Wondering what the best CRM is for a property start-up? 

So your starting out in the property business and you want a CRM, but you’re wondering which is the best one for a start-(me-)up and whether actually, you can just buy one off the shelf?

If this is you, these are our top considerations when searching for a CRM:

1. User experience

You’re going to use your CRM on your desktop, but you’ll also need it on your mobile devices so you can have access to all your information all of the time in and out of the office.

2. Card scanner

You are going to acquire a lot of business cards, especially at networking events, and you’ll need a way to get them on to your CRM. A CRM that has a scanner with a human at the other end accurately transcribing your cards will save you a lot of time and energy.

3. Email

We expect that you live in your email inbox, so you are going to need it to work seamlessly with your CRM. If every email is appended to the specific lead or contact that it relates to, it makes tracking conversations and developments easy.

4. Integrations

Can you integrate the apps that you can’t live without, e.g. Xero, Evernote, Google drive with the CRM? Your CRM will be the heart of your business, and it needs to integrate with your apps directly, or else you’ll end up with information all over the place (which kind of defeats the purpose).

5. Software updates

We all forget about these (unless you’re a system addict), but regular updates and improvements will ensure your CRM functions at 100% for your business all of the time. 

6. Easy to use

A CRM should be easy to use for you and your team (when you have one)!

7. Licenses

Make sure you choose the right licence. Free versions sound great, but they are free because they have limited functionality. Be sure that the license package lets you access the full power of the CRM so that it can do its job properly.

We chose Insightly CRM for our business, it’s monthly plus plan offers a good return on investment, and we recommend it for micro / start-up businesses. But remember, once you’ve decided on a CRM, straight out of the box doesn’t work, you’ll need your CRM configured for your property business.

Relax, we can help with that too, just…

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!).