CRM Solutions: Automating and Systemizing your real estate business

How are you managing leads? When you start to put that marketing out and that phone starts ringing, how are you managing the seller and buyer calls that are coming in? How are you following up with your prospects?

That's a questions everyone should ask themselves if they do not have a CRM in place. A CRM, a Customer Relationship Manager is a system that allows you store information about prospective clients and keep it organized. It also allows you to:

increase productivity of yourself and staff,
reduce costs and boost revenues,
deliver greater customer service,
track sales flow,
produce timely reports,
automate your marketing processes and
keep tabs on your prospects and customers.
It works great in our office as we use it daily to store data on buyers, seller, investors, private lenders and other real estate professionals that are directly involved in our business. I also keep a CRM database of newsletter subscribers to know more about individuals such as yourself that are reading my information. One of the most important keys that you have is your list, so keeping adequete records and follow up systems is essential to the success of your business.

Here is some more examples of how we use it:

Sellers: Store information on the property, their motivation, decision time period and notes on possible offers and exit strategies.

Buyers: Types of properties interested in, price point they can afford, are they approved? areas they want to own property, are they buying conventionally, cash or hard money?

Real Estate Network: List of mortgage brokers, real estate agents, attorneys (information on their specialties, expertise, do they have referrals? notes on how they do business.

Here are some popular CRM Systems that are out:

ACT! by Sage: Very good CRM and popular program. This program you would have to purchase and install on your computer. If anyone else in your company is going to use it you will have to purchase a license for them as well. Basic verison will run you about $199.99

Access: Comes standard with MS Office. Very basic and comes barebone. You would have to customize this to your needs.

Goldmine: Another popular CRM that has alerts, reminders and schedules. Connects with outlook and also good for automating your mailings. This is about $50 per user per month.

Salesforce.com: Awesome CRM. Can customize for your specific needs. Has great support and decent pricing. Rangings from $50/m per user and up.

SugarCRM: Another good program. Platform similar to salesforce and can customize they way you like. This option is actually FREE since its a open source program. It will take you some time to set up but having a free app customized the way you like may be worth it. Oh course I would recommend someone doing that for you but the cost is minimal. You will also need a web host or your own server for this application

Lots of investors are also use Infusion Software which is an excellent system that in a nut shell does everything you need and a little more. This solution although is quite pricy. Some packages range in the few thousands. Highly recommended although.

Please comment on any CRM Solutions that you are using and how they are working out for you.