problem until it is solved, rather than a few minutes here and there when it is convenient, frustrating yourself and the support people. Sometimes support is bad and non-responsive, but other times it is the user's fault for only being available during a small window of time once every few days. Recognize if you are the cause of the problem, because blaming the vendor may make you feel absolved, but it does not get the problem solved. Sometimes you may have to wait for hours or even until the next day for a response from a support person. What I see very often is that someone will have a problem but not make the time to deal with it. Rather they will wait until they get the time to deal with it. They then make a call or submit a support ticket, and then wait for a response. If the response does not come in fifteen minutes or an hour, and they have moved onto something else, they then miss the phone call, or do not answer support's e-mail for days. They then get time to deal with it again, respond to the call or the ticket, move on to something else, and get back into the same vicious cycle. That happens 3 or 4 times, and then they say "I've had this problem for 8 days and it's unresolved! The reality of it is that they've only actually been working on it for a matter of minutes! Their next step is to berate the support team and flee that product, blaming the support. Now you are into the cost of a new product, and worse, a whole new learning curve. Talk to me before you throw the baby out with the bathwater. I will be honest and tell you whether or not you should try to stick it out with your current product, or move on to another. It depends upon many factors. What is best in the long run; a product that does most everything you want, but can sometimes be tough to get support from; or a product that does less of what you want, but has great support? The obvious answer is - I want both! Well again - your needs determine if you can have both.
4) Do not let the normal initial frustration of getting your old database into your new database, and getting used to the software, get you to the point of dumping it for something else, assuming the next product will not have the same issues. Starting something new, or changing to something new, is very likely to be painful for any number of reasons. Deal with it. Certain things are going to require your time no matter which one you choose. Then again, maybe this product that you chose is having problems it should not have right up front. Does that mean you have made the wrong choice? Not necessarily. None of these products is perfect. Maybe this particular product's imperfections are right up front. After that maybe it will be great most of the time. All these factors are just that. They are factors. Each product has a very long list of pros and cons. The one with the most pros, and the least cons, for your needs, is the one for you.
All in all - if you spent a fair amount of time determining that this one does more of what you want it to do than all the others you looked at, give it time. Give it a chance. Do not be so quick to jump the gun. You may be glad you did.
It is hard to know when you are right to be upset with a product/company, if you have little or no experience with which to form a perspective, compared to similar products. What is normal? What is fair to expect? Are you even interpreting the problem correctly? Again - call me, and I'll tell you what I think.
Recently I received an order for an Agent Office upgrade, which in and of itself is nothing unusual. But this order was different. One detail one must provide when ordering the upgrade is the serial number of the software. Well I looked at this order and saw that the serial number was A000001 ! The very first one! The man's name is Bruce Hackel, and he has been using Agent Office since the very beginning! I spoke with him a little, and he first got it in 1992, and has been a happy camper for over 17 years. I'm not saying this to tell you it's the very best solution out there for everyone. Different solutions are better for different agents. I just thought it was noteworthy.
When I placed the order for him I suggested to them (Emphasys Software) that we should do something special for him. Emphasys took me up on it, and we are celebrating his number one status by giving him free support for a year which normally costs $295. Mind you it's not a new Ferrari, but hats off to Emphasys Software for a token of appreciation for so many years of loyalty, despite the fact that they only just recently acquired Agent Office.
I would also like to thank you Bruce for choosing me to make the purchase of the upgrade through. It is kind of an honor! Hope you have many more years of productive use of Agent Office! It will be exciting to see where Emphasys Software takes the product. My conversations with them have me optimistic, anticipating good things in the future.
Hello all. Just wanted to get the following information out there. I just received it from Emphasys Software.
"We just ran several scenarios on installing AgentOffice v10.0 on to a 64bit version of Windows Vista and determined that AgentOffice is compatible with Windows 64 bit Vista...The customer needs to make sure that they have installed both the latest updates for Windows x64 SP1 AND .Net Framework 3.5 SP1. Below are the 2 links that will provide the updates needed to be installed, prior to installing AgentOffice v10.0.
When installing AgentOffice v10.0, it will be sufficient to "Save" the download onto the user's Desktop and run it from Desktop after download is complete.
Hope this clears any concerns regarding AgentOffice's compatibility with Windows Vista x64."
After almost six months of research, interviews and design, the Matrix is ready! It started as a way for me to be able to answer all of your questions when you called to ask about the various features of each. After mentioning it to some people and hearing the interest it generated, I decided to make it available to the public, along with some of what I know on the subject, in the form of a glossary
The Matrix allows you to compare any of currently 29 products side-by-side, across 350 features/topics/categories. Equally as important as being able to compare the product features, there is a 15,000+ word glossary to which they link, which will teach you every capability in virtually all of the products available on the market today.
There were/are 40 Real Estate specific Contact Manager and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions in all. Currently there are 29 products in the Matrix. I am affiliated with 22 of them as a reseller, and will soon be affiliated with the other seven as well. There are five more which have recently come onto the market which I am in the process of adding to the Matrix with which I am discussing affiliation. There are three in product development which will eventually be added. There are three that have gone out of business since I started. One of the 40 has opted not to participate in the Matrix, or to affiliate.
Gathering the data on each product started with a three to five hour GoToMeeting interview between myself and, in all but three cases, the CEO of the companies, to complete the initial raw Matrix. All the vendors now have 24/7 password protected access to the data in their product in order to edit it and keep it up to date. There is a field which contains the last date they revised the data.
Most products are targeted at North American residential resale agents. Some combine that with BPO's; REO's; Long Term Rentals; Short Term Rentals; International Sales; or Commercial Real Estate. Some are focused on marketing materials and light on CRM. Some are relatively simple, while some are seriously powerful. None of them are perfect, and none of them have it all, but some come pretty close, depending upon your needs.
This exercise has been an invaluable ongoing education, and is giving me a tremendous insight into the entire RE CRM industry. It is a pleasure getting to know the people behind the CRM's. Each and every CRM comes to the market with a different perspective about what is most important.
"...comprehensive, unbiased,........aspects of making a decision on CRM I never even thought of.........far and away the best article of it's kind I've ever seen on the Internet..."
Different vendors have different ideas of what Tech-Support means. What I call Tech-Support,as defined in my Matrix, is "If it is broke, we will help you fix it". In other words, if their software is not working; it is not doing something it is supposed to do; or it is doing something it is not supposed to do, they will help you fix it. A different kind of support would be if you call and ask how to do a mail merge. Tech-Support will USUALLY refer you to a user's manual or training videos. What I call Help-Desk is a policy whereby they will help you fix problems, but will also walk you through how to do something, as a normal part of their service.
Why the two different policies? Revenue streams. Income. Tech-Support/Help-Desk is one of, if not the biggest expense software vendors have. Web based products have an ongoing stream of income. They get paid thousands of dollars by thousands of people every month. That is many thousands of dollars every month, whether they get any new customers/users or not. That pays for a larger support staff. If they are big enough, they can answer the phone directly, much if not most of the time.
Desktop solutions on the other hand are paid only once, up front, when you purchase the product. They will then provide you with Tech-Support and with some products Help-Desk support for anywhere from 30 days to one year. After that you must pay for it, with some exceptions. What percentage of people pay for it after the 30 days or one year? Very few. which makes for a much smaller support staff, longer response times, and a narrower scope of what they will help with. If they have a large user base, and were to attempt to provide significantly more, most would simply end up going out of business. Typical response times for desktop software varies, but can be as much as 24 hours. Longer than that should be unacceptable.
Am I saying that desktop solutions are a bad idea? Absolutely not! I use one myself. The point is that I wanted to speak up for desktop solutions that are getting a bad rap about tech support. Too many people expect too much for too little.
Another tendency (not a hard and fast rule) I've seen with desktop solutions is that the more users there are, the more questions there are, and the more of a demand that is placed on support. As the company sells more product, it is a cart and horse thing dealing with increased sales, generating more of a demand on support, and being able to grow the support staff commensurately. Obviously, the better the product, the less of a need for support. But there are still a good percentage of users that want hand holding, so again the more users, the more demand for support.
Be aware that NO RE CRM company TRULY offers 24/7 support, by phone or by e-mail that they will commit to. Some do go the extra mile when they can, and some offer extended hours via e-mail, but virtually none work on weekends, again, that they will commit to.
So income is the primary reason for the two different policies. It makes sense, and if you are objective about it, it is also quite fair.
What I hear very often is that people do not want to pay for a Web based product, because they want to own the software, and not pay for it monthly. BUT - they then want to have Tech-Support, and many expect Help-Desk support as well. Sorry to disappoint, but an old adage come to mind. "You can't have your cake and eat it too." You can say "I paid for the software and I should get support for that money too", and you do, to a point. But again, that one time fee just doesn't last very long. If you want ongoing quickly answered phone support, more often than not, you have to pay an ongoing fee.
The questions then become; if the product is stable, and they have a good training tutorial library available, how much do you need in the way of support after the initial setup? Do they have a "per incident" fee for support? Might that be sufficient for relatively rare future needs?
Following is a little known fact. If one were to think about it, it makes perfect sense, but I had simply never thought about it. Everyone who likes Web CRMs always says, “I like Web based databases because I don’t have to worry about backing up.” Let us think about this in some detail. Let us say your computer is stolen. With a Web based product, all you have to do is get another computer, log in, and everything is there like you left it. Very nice! And that’s the type of scenario people always think about when they think about what would happen if they had a desktop solution and their data is not backed up. They look at it in terms of a total one time loss. They think about losing their computer, or having a hard drive failure, or having a virus, etc., and losing everything.
But let us say you were working on your database on a Web based product, and you accidentally delete 200 of your contacts instead of putting them into a different category like you thought you were doing. There is a good likelihood that you are bleep out of luck. It is possible that they will be able to restore your database to the day before, or some period before, but if they can, it may cost you a fairly significant chunk of change. So what can you do to protect yourself? Not much. You can do periodic exports, say weekly or monthly. Just bear in mind that exports never contain all of your information. See “How much of your data can be exported?”
I would like to take a moment to ease some concerns about data loss that are either outright wrong, or simply overstated. They are:
• Your data is not safe with a Web based solution
• Desktop solutions make your data vulnerable due to inconsistent backups
There are actually two sub-categories here. Some people are afraid that the web based provider may steal their contact database, and sell it. There was an instance back in the 90's when a major franchise provided a Web based solution for its agents, and unbeknownst to the agents, the people in their contact database were suddenly being deluged with e-mail and postal mail, soliciting the franchise's mortgage company, title company, insurance company, etc. In that case, the franchise claimed a right to the data. Whether or not the franchise was entitled to use that database was debatable, but it is quite different than a third party vendor doing it. Maybe that event is where this, what I consider to be irrational fear, came from.
That scenario is considerably different than a Web based CRM provider actually compromising their user's databases by selling the database, or soliciting to it. If they did that - their business would be over! It's that pure and simple. They would be found out in short order, and their business would be done. For what? For a few comparative measly dollars that they could get for the sale of that data. I am sorry - I just don't see it. Is it possible? Sure. Is it probable? Most certainly not. If it were that probable, it would have happened by now. Is it possible that it has happened, and I just haven’t heard of it? Sure, but I doubt it. People love to recount such horror stories, and I’ve spoken to thousands of people for over a decade one-on-one and to groups, and have never heard of it happening with a third party vendor. Another possibility is that a disgruntled employee could steal it. Again, that is absolutely possible, but has not happened to date to my knowledge. It takes a great deal of time and effort to develop and market a CRM solution. To then allow such a thing to happen is unlikely at worst.
Additionally, people are concerned that their online database will simply be hacked, and marketed to. Is this possible? Sure. Is it probable? With no statistical data to support this supposition whatsoever, my guess would be that it is about as likely as your personal hard drive being hacked, and having your database stolen from it. Very low odds. Getting hit by lightening also comes to mind. Also consider that Top Producer would be a perfect, well known target, given that it has the largest market share in RE CRM and it has not happened to them since they went online with their data in 2003.
With regards to an online solution simply losing your data; they always have at least one redundant set of servers - a backup. That said, my advice has always been to do at least a monthly export of your data from a Web based solution. This leaves nothing to chance. While that export will not be a copy of all your data, it will be all or most of your contact data, normally including names, phone numbers, addresses, notes, categories, etc. Note that I said an Export and not a Backup, the latter being usable only by restoring it into the software.
There is actually another topic that bears discussion here. That is the heavily blown out of proportion, and just plain misrepresented, topic of contact managers/CRM solutions that hold your data hostage. Each Web based solution is very different with regards to how much data they make available for export, but all of them enable you to export at least some basic contact data. The answer to quelling that fear is simply to find out, before you decide on a solution, exactly which, and how many, fields are available for export from your chosen solution. Also consider weighting what data is most important to you. As long as you have the primary contact information, you have your inventory. As long as you have your sphere of influence's names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, you have far and away the most important information. Everything beyond that may seem absolutely necessary, but if you think about it, not having it would be a nuisance, but it would not put you back to square one, as losing your inventory would.
Another sometimes overstated issue is that having a desktop solution means putting your database at risk, as many agents are bad/inconsistent at backing up. While this is a valid concern, it used to be true more than it is now. One of the reasons is that a significant number of agents have now been burned - lost their data. You have never seen more religious backer-uppers than those who have at one time lost their data. The next reason is that if you pick the right solution now, there are very often at least two copies of the data in two different locations. Consider that a significant percentage of agents have both a desktop computer, and a laptop/tablet PC, or simply two desktops. One at the office, and one at the home office. If that is the case, then the database is being shared between the two, hence two copies, and no need for a backup. For two of the contact management/CRM desktop solutions I sell, the Master Database may be stored on a thumb drive, which is used to transfer the changes back and forth between the computers, while each computer also has its own copy of the database. This means there are three copies of the database. If you have two or more computers, backing up is not an issue. Those same two solutions offer to host your master database, making it available to be shared by any number of remote users/computers. This of course, once again, makes backing up a non-issue, as the master would be the third copy of the database.
For those agents who have only one computer, which is certainly still a significant percentage of agents who use a CRM database, there are better and easier methods of backing up coming out all the time. There are automated online services which back up your computer in the background with no effort from you whatsoever, other than the original setup. My personal preferences for backing up all my data can be found on my home page. But if you still do not back up consistently, then you will be in trouble some day. For those of you who know you will not back up consistently - get an automated Web based solution! This will be a safer solution for you. Once you have finally realized that you must have some kind of method to track and maintain a relationship with your sphere of influence, without a doubt, keeping that sphere of influence (your inventory) safe, is of paramount importance. Proper research and planning will ensure that it is given the attention it deserves.
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