When we first started our independent real estate company, contact management or CRM was the last thing on our mind. Even when the question was raised in the early days, it was usually answered by someone's sarcasm:
"Well that's a good problem to have. Gee, what are we going to do when we have too much business. We'll cross that bridge when we get there"
It may sound ridiculous, but in the beginning of a new business we are so utterly consumed with the client (lead) generation that we lack the foresight to deal with establishing systems in place to handle the clients when they do come. After the initial trial and error struggles to find our own "corner" in the real estate world, we finally figure it out and the stream of clients starts to come in. Slowly at first, but then it steadies and grows and grows.
" I guess we're at the bridge now. So, how the hell do we cross it, Mr. Smart Guy?"
Call it growing pains. Call it natural course in a business' life. This issue is real for the thousands upon thousands of real estate professionals that view this field as a career, as opposed to a weekend occupation. When the well being of our families depends on the business we establish through our hard work, we have to think long and hard about how to make the most of our existing client base to generate more business.
The issue at hand here is to generate a stream of referrals from the clients we have already satisfied with our great level of service. Sound easy enough? It isn't. The problem begins with the fact that most Realtors are to their clients like a physics exam is to a college student: Very familiar and close, but the moment the transaction is over, the clients forget your name, what you do and how you do it. That's when we have to make contact with our clients through marketing materials, emails and such so we can keep ourselves first in their mind when it comes to real estate.
My research online for contact management software yielded a collection of obscure and in a way scary websites marketing the "best solution" for this problem. I find it hard to trust such an intricate part of our business growth to these companies. On the other hand, I have tried Outlook, ACT! (the general Version) and Intuit Customer Manager (from the creators of QuickBooks). The first two I did not like as they are very general to solve my real estate specific issues. Customer Manager has a lot of features that I do like, but I wish it was easier to install on a network of computers without purchasing an individual copy for every PC.
How are you managing the lifeline of your business? What contact management software do you use and why?
I think many of us would want to know...
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