to CRM or not to CRM

What is a CRM? It a Customer Relationship Management tool.   Should you use one? The answer is YES!  But what is you are just starting out and you can remember everyone you need to reach out to and know?  The answer is still YES!  You should start one and you should do it now.   Here is why.

Over the course of my career, I have been around and managing companies’ CRMs for the past 6 years. The biggest mistake that I see is that agents wait way too long to start a CRM.   You don’t get into the real estate business to not grow your business.  When you are in growth mode that is when you need a CRM the most.   I don’t care how good your memory is or how many to do lists you make, you just cannot remember everything about everyone.

As an agent, the most critical part to the grow your business is to make connections and add value to your connections.  A CRM provides 1 place where you can note everything about your clients & prospects: kids, hobbies, birthdays,  anniversary, addresses & emails.  While also being the starting place for all marketing automation, which is an easy way to stay top of mind to your clients and prospects while providing valuable content to them.

Don't Wait.

The biggest mistake I see agents make is that they wait too long.  They fall into the trap of saying “its too early” or “I don’t need that right now”.   What happens is that eventually they come to accept that they need a system,  by that time it to just too big of a task and it never gets done.   The idea of sitting down for hours and putting everyone they know into a computer is just to “administrative” and time consuming.  I agree with you… and it sounds miserable.

3 Steps To A Rock Solid CRM

One. 

Start now!  No matter where you are in your career.  Just start now.   Take 20 minutes everyday for 2 weeks and start gathering all your contacts and start entering them into your CRM system.

Two. 

Group. Tag. Categorize. Most CRM systems have a way to mark or group contacts into marketing lists.  As you are entering your make sure you are tagging or grouping them into meaningful marketing lists like "Buyer Prospects", "Listing Prospects", "Past Buyers", and "Past Sellers".   This will give you the framework to send pointed and valued content in future email campaigns to your database.

Three.

Then commit to taking time every week to put all the new people you met into the CRM.  And I mean obsessively commit to doing this every week.  Most weeks should really take 5 or 10 minutes.

Then suddenly you have this thing that can be a huge asset that will allow you to create meaningful email campaigns and help you connect with the right people at the right time. The possibilities are endless but you have to do it.  IT WILL BE WORTH IT!