5REASONS WHY YOU NEED A CRM

L O O M L O G I C P R E S E N T S 5REASONS WHY YOU NEED A CRM HOW TO STAY COMPETETIVE IN 2016

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Contents 5 REASONS WHY YOU NEED A CRM Introduction 4 Simple Lead Communication 6 Time to Rethink Time Management 7 Be a Know-It-All 8 Maximizing Your Dashboard 10 Just the Essentials 12 3

These days, there are many tools available to real estate agents. The most successful agents are those who are able to make the best use of the most effective tools for their business. Gone are the days when a strong understanding of the housing market, solid relationship skills, and countless hours of hard work would produce maximum results. While these qualities continue to make up a strong foundation for any real estate agent, they are simply not enough. To be competitive in today s market, every real estate agent needs a quality CRM. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology is the tool that each and every real estate agent needs in order to set up and maintain communication throughout the entire sales process with maximum results. 4

Here are the top 5 reasons why every real estate agents needs a CRM to remain competetive in 2016 1 2 3 4 5 LEAD CONNECTIONS SIMPLIFIED. From the first interaction with each client, your communication will be documented and saved for future reference in your CRM. Regardless of the method of communication (email, text, phone calls etc.), you will be able to automatically respond through your CRM using fully customizable email templates and drip campaigns.easier. Also, each drip campaign will automatically start and stop according to each client s place in the buying process, as you change their status in your CRM. YOUR TIME IS VALUABLE. MAKE EVERY ACTION COUNT. Every real estate agent is especially aware of the value of time. Putting your CRM to work for you will essentially add more hours to your day. A good CRM will allow you to manage communication, track website analytics, and even connect leads with lenders all in one location. Streamlining all of these elements with your CRM will provide you with more time to personalize communication with your clients, which will in turn produce better results for you as an agent. THE ULTIMATE PERSONAL ASSISTANT. The accountability and tracking features of a CRM will allow you to know how each of your lenders and agents are performing at all times. Get immediate feedback on how your team is performing. What s working? Share that with the rest of your team. What s not? Know what to change and how. GET ORGANIZED, ONCE AND FOR ALL. Today s clients have many ways in which to communicate with a real estate agent. Rather than keeping lists of reminders to maintain communication through various technologies, use your CRM to help you stay organized. Customize your CRM s dashboard to easily view all inbound communication, and receive notifications about due dates and next steps. Never let your lack of organization get in the way of your success. EVERY FEATURE YOU NEED. NONE YOU DON T. PERIOD. With the right CRM, you will be able to only use features that help you. Been frustrated in the past with CRMs that are too confusing or require too much manual input? No worries! With the right CRM for your business, you will have total control over the features of your CRM, and you can customize them as you go. A streamlined CRM takes very little time to learn, and should become second-nature to use in no time. 5

Simple Lead Communication By this point in your real estate game, you are most likely familiar with the CRM concept. You might use one already, or be wondering if this is something that you need versus a trend that you could pass on. Over the next few chapters, let s explore some aspects of the CRM that should not be overlooked. To kick off this five-part series, here s a deeper look at how a CRM will simplify connections with each and every one of your leads. 1. YOUR ONE-STOP COMMUNICATION SHOP. Your CRM will automatically keep track of all of the communication that takes place between you and your leads. That phone call with Stacy that took place before your coffee kicked in yesterday? It s there. That text message from Steve that your two-year-old deleted? It s there. Want to track your top agent Eduardo s phone messages to the leads that he receives? Those are there too. Your CRM will safeguard your communication so that you never lose track of a lead again. 2. AUTOMATIC LIKE YOUR OWN ROBOT. PERSONALIZED LIKE YOUR FRIEND. With features like auto-responders and drip campaigns, you can automatically let your leads know that you are there to help. These features can be set up by both email and text, and can be customized to go out at just the right time. This customization allows you to get the right message out to each lead at their exact place in the qualifying process. No one wants to read a generic sales email, but a personalized invitation to set up a sales consultation with you, or a notice of pre-approval along with what to expect next will actually benefit your clients and establish yourself as a reliable and trustworthy resource for them. 3. DRIP CAMPAIGNS - SMART LEAD CAMPAIGN. If you are not using drip campaigns as a way of reaching out to your leads, it s time to start. Like, yesterday. CRMs can help you create drip campaigns that will educate clients every step of the way. Get relevant information out to clients in the early stages of their home-buying journey, and let them know you are there to help. Communicate immediately with homebuyers the second their offer is accepted. Create automatic templates that go out at set times, making your job a whole lot easier. Also, each drip campaign will automatically start and stop according to each client s place in the buying process, as you change their status in your CRM. 6

Time to Rethink Time Management Your time is valuable. Now more than ever, people expect quick answers and fast information. If they don t get it, they move on. When you consider your real estate business, are you communicating with all of your leads as fast as possible, every single time? You d like to say yes, but if you are being honest, probably not. The right CRM can keep you accountable for your time, and even give you time back in your day. Here s how: 1. TO-DO LIST TAKEOVER Your CRM keeps an ongoing to-do list for you. We ve all had those moments in the middle of the night when it hits you you forgot to do something major. And then you either a) can t sleep because it s all you can think about or b) get up and do it. We ve all been there. However, now you never have to worry about forgetting a task. You can easily view each upcoming deadline for all contracts, as well as past-due tasks, and get reminders about when to complete each one. Sweet dreams. Thanks CRM! 2. YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL The real estate industry is notorious for needing agents to work 24/7. And there is a reason for this. Buyers might reach out to you any time of the day or night, and it is important that not a single one of them falls through the cracks. Your CRM allows you to set working and nonworking hours for each member of your team by inputting this into the system. Your agents and lenders can do the same. By doing so, this guarantees that no leads will be sent to anyone during their non-working hours. The system will automatically bypass a non-working agent, and the lead will be routed to the right person. 3. TAKE BACK YOUR TIME OFF Now that you have set your working and nonworking hours in the system, you will be able to use your time off for what it is truly intended for. Having scheduled time off that truly lives up to its name allows you to focus on your family, personal goals, or getting some much needed relaxation. Make sure that work is not intruding on your personal life. Isn t that what you are working for anyway? So go enjoy an interruptionfree dinner with your family, or a Sunday morning round of golf. Your CRM s got your back, and you can be sure that your leads are in good hands. 7

Be A Know-It-All Because you are self-employed, organization is a must if you really want to grow your business. Taking the time to make sure you have systems in place that easily organize all of your information is an investment. However, for just a little time and effort, the right CRM will produce huge payoffs in helping you reach your goals. We will now explore how you can get and stay organized, once and for all. 1. 1. SET GOAL. REACH GOAL. REPEAT. It is an absolute must as a business owner to set goals for yourself. Clear goals will help you focus on the big picture, and drive you towards always improving your success. Your real estate CRM can make goal setting easier than you have probably ever imagined. In fact, setting your goals can be done by answering one question. How much money do you want to make in one year? With that information, your CRM will automatically calculate and break down what you need to do to get there. Amazing, right? 2. 24/7 TRACKING. It is one thing to set goals, and a whole other ballgame to track them. Think of your last New Year s resolutions. Forget what they even were? You probably came up with at least one or two, so creating those goals was obviously not the problem. The problem was in the tracking. I would bet that you did not have a clear path as to how to reach those goals, and perhaps did not know where to begin. Imagine how much more successful we would all be if we had systems in place to track our progress automatically, with up-to-the-minute progress updates. Your CRM will do this for you. Check this out: Dan had a GCI last year of $250,000. His business is doing well, and he decides that for 2016 he wants to make $300,000. He simply inputs this into his CRM and bam! He gets a simple breakdown of what he needs to do to reach his goal. Dan closes his first transaction in January, and his goals are automatically updated. His average sales price, commission, and number of transactions needed are all adjusted immediately. He continues this process and meets his goal for the year, ready to raise his goal for the following year. 8

3. TRACK YOUR ROI AND LEAD CONVERSION RATES. Along with tracking goal progress, it is also essential to track your ROI. Small changes to your business can produce a major boost in your GCI. The catch is, if you are not consistently tracking your ROI, it is impossible to know what changes should be made. Don t throw away your money by putting it into investments that are not working for you. It is also hugely important to know how well you and your team are converting leads, and how quickly leads are being responded to. Your CRM can track this, along with everything else, in one handy place. 9

Maximizing Your Dashboard The concept of a dashboard is not new. Every car has a dashboard, and it is the easiest, safest way to know pretty much everything you need to know about your car. You wouldn t buy a car without one. A real estate CRM can give you the same transparency into the inner workings of your business. Get an at-a-glance view of everything you need to know, updated in real-time. Data is your best friend. Use it! Your dashboard is more than the sum of its parts. Let s take a look at how you can make the most of it: 1. QUALITY OVER QUANTITY. Almost all major tech platforms are now using dashboards as a way of providing their users with the ultimate user experience. Microsoft Windows and HubSpot, for example, are harnessing the power of the dashboard to give their users the tools they need to get things done smarter. Your CRM should be no different. When choosing a CRM, it is important to select one that is designed specifically for real estate. Ever try explaining what you do to anyone outside of the business? No one really gets it like other agents. That is why it is important that your CRM speaks the same language you do. Choose one that has been designed by agents, for agents. You ll thank yourself later. Once you do, you will wonder how you ever operated with one! Let s talk specifics. What exactly can I do with the dashboard of my CRM? Easily search all of your leads Track lead quality by source View and edit calendar events and appointments Monitor progress towards sales goals View lender statistics Track team performance Quickly add new leads or transactions View notifications of past-due contingencies, escrows, and other tasks 10

2. TRACKING TEAM PERFORMANCE... IT S EASIER THAN YOU MIGHT THINK You want to make sure you are getting the most out of each of your team members. But how? In order to gain transparency into your real estate business, you need to be able to see who is doing what, how often, how well, and so on. Using a team-tracking widget, you can see how well your team is performing, and what areas need attention. Why waste your time monitoring (and perhaps micro-managing) team members who are doing well and thriving? You should be able to see with a quick glance who is up to par, and who is not. Use that information to determine where actually needs your time and attention. A quality CRM displays this information in an easy to understand visualization. Use this to your advantage. Like a boss. 11

Just The Essentials Gone are the days when CRMs would be accessed by PC only. The modern CRM should be as accessible to you as a third arm. Think about it... a virtual third limb! Between laptops, PCs, tablets, and mobile devices, most people are never more than five feet away from some method of internet communication, and your CRM should be equally accessible across each of these technologies. Make sure your CRM is cloud-based and mobile friendly, and ideally it should have a native application as well. Here s why: 3. SKY S THE LIMIT When considering where you are going to store all of your information, you must make sure you are saving to the cloud. Have you ever misplaced a lead s contact information, or changed a feature of your auto-responder on your phone, only to later realize it wasn t saved? Huge face-palm. Not only do you risk losing a lead or transaction when this happens, but this can also knock your credibility and reputation as an agent. The stakes are huge! Don t risk it. Make sure your CRM is cloud-based. 4. FULL ACCESS IN YOUR POCKET Just as a cloud-based CRM will provide you with security, a mobile friendly CRM will ensure you accessibility. You want things to be just as easy to do on your phone as it would be on your desktop or tablet. Imagine having access to all of the elements of your entire business, all in one app. That s what your CRM should be doing for you! Also, a native application allows you to automatically sync your contact info, making the transition quick and easy. 5. GET RIGHT TO WORK Your CRM should be simple and intuitive to get started and begin using. If your CRM eats away at your working time with a lengthy set-up, then it is probably more hassle than it is worth. Remember, you are looking for a CRM that will help move you forward, not hold you back. Look for one that has functionalities that change automatically as you move your clients through the buyer s process. This means that you will only receive prompts and be given choices to select that apply to you and your client at that particular moment. No overwhelming drop-down menus or features that do not apply to you. You can personalize and customize as your wish, giving you full control over your business. 12