By Tiana Baur, Marketing Manager

Have you ever had or wanted a personal fitness instructor? Someone who would be there every time you showed up (or didn’t) to hold you accountable, motivate you, give you step-by-step instructions, and push you towards your goals. What if we told you that you already have one of these? Only yours is specifically for your real estate business and it’s called a CRM (customer relationship management).

More than 70% of real estate professionals use a CRM tool, according to a survey Inman News conducted. This shouldn’t come as a shock considering maintaining and growing one’s sphere of influence is really the main thing real estate agents do (or should do).

CRMs come with a wide variety of benefits, time-saving tactics, and like your favorite instructor, a massive support system. In fact, all the valuable perks and features of a CRM that are imperative to your business can’t fit into one article, so we’re going to give you the highlights of what a killer CRM looks like, and how it can enormously impact your real estate business.

Built Specifically for You

We all know real estate is a unique, people-driven industry and a real estate CRM will understand the nuances of your day-to-day life, saving you precious time. A great CRM will know when you should be contacting someone, have automated email marketing that’s easy to use, integrations with your MLS, and much more. Work/life balance may not be 100% achievable for agents, but a great CRM will give you some much needed time back in your day-to-day life.

Goal-Setting = Goal-Getting

Fun fact: just by establishing and writing down a goal, you are 42% more likely to achieve it. Insane, right?! A quality CRM will be goal-oriented and should always be pushing you towards your individual business goals! For example, it will prompt you to set annual goals for yourself, track your progress towards your goal, and serve up actions to help you get there. Basically, it is your personal cheerleader. If you’re using a tool that doesn’t define a goal and actively help you achieve it, then it’s time Ctrl+Alt+Del it.

Integrated in the Right Ways

It’s probably safe to assume that most agents are sick and tired of entering the same data over and over again. A solid CRM is integrated with your MLS, which means live property data is available with no manual data entry required. And this doesn’t just mean IDX, but RETS too, so you have easy access to historic and current data. Having everything connected is reason enough to embrace and love your CRM.

A Guided Flow

Sphere marketing and lead nurturing should be simple, right? CRMs prompt you with the necessary steps to build strong long-term relationships so you can close more deals today while generating more business for tomorrow. Having clear, concise steps is essential so you can log in first thing in the AM and have your to-do list waiting for you.

In-Depth Insights

This one is probably the most exciting, but also a less well-known component of a CRM (hint, hint if you want a competitive advantage!). We’re talking predictive analytics that will help you win more business. Having a powerful analytics tool connected to your CRM means you finally don’t have to Google people or lurk on social media profiles to find some (or any) information about the person before you pick up the phone or compose an email.

An analytics tool will simply put all public records data into your CRM under each contact, so you have all the information you would be looking for elsewhere in one spot. Not only that, but these tools have the power and insights to know when someone is likely to list and will notify you.

The Bottom Line

As you can see, a CRM is extremely powerful and vital to a real estate agent’s business. And if that’s not enough to convince you, then how about this: your fiercest competition is using a powerful CRM with all the features above.

You need to think of your CRM like your personal fitness instructor or if you’d rather, like your sidekick; the cheese to your pizza, the Wilson to your Tom Hanks, or better yet, the “cha-ching!” to your bank account.

Curious what a killer CRM looks like in the wild? Check out MoxiEngage and see why it truly is the bee’s knees!