What is CRM software and how can it help my property business?

So, you have a property business, and you have a multitude of contacts and relationships to manage, maintain and develop and that is getting tough.

You’ve talked about this in property forums, and social media groups and different CRMs get recommended, but you’re not really sure what CRM is or how it could help.

You’re not the only one.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. If you don’t have ‘customers’ then you can be forgiven for wondering why you need a CRM.

However, if you think of customers as anyone you do business with and everyone that you want to do business with, then you have a lot of customer relationships to manage.

CRM software is a solution. It keeps all your business relationships together. Rather than having information relating to specific people and organisations held in different digital and physical systems, CRM software brings everything together in one central place, that you can access from one dashboard.

Whether you’re just starting out or are an established property investor or developer, there are many good reasons to use a CRM.

Until now, you’ve probably been working with tools you are familiar with (email, spreadsheets, calendars or notebooks etc.), but keeping track of everything has become time-consuming and inconsistent.

Using a CRM in your property business can help you:

By centralising your contacts and your communications, you can quickly and easily track your progress.

This is a big benefit if you are working as part of a team, as you all work off of the same information.

By giving you a defined process to follow every time you make a new contact, you will build better relationships and maximise your opportunities.

By enabling you to manage your deal analysis as a set of repeatable stages, e.g. ‘Initial Analysis’, ‘Viewing’, ‘Offer’, with each stage containing multiple activities (e.g. meetings, phone calls etc.). So you know what to focus on and when.

A CRM system will streamline how you work, centralising all your business intelligence in one place. No longer will you have to sift through emails, spreadsheets, business cards, notes etc to piece together the information you need.

Your CRM dashboard gives you access to everything you need on your desktop or your mobile app, whenever you need it.

Most businesses will get by for a while without a CRM, but adopting one sooner rather than later is a good call. Why wait until you are struggling to cope with a system that is not geared up for your property business?

Find out more about the best CRM software for property here.

Get in touch to find out more.

About the author

Steven Lai is a property investor, founder of Super Developments and creator of CRM for Property Success. He is a CRM expert with over 12 years commercial experience of managing sales teams.

Join the CRM for Property Success Facebook Group to ask him anything (about CRM, property or 80's trivia!).