What does “CRM” mean to you?

CRM. Acronymed initially as Crew Resource Management, it is a popular acronym regarding roughly similar things that, I believe, came from the aviation industry years ago. Some time in the late 1970s, it became prevalent in aviation parlance after a series of accidents involving flight crews who just didn’t work well together. CRM was, and still is, a vital resource for flight crew team dynamics.

CRM has been adopted by numerous industries since the the aviation industry made it a standard practice. Of course the acronym is different among industries, we in real estate have come to know it as either Customer Resource Management or Client Resource Management. But can we still regard it as Crew Resource Management in the real estate industry?

As teams have developed in real estate among agent-teams, it can also be correctly adapted to the Home Buying or Home Selling Team that an agent uses to close a deal. Agent, lender, title, escrow, insurance, inspector, trades, to name a few, are all a part of the “Home Team”. Why not think of them all as a “crew” piloting a goal of homeownership? Is the goal a tangible thing? Well the idea may not be, but the goal certainly is, and to get to said goal we must all navigate, correctly, the financial and physical landscape that bridges idea to goal.

So the crew of the, ahem, homeowner”ship” (get it? ha ha), must essentially get along and set aside non-value adding activities like ego, pride, and self-serving applications that take away from the Client Resource Management aspect of the goal. As a crew, the whole Home Buying / Home Selling Team must identify the prime value-adding activities that encompass the client’s ultimate goal.

As Agents, we are indeed the navigators of the homeownership, and the team we use, we are together the crew who safely steers the homeownership to port, or to landing, chose your best analogy. I think a large benefit we have seen in adding value to the whole goal is streamlining processes through tools like Docusign and email. But are there tools, be they antiquated or cumbersome, that can be identified and removed from the system because of their lack of value?

To that effect, are we adding too many non-value-adding activities to the formula, be they people or tools? What is good Crew Resource Management for Agents and their Home Buying / Selling Teams? What does CRM mean to you?