# Real Estate CRM Mastery Advanced Systems for Top Agents to Automate & Dominate Their Market # Copyright Copyright © 2026 by Scott Schmitz All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non‑commercial uses permitted by copyright law. An AI-friendly version of this book in markdown format is available at This book is a work of non‑fiction. Every reasonable effort has been made to provide accurate, up‑to‑date information, but it is sold with the understanding that the author and publisher are not engaged in rendering legal, financial, accounting, or other professional services; readers should consult appropriate professionals before acting on any information herein. First Edition – February 1, 2026 Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 979-8-9940824-1-6 For permission requests, contact the author at: # Dedication To my team at Realty Juggler. Without your help, this book would not be possible. # Table of Contents [Finding Your Perfect CRM [10](#finding-your-perfect-crm)](#finding-your-perfect-crm) [Real Estate CRM Benefits [11](#real-estate-crm-benefits)](#real-estate-crm-benefits) [How to Pick a CRM [18](#how-to-pick-a-crm)](#how-to-pick-a-crm) [CRM Dangers & Pitfalls [20](#crm-dangers-pitfalls)](#crm-dangers-pitfalls) [CRM Quick Pick List [24](#crm-quick-pick-list)](#crm-quick-pick-list) [Your Broker’s CRM [25](#your-brokers-crm)](#your-brokers-crm) [Changing your CRM [29](#changing-your-crm)](#changing-your-crm) [Lynn Ganster [30](#lynn-ganster)](#lynn-ganster) [Harnessing the Power of your CRM [35](#harnessing-the-power-of-your-crm)](#harnessing-the-power-of-your-crm) [Database Hygiene [35](#database-hygiene)](#database-hygiene) [Sync vs Import [42](#sync-vs-import)](#sync-vs-import) [Automations [45](#automations)](#automations) [Goals [54](#goals)](#goals) [Coaches [60](#coaches)](#coaches) [Darci LaRocque [62](#darci-larocque)](#darci-larocque) [Hiring an Assistant [64](#hiring-an-assistant)](#hiring-an-assistant) [Jenny Carlson [65](#jenny-carlson)](#jenny-carlson) [Working with a Partner [71](#working-with-a-partner)](#working-with-a-partner) [From Generalist to Specialist [74](#from-generalist-to-specialist)](#from-generalist-to-specialist) [Real Estate Investors [74](#real-estate-investors)](#real-estate-investors) [Rentals [81](#rentals)](#rentals) [Vacation Homes [83](#vacation-homes)](#vacation-homes) [Veterans & Active Military [86](#veterans-active-military)](#veterans-active-military) [Short Sales [93](#short-sales)](#short-sales) [Real Estate Seminars [97](#real-estate-seminars)](#real-estate-seminars) [Commercial Real Estate [100](#commercial-real-estate)](#commercial-real-estate) [Zahid Moghal [102](#zahid-moghal)](#zahid-moghal) [Life Changes, Real Estate Gains [107](#life-changes-real-estate-gains)](#life-changes-real-estate-gains) [Marriage [108](#marriage)](#marriage) [Job Changes [112](#job-changes)](#job-changes) [Divorce [116](#divorce)](#divorce) [Probate Real Estate [121](#probate-real-estate)](#probate-real-estate) [Upsizing and Downsizing [126](#upsizing-and-downsizing)](#upsizing-and-downsizing) [Our Furry Friends [131](#our-furry-friends)](#our-furry-friends) [Fueling the Funnel [136](#fueling-the-funnel)](#fueling-the-funnel) [Your Own Website [136](#your-own-website)](#your-own-website) [Paid Lead Sources [144](#paid-lead-sources)](#paid-lead-sources) [Social Media [149](#social-media)](#social-media) [Gathering Testimonials [151](#gathering-testimonials)](#gathering-testimonials) [Converting Prospects into Clients [155](#converting-prospects-into-clients)](#converting-prospects-into-clients) [Repeat Business & Referrals [162](#repeat-business-referrals)](#repeat-business-referrals) [Tracking Vendors [169](#tracking-vendors)](#tracking-vendors) [Keeping In Touch [175](#keeping-in-touch)](#keeping-in-touch) [360 Degree Outreach [175](#degree-outreach)](#degree-outreach) [Email Deliverability [178](#email-deliverability)](#email-deliverability) [Bob Licher [183](#bob-licher)](#bob-licher) [Newsletters [185](#newsletters)](#newsletters) [eCards [190](#ecards)](#ecards) [Mailing Labels and Postcards [192](#mailing-labels-and-postcards)](#mailing-labels-and-postcards) [Pete Doty [193](#pete-doty)](#pete-doty) [Text Messaging [196](#text-messaging)](#text-messaging) [In-Person [201](#in-person)](#in-person) [Special Occasions [203](#special-occasions)](#special-occasions) [Christmas Cards [204](#christmas-cards)](#christmas-cards) [Birthdays [208](#birthdays)](#birthdays) [Lance Lubin [209](#lance-lubin)](#lance-lubin) [Closing Anniversaries [211](#closing-anniversaries)](#closing-anniversaries) [Baby Shower [212](#baby-shower)](#baby-shower) [Client Appreciation Events [213](#client-appreciation-events)](#client-appreciation-events) [Chris Warhurst [214](#chris-warhurst)](#chris-warhurst) [From Listing to Loyalty [227](#from-listing-to-loyalty)](#from-listing-to-loyalty) [Getting Listings [227](#getting-listings)](#getting-listings) [Listing Management [231](#listing-management)](#listing-management) [Yard Signs [234](#yard-signs)](#yard-signs) [Glen Hagen [237](#glen-hagen)](#glen-hagen) [Flyers [238](#flyers)](#flyers) [Service Reports [241](#service-reports)](#service-reports) [Handling Closings [244](#handling-closings)](#handling-closings) [Post-Closing [249](#post-closing)](#post-closing) # Acknowledgements Writing this book proved more challenging than I expected, and I am deeply thankful to those who made it possible. To my wife Michelle, thank you for your constant support. To William Schmitz, I could never have finished this book without you. You served as researcher, editor, copywriter, publisher, and portrait artist, creating every drawing in it. You also designed the cover and contributed in countless other ways. I am forever thankful for everything you did to bring this project to life. To Quin Leach, thank you for conducting the original interviews that shaped the case studies and for providing valuable early feedback and research when the book was still in its initial stages. To Nathan Grimm, your feedback and contributions on technical topics like email deliverability, SMS permissions, and other complex areas have improved the work at every stage. To Frank Larnerd, I appreciate your diagrams and for sharing your expertise in social media, content publishing, and the operation of a real estate CRM. Your perspective added valuable depth to the book. I am grateful to the entire RealtyJuggler team and your decades of experience in real estate CRMs. I draw upon the knowledge from fielding countless sales and support calls over the past 20 years. # Introduction This book is for the real estate agent who has successfully navigated a few deals and has some experience with a real estate Customer Relationship Manager (CRM). If you are a new agent or someone who has never used—or even heard of—a CRM, I recommend reading my first book, Real Estate CRM Secrets, which is the perfect introduction to the benefits of using a real estate CRM. This book, Real Estate CRM Mastery, is for experienced agents looking to go beyond the basics. A **real estate CRM** is a software organizer that real estate agents use to track and follow up with their leads, monitor their listings and closings, and stay in touch with their friends, family, and past clients. With a little work, you can make your CRM the command center of your real estate business. But you already knew that! This book will teach you how to use the systems and automations built into your CRM to boost productivity and maintain consistent follow-up and deal tracking. I will also show you how to grow your business with checklists, follow-up, and delegation. You will learn how to create a repeatable, scalable system through automation. I share key strategies to improve your efficiency, so you can be more effective in what you already do. When you’re ready, your CRM can help you work with an assistant or partner. By the time you finish this book, you’ll know exactly how to increase your revenue while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. If you think you need to work harder to grow your income, I’m here to tell you there’s a better way. I might even show you how to take a vacation or two without clients breathing down your neck. I’ve worked in the real estate tech industry for over twenty years. My team developed RealtyJuggler, a CRM designed specifically for real estate agents, and we have helped more than 150,000 agents like you grow and succeed in their businesses. This book shares the combined wisdom my team and I have gathered from speaking directly with real estate agents like you and helping them get just a little more from their real estate CRM. # Finding Your Perfect CRM > “Many new agents complain about working too hard, not having enough > free time, and not making enough money. This process of automating > your business is crucial for agents who want to make the leap from > sole proprietor to business owner. It cannot be done without systems.” —Wayne and Lynn Morgan, *How to Get Rich in Real Estate... And Have a Life!* The primary role of a real estate agent is to act as a matchmaker, connecting buyers and sellers to close a deal. As an insider, you know how challenging that can be. Finding the right home for the buyer at a fair price is difficult enough. But there are also the complexities of inspections, loans, high-stakes life events, and the economy. And we haven’t even touched on the personalities involved!  An essential tool for this is your real estate CRM[1]. Your CRM helps you find new clients and maintain relationships with past clients, friends, and family. It also helps you track the many details needed to identify buyers and sellers, match them, and help them successfully close their sales. Much like you act as a matchmaker for buyers and sellers, this chapter acts as a matchmaker for you and your CRM. We will help you identify the features to look for and the pitfalls to avoid in a CRM. We will also assist you in connecting your CRM to other services you’re already using and discuss how it can serve as the backbone of growth for your real estate career. ## Real Estate CRM Benefits You can think of a real estate CRM as a Swiss Army knife, offering many features in one tool. It stores your contact list and personal details for each person, including birthdays, spouse’s name, children, pets, and more. You can organize contacts to **print mailing labels** for your Christmas cards. It also tracks your listings and closings, calculates commissions, and monitors your income and expenses. Additionally, it manages showings, showing feedback, offers, and contingencies. You can communicate via email, phone, or text messages, as well as print mail-merged letters. Your CRM can even help you schedule follow-ups using the **touch cycle**, an automated, repeating reminder to contact a specific person after a set period, such as every 90 days. > **Millennial Minute Secret:** Don’t forget to take advantage of the text message chat functionality of your CRM. Many people screen their calls, or can’t answer because they are at work. Around 75% of millennials prefer texting over calling, with that figure rising to 80% among Gen Z. Around 25% of this age group avoid answering the phone altogether. You can track your **appointments** and sync them with your smartphone. This way, you never miss another appointment. You can also track the activities you need to complete using your **task list**. For the people you need to contact each day, your CRM can generate a **daily contact list.** Your daily call list is a list of people you need to contact. While you might call these people, you could instead send a text message, drive by to say hello, or print a letter. By allowing yourself some flexibility in how you reach out, you increase the likelihood of completing that task. The primary benefit of using a daily contact list instead of scheduling appointments in your calendar is that once you reach out to someone, you can mark the task as completed, which automatically updates that person’s last contact date to today. If that person was on a 90-day touch cycle, a new task to contact them again in 90 days would be generated. This level of automation makes it easy to call multiple people each day and track who has been called and who still needs to be contacted. One of the main benefits of using a real estate CRM is access to a **collection of ready-made content**. This includes flyer templates, eCards, and letters. By starting with these pre-written materials and customizing them, you can quickly complete tasks that would otherwise take hours. The **letter library** also serves as a source of inspiration, offering templates for standard sales pitches across various marketing niches, including new home buyers, retirement downsizing, second home buyers, FSBOs, expired listings, and more. Most agents create their own tweaked versions of the letters, allowing them to tailor the content to their specific requirements. There are also several capabilities in a real estate CRM that you could never do on your own. These include the ability to set up a **time-release drip sequence** of printed letters or emails. Your CRM schedules them and, for emails, even sends them automatically at the correct date and time. The letters are mail-merged so that personal details such as the prospect’s name, the property’s address, a mailing address, and other personalized information are inserted. Doing these activities manually would be quite challenging, as each person in a drip sequence is at a different stage in the process. One key capability you gain by using a real estate CRM is automation. I mentioned email drip sequences, which is one form of automation. You can also automatically feed all your leads into your CRM via **email feed**, which converts email notifications from your websites and other lead sources into prospect records. That way, all your leads are centralized in one location, and you are automatically notified when a new lead is added. This is critical, as responding quickly to new leads maximizes the likelihood of conversion. A few examples of lead sources include IDX websites, your personal website, and commercial websites such as Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, Redfin, and many others. Another source of leads is lead aggregators such as RedX, ForeclosuresDaily, and USProbateLeads, which gather information on expired listings, FSBOs, vacant homes, probate properties, and pre-foreclosure. You would import that data into your real estate CRM using **valet import**, a service in which your CRM vendor sets up a custom importer for that specific lead source. Your CRM vendor would set up a custom menu item just for you, making it easy to import data from that source each week. The level of automation this provides can be significant for agents pursuing these kinds of leads. The **Google sync** integration syncs your smartphone contacts and calendar with your CRM. You can also use the built-in **open house registration** form on your iPad to register attendees at your open houses. The **call capture** feature in your CRM automatically gathers phone numbers, caller ID information, and messages from callers to your automated hotline number listed on your yard signs. By leveraging your CRM’s integration features, you can use it as your command center to maintain a **unified address book**—a merged database of all contacts and leads from all the systems you use. Don’t underestimate the power of having everything in one place. It’s much easier to quickly find a contact or send a bulk email to a group when everything is stored together and carefully merged with no duplication or missing information. The last thing you want is to send the same email to the same person multiple times because of duplication in your system. One often overlooked advantage of using a real estate CRM is its ability to streamline your operations. As you gain more experience, you’ll develop checklists of standard procedures for each listing and closing. You’ll identify systems that, when implemented, give you the best results for nurturing leads. Your real estate CRM lets you organize these checklists using **task plans**, prebuilt, automated checklists of steps you can apply to any lead or transaction. When your business is small, you might manage these checklists in your head or on a scrap of paper. As your business expands, you’ll find you can’t handle more than one or two listings and closings at a time without forgetting something. This could have serious consequences, as missing something important—like returning the key to the seller after making a copy—can significantly affect the impression you leave. Using the **transaction management** features in your real estate CRM allows you to track all of the activities for your listing. No matter how many listings you manage at once, you can handle them efficiently. This is especially important in an industry where most of your business occurs during just a few busy summer months. **You can track parties, documents, deadlines, contingencies, showings, showing feedback, promotions, offers, and each party involved in a transaction.** With the touch cycle, you can maintain regular contact with your client, any referring agent, as well as the agent on the other side of the transaction. You can use your CRM’s **commission and expense-tracking** features to monitor cash flow. This is especially helpful given the business’s seasonal nature. While you might have a cash cushion in the fall, it’s vital to be sure you have enough cash reserves to last through the winter. Your CRM can assist by comparing last year’s results with this year’s. Additionally, these seasonal comparisons can serve as early indicators of an economic downturn, helping you identify if sales are slower than at the same time last year. **Real estate calculators** help you educate your clients and provide useful insights into each client’s unique financial circumstances and needs. The seller’s net calculator gives your sellers a clear estimate of how much cash they will walk away with after closing. Likewise, the buyer’s net calculator helps buyers understand their financial obligations at closing. You can also calculate maximum loan amounts and mortgage payments to help your buyers determine a suitable price range before meeting with a loan officer. The rent-versus-own calculator helps determine which option makes the most financial sense for your client’s specific situation. As your business expands, use your CRM to review the leads you’re generating and how many are closing. This gives you a clear view of your **sales funnel**, which starts with unqualified leads and moves them toward qualification and, eventually, clients. This will help you make informed decisions about which marketing efforts are effective and which are not. You can then adjust your marketing strategies accordingly. With insights into your sales pipeline and past results, you can plan for seasonal changes common in the real estate market by creating a budget. Over time, you might notice opportunities to delegate tasks to an assistant. Once again, your real estate CRM can help. The process you used to automate, systematize, and scale your business can now be enhanced by assigning tasks to your assistant through your CRM. You can use your CRM’s **multi-user** features to access information simultaneously with your assistant, even on a different computer. This way, you can review your assistant’s changes to make sure everything is going as planned. If your assistant runs into a problem, you can quickly find out what’s wrong and step in to help. Finally, you can hold yourself accountable for prospecting and follow-up by using the **goal-tracking** feature in your CRM. This helps ensure you stay on track with your prospecting efforts and keep your sales pipeline full. You can also work with a coach to enhance your efforts. Once again, your CRM can be used to track progress and confirm that you are achieving the goals you set. Your real estate CRM lets you manage two lists of people. The first is your **contacts database**, which includes friends, family, other agents, past clients, vendors, and anyone else you personally know. The second is your **prospects database**, which contains strangers. These are people you might have met at an open house, or those with an FSBO or expired listing whom you plan to contact to offer your services. Keeping two databases allows you to regularly clean your prospects database, as over time you will learn that some people will never work with you. You can archive and delete them from your database. Your contacts are different. This group includes both your personal sphere (friends, family, past clients) and your professional network (vendors, lenders, agents). These are people you know and interact with daily. You should sync your contacts with your smartphone’s address book so you can call them easily. You will also use categories to organize these contacts for marketing and communication. Since your prospects’ database consists of strangers, it’s better not to sync it with your smartphone’s address book. For agents without access to an MLS, a **homes or properties database** is a valuable CRM feature. This database lets you build a list of properties in your market area and collect statistical data on those properties. Another way to use the homes database is to maintain a list of properties an investor owns and also to monitor off-market inventory. This is especially useful for commercial properties, which are often not listed on a centralized MLS. ## How to Pick a CRM While features are essential, several other factors should be considered when choosing the right real estate CRM. I cannot overstate the importance of **complementary training** and technical support provided by staff based in the US or Canada. You will need assistance with onboarding, which includes getting started. You will also need help using your CRM’s features. Additionally, your CRM’s staff should help integrate it with other products, such as lead services and websites, and support importing data from existing sources. Instructional video tutorials are popular and well-suited for learning simple tasks, such as sending a bulk email or setting up a drip sequence. However, complimentary **phone support** can be extremely helpful because it allows you to get an answer quickly. While I hope the software you select is bug-free, there is always a possibility you will encounter a bug or issue, and phone support is usually the best way to resolve it quickly. Another important factor is the availability of a **free trial**. That way, you can compare the features of a few CRMs. Buying a real estate CRM isn’t like buying groceries. Each CRM targets a slightly different audience and will have a slightly different user interface and support options. The free trial lets you try the software before you commit. You can see how easy the product is to learn and use, evaluate technical support responsiveness, and check for glitches. The trial period is also the ideal time to confirm that the vendor provides the complimentary, hands-on onboarding you will need if you decide to subscribe. Sometimes features sound better than they really are, and being able to try them helps you understand how practical your new CRM will be. Ultimately, the best CRM is the one you use regularly. If your CRM is hard to learn or operate, it undermines its purpose[2]. You should choose a CRM that is **easy to learn and use**. This way, you pick a vendor and software product that works for you. Sometimes people impulsively buy a CRM, believing the purchase will motivate them to use it because they would feel guilty about paying for something they aren’t using. They think the more expensive the CRM, the more likely they are to use it, because if they don’t, they will feel even worse! Instead of trying to make yourself feel guilty, set small goals and reward yourself when you achieve them. Also, set a regular schedule in your calendar to log in to your CRM. Trying to make yourself feel bad won’t spur you to use your CRM. Most real estate CRMs include features for working with an assistant or partner. However, not all are designed for assistants who are new or have little to no training. Because of this, I recommend choosing a CRM that is very forgiving of mistakes. Pick a real estate CRM that can **track changes** and identify who made them. Actions such as sending a bulk email should include **safeguards to prevent accidental errors**. Not every assistant is highly skilled, so you need to account for the possibility that your CRM will be used by someone who is not as competent as you are.  You also need the ability to **undelete records** that were accidentally changed or deleted. While your assistant is hopefully skilled and cautious, that’s not always guaranteed. The last thing you want is to hire an assistant only to find out they accidentally mess up your database without realizing it. You should also look for the ability to undo changes. For example, if your assistant accidentally deleted all the notes in a contact record, the CRM should offer the option to **restore the record** to a previous version of that contact, such as from a day or a week earlier. > **The Assistant Accident Secret:** As your team expands, the chance that a team member accidentally deletes a record increases. Make sure your CRM can undelete a record or revert it to a previous version from yesterday or last week. Mistakes do happen. Your real estate CRM should be able to connect with a wide range of **third-party integrations**, including lead services, IDX websites, PPC advertising, open house registration software, SMS texting services, your smartphone, lockbox software, and mailing houses. You might already use these services and want to integrate them into your CRM, or you might want the flexibility to try different third-party services over time. Be sure to discuss available integrations with your CRM vendor and ask for help connecting your existing third-party services during your free trial. All modern CRMs are **cloud-based**, so you’re protected if your computer crashes, is stolen, or gets infected with a virus. With a cloud-based system, you can switch devices seamlessly, and your data won’t be lost if your hard drive crashes. ## CRM Dangers & Pitfalls There are several pitfalls when selecting a real estate CRM. The most important consideration is to **choose a CRM specifically designed for real estate**. A generic CRM won’t meet your needs. As a real estate agent, you work with families, and a generic CRM won’t handle the details of tracking family information, such as spouse names, birth dates, children’s names, and more. While this might seem minor, it’s important to remember that both the husband and wife typically purchase a home together. If your communications exclude one of them, you’re already at a disadvantage. A generic CRM also lacks essential features such as real estate calculators and income and expense tracking. Transaction management, another real estate-specific feature, includes monitoring listings, showings, offers, contingencies, and the parties involved. Real estate is a unique industry, and a basic CRM will lack a content library for flyers, eCards, and letters, as well as automated drip sequences. A second pitfall to watch for is using an all-in-one CRM that bundles a website and paid lead services. I recommend that you **avoid purchasing your CRM, lead service, and website from the same vendor**. While this might seem like a good idea at first, it forces you to use all three services together. If you’re dissatisfied with one, you have to cancel all three to make a change. Instead, leverage your real estate CRM’s integration features to add third-party services. If your lead service or website isn’t delivering the results you need, you can then fire them while keeping your CRM. When it comes to websites, there are many types you can create, and their costs vary. If you use a website included with your CRM, your options are limited, reducing your flexibility. Trends in the industry have made it harder to justify high-end websites, as getting your website noticed has become more challenging amid stiff competition from other agents and services like Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com[3]. You may decide that money spent on a high-end website is better allocated elsewhere, which is why it’s best to buy your website from a vendor other than the one that supplies your CRM. One last point about buying an all-in-one solution is that the price is usually much higher than that of a standalone real estate CRM, even when including the cost of additional services purchased separately. In some cases, the monthly expenses for these all-in-one solutions are comparable to a car payment. **Be cautious of sneaky contract terms.** It’s best to choose a vendor that offers either a monthly plan or a prorated refund. That way, if you’re unhappy with your vendor, you can cancel without penalties, giving you more control. If the vendor requires that you sign a non-refundable one-year contract, this suggests they lack confidence in their CRM’s competitiveness. They probably think that once you start using the system, you’ll regret your decision and will immediately want to cancel. I recommend working only with vendors that allow you to cancel at any time, or at most, on a month-by-month contract. Some vendors charge extra for **onboarding**—the setup process for your CRM. Onboarding should be free and not incur additional costs. Onboarding typically includes assistance with transferring your database and installing letterhead with your company logo and portrait photo. Also included is complimentary training and help setting up synchronization with your smartphone, SMS text messaging, and any other integrations you intend to use, such as feeding leads into your CRM, either live or through the valet import process. If you’re interested in what other agents think about the CRM you’re considering, check out the online reviews on Google and BBB. Some review sites, such as G2, Capterra, Top10, and Forbes, may hide negative reviews and pay for positive ones. Because of this, they shouldn’t be considered completely unbiased, especially since vendors can pay these sites to post positive reviews. **Review your CRM vendor’s privacy policy**. While some vendors clearly state that your entered data remains private, some have policies that allow them to profit from your data through integrated services and cross-marketing. Lone Wolf Software’s platform, which includes its transaction management solutions, features an Agent Marketplace[4]. This marketplace allows you, the agent, to connect clients with service providers such as mortgage brokers, home warranty companies, home insurance providers, and title companies during the transaction process. Lone Wolf earns revenue through its business relationships with these service providers, who either pay to be integrated into the platform or pay referral fees for transactions facilitated by the platform. Although you help facilitate these connections, Lone Wolf does not share revenue from these platform-driven referrals with you. Zillow Group, which acquired the Follow Up Boss (FUB) CRM, can match a contact in your FUB database to a Zillow account holder, creating a “mutual customer.”[5] For these mutual customers, Zillow may use the private information in your CRM—including your notes—to market services to your clients such as Zillow Home Loans, home warranties, and title insurance. This could place you in an ethical dilemma, as you may be asked to promote or sell products that are not in your client’s best interests. Like Lone Wolf, Zillow receives financial compensation from these referrals. You, the agent, do not receive financial benefit from Zillow’s marketing of its in-house services to your client base. Two additional products with similar conflicts are CINC and RealGeeks, both owned by Fidelity National Financial (FNF), the largest title and settlement services company in the country[6]. From RealGeeks’ privacy policy: “We may provide Personal Information and Usage Information to our subsidiaries, affiliated companies, and other businesses or persons for the purposes of processing such information on our behalf and promoting the products and services of our trusted business partners.”[7] This approach is similar to the cross-marketing strategy banks use. One key difference between a bank and a real estate agent is that real estate agents are independent contractors, and the way this information is shared does not allow you, the agent, to benefit financially from it. While these conflicts don’t necessarily make that CRM a poor choice, it’s helpful to understand each CRM’s policy. If your clients receive spam emails from an affiliate of your CRM vendor, it’s good to know why. You should also be aware of whether your CRM vendor is using the notes in your CRM. Don’t automatically assume that the data you enter into your CRM is private. Some CRM vendors treat your private data as just that—private. To find those vendors, review their privacy policies. Look for a clear, straightforward statement affirming that your data is yours and will not be shared. Two vendors with the strictest privacy policies are RealtyJuggler and WiseAgent, but the vendors listed below also offer reasonably strong protections. ## CRM Quick Pick List **RealtyJuggler**: The most affordable real estate CRM with a comprehensive feature set, including transaction management, an extensive content library, calculators, and expense and income tracking. They offer a long free trial, phone support, an excellent privacy policy, and a prorated refund for canceling at any time. **Realvolve**: An advanced real estate CRM specializing in sophisticated workflow automation. This system is designed for experienced agents and real estate teams. Its robust process automation streamlines complex client follow-up plans. The platform also includes features that promote team accountability. It is best suited for experienced agents and teams who require detailed control. It offers a free trial but no phone support, and its advanced features come with a steep learning curve. **WiseAgent**: A relatively affordable real estate CRM with an extensive set of features, including lead generation, landing pages, transaction management, and a web app. Offers a free trial, an excellent privacy policy, and 24-hour phone support. **Referral Maker**: Emphasizes referrals as the primary lead source, built on the Buffini “Work by Referral” system. It offers excellent activity and goal tracking. Slightly more expensive than the other recommendations, but it offers multiple pricing tiers, some of which include coaching. The feature set focuses on the early stages of the sales funnel. **iXact Contact**: A relatively affordable real estate CRM with a solid feature set. They offer agent websites and a monthly newsletter. They were acquired by Elm Street Technologies in 2021. ## Your Broker’s CRM Some brokerages offer their agents a “free” real estate CRM. While this might seem like an excellent option, there are many drawbacks to using a free CRM. Phone support is likely missing, along with many features. Most brokers choose their free CRM not for features, ease of use, or technical support; they pick the cheapest vendor. It’s like going grocery shopping and only buying the least expensive items. Canned yams for dinner again. Yum! You may have outgrown your current brokerage and be considering a switch to a new one. However, you’re concerned about how you’ll transfer your database and are hesitant to learn a new CRM at the new firm. There’s a better way. Why not buy your own CRM? That way, you can choose the one that best fits your needs rather than being stuck with the one your broker picked. Since each CRM vendor is competing for your business, you can always switch to another if you’re unhappy with pricing, support, or features. This keeps each CRM vendor motivated to stay competitive, thanks to the power of capitalism. Another disadvantage of a free broker CRM is poor email deliverability. Maintaining a good sending reputation with email servers requires significant effort and investment. On a free platform, the unprofessional sending habits of one agent can harm the deliverability for all other agents using the system. Without a financial incentive to monitor the network, the platform’s overall reputation can decline, causing your legitimate emails to land in the junk folder. That’s why some free CRM vendors won’t even show email open rates. The **email open rate** is an important marketing metric that measures the percentage of recipients who open an email among those who received it. This is sometimes called email engagement. Just sending an email isn’t enough; you also need to make sure it’s delivered and read. Typical open rates are around 30%[8]. If your open rate is low, talk with your CRM vendor about ways to improve it. Reputable CRM vendors will have a **postmaster,** who is a person responsible for ensuring compliance with federal regulations and maintaining a good reputation with email service providers. Some vendors that offer a free real estate CRM provide a basic product at no cost and offset lost revenue by charging extra for add-on services. I recommend asking your CRM vendor which features incur additional costs and whether the free version has any limitations. One feature a free CRM is likely to lack is onboarding. Onboarding involves setting up your CRM, including importing data from various sources, merging duplicates, and creating a unified address book. After importing, your contacts and calendar sync with your smartphone, so you can access them on the go. Onboarding also includes installing your **letterhead**, which features a portrait photo of you and a company logo, typically placed at the top of all your emails and printed letters. Onboarding also includes training on your CRM’s features. Most free CRMs lack training options. Understanding how to use your CRM is crucial, and that’s another reason free CRMs are often not the best choice. Look for a CRM vendor that offers **complimentary one-on-one training** — a scheduled session tailored to your specific needs. You can learn about a new feature, get help configuring an integration (such as an email feed), or ask questions about functionality. Because you are in the driver’s seat, you won’t have to endure a lengthy sales presentation. Instead, at the end of the training, you will have achieved something practical. Common training sessions would include organizing your database for a Christmas card mailing, sending a bulk email, or customizing a drip mail sequence to meet your unique requirements. > **The Database Ditch Secret:** Never let your database be held hostage. Some CRMs intentionally limit their export features to trap you with their product. Perform a full data export at least once a year. This ensures you can walk away from any vendor or brokerage with your business fully intact. Another factor to consider is your ability to stand out with a free CRM. If you’re using the same tools as everyone else, can you offer your clients something better than other agents provide? Using your own real estate CRM helps you stand out, like someone wearing a red dress in a sea of black. A clear example of this differentiation is your ability to deliver a seller **service report**, which summarizes the promotional activities, showings, and showing feedback for your listing, keeping your client fully informed. In a slow market, tools like these can help prepare your client for the possibility that a price adjustment or a listing extension might be necessary. When you choose a paid CRM vendor, that vendor is responsible to you. They will answer your calls, fix bugs, and provide reliable technical support because they know you are paying them. They understand that if you become dissatisfied, you will leave and take your business elsewhere. With a free CRM, there is less motivation to fix bugs, make improvements, or offer good technical support. Your CRM is a key tool for organizing and centralizing your activities. Don’t settle for a subpar product. A reputable CRM vendor will provide a **free trial**. A free trial demonstrates the vendor’s confidence that their product can withstand close scrutiny. Since you’re not obligated to continue, this is the opposite of a broker-supplied CRM, where you have no choice. In the first case, the free market system is at work, and you are free to choose the best CRM for your needs. In the second case, your broker picks the CRM for you, and you have no say in the decision. ## Changing your CRM According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the average agent stays with their current brokerage for about 5 years[9]. Changing brokerages is a decision that requires careful due diligence. Be honest with yourself about the impact the change will have on your income and the disruption it will cause to the leads you’re nurturing before you make a move. You will also need to coordinate with your old broker to determine which leads you can take with you and which are owned by your broker. Using a CRM you control serves as an insurance policy for your database if you decide to switch brokerages. If you rely on a broker-provided CRM, your transition will require more planning. You should transfer your personal contacts to a new CRM you control before losing access to the old system. A real estate CRM will help you categorize and separate broker-owned leads. —«◊»— ### Lynn Ganster Early in her career, Lynn Ganster, an associate broker with Morris Williams Realty in Titusville, FL, learned a painful lesson: When she left her previous brokerage, the CRM she relied on and all the contacts she had built stayed behind. “When I no longer worked there, they would not allow me access to any data I had left behind,” she recalls. “I began searching for a CRM but really didn’t know what I was looking for.” Initially, she cobbled together a solution, rebuilding her contact database in Outlook and using Excel spreadsheets as a makeshift transaction management system. While this worked, she would soon outgrow her cobbled-together solution. This growth led her to realize that switching to a real estate specific CRM was the only viable way to manage her real estate business. “I wanted to use something else, but most systems were too expensive, too complicated, or filled with features I didn’t need,” she said. Though she had been burned by her past CRM, she eventually abandoned her makeshift system in favor of a complete CRM, this time one under her control. “Find a CRM that does everything you need, and it needs to be easy enough to use so you’ll still have time to live your life,” she said. New agents might not know that their contacts won’t follow them if they’re locked into the brokerage’s CRM. Lynn advises that agents should be careful when depending upon a brokerage’s system because your CRM is the heart of your business. —«◊»— While changing brokerages might require you to switch CRMs, dissatisfaction with your current CRM and a desire for something better are other reasons to switch as well. Before you begin, it is crucial to clean your existing database. Remove outdated, inactive leads and, most importantly, ensure that anyone who has opted out of your emails is permanently removed. Migrating data without a record of who opted out can seriously harm your email deliverability, as people will complain if you start sending them emails again after they have already opted out once. Once your data is clean, resist the urge to make your new CRM behave exactly like your old one. Each system has its own strengths, and this is an excellent opportunity to improve your processes. Review the letter library and task plans included with your new CRM. They may be better than your old templates, so you may not need to migrate your old checklists and mail templates. If you still need to transfer old letters, you’ll have to do so manually by copying and pasting, since the mail merge variables and formatting will differ. Your new CRM vendor can assist with your transition through **onboarding**, data migration, and configuration of your new CRM. This is typically a free service offered by the vendor, and I highly recommend taking advantage of it. While it may seem simple to transfer your contacts to the new database, the last thing you want is to leave out a key piece of information — like a spouse’s name or birthdate — and only realize the problem when it’s too late. It’s best to let the experts at your CRM vendor handle the process so it’s completed flawlessly. You will likely need to transfer your contacts and prospects from multiple sources, including your computer’s address book, smartphone, email programs such as Outlook and Apple Mail, the local MLS, and data from any previous CRM or contact management system. The challenge is accurately loading and merging all this information. Because each program uses different data fields, careful mapping is necessary to avoid data loss. Duplicate records should be merged so each contact has complete information from all sources. For example, your email program might contain names and email addresses, while your smartphone might hold names, phone numbers, and some email addresses. Ultimately, you want a **unified address** book that consolidates all these sources. This process is more complex and time-consuming than it appears and is typically part of onboarding. Free CRM providers are unlikely to offer this labor-intensive service for free, but a reputable, full-featured real estate CRM vendor will. You can also **sync your contacts and calendar** with your smartphone via Google. This serves two purposes: it lets you access this information on your mobile device and creates a backup. Cloud services can sometimes experience outages. Fortunately, outages are rare and usually short. However, that offers little comfort if you need to work during an outage. By syncing your contacts and calendar, you ensure you can access your information even during outages. During onboarding, you should provide your new vendor with a professional portrait photo and your company logo so they can set up your letterhead for a consistent, professional look. Part of the onboarding process is training. It would be difficult to use a CRM effectively without training, given the many features and options. Onboarding helps you identify the key features that will benefit you quickly, so you don’t waste time on obscure features that won’t help you become more productive and generate revenue right away. Beyond the migration process, a professional-grade CRM must include essential safety features. The first is the ability to undelete accidentally deleted records and restore a modified record to a previous version. The second is a detailed **activity log** that shows who made what changes and when. This log is invaluable for accountability, training, and diagnosing errors. Together, these features create a vital safety net and ensure the integrity of your most valuable asset. When you export your data from your old CRM, it will be in a **Comma-Separated Values (CSV)** file, a spreadsheet format that can be opened in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. When you open this file, the first row contains column titles that match each field in your old CRM. Because each CRM vendor’s export format varies slightly, converting data between CRMs is not always straightforward. For example, one vendor might label the column for a phone number “Mobile Phone,” another might use “Cell Phone,” and yet another simply “Phone.” That’s why it’s recommended to take advantage of the onboarding process your new CRM vendor provides. They can help ensure that each column maps correctly to the appropriate fields in the new system. The goal of any transfer is to move as much of—if not all—of the data from your old system to your new one. Reputable CRM vendors export data in a standard format, usually a variation of the format used by **Microsoft Outlook’s CSV export**. This makes the transfer process much easier. Non-competitive CRM vendors may export using column names that are difficult or impossible to load into another CRM. This complicates switching CRMs, as moving to another could cause you to lose critical information, such as your notes. When selecting a CRM vendor, a key question to ask is whether the export format is standardized so the data can be easily imported into a competing CRM. If you decide to switch brokerages, your new real estate CRM can help you notify people in your database of your move. You should personally reach out to past clients and anyone who has recently referred you. For everyone else, send a multichannel announcement via postcards, email, and SMS. If you were using a brokerage-provided email address, plan this transition carefully. It’s crucial to update your contact information across all platforms. This announcement not only informs people of your move but also helps clean up your database. # Harnessing the Power of your CRM > “Okay, so I have to recognize that the business I have now, the leads > in the pipeline, the listings in the pipeline, the buyer leads I have, > they should pretty much all be converted in a 90-day cycle. Convert > them or throw them away.” —Mike Ferry, *The Power of a 90-Day Cycle* The core features of your real estate CRM are your contacts and calendar. By building on these core elements, you can create a unified database of merged contacts that syncs with your phone. You can use automation to send bulk emails and time-released drip campaigns, and to integrate with many third-party services for postcards, advertising, and lead generation. You can also scale your efforts by adding an assistant or partner, or by working with a coach. Your CRM enables you to achieve results that would be impossible to reach manually. ## Database Hygiene Most agents spend significant time collecting contact information and taking notes. However, they neglect another essential task: maintaining data accuracy and deleting outdated records. Every contact record should include a full name and a contact method, such as a phone number, email address, or mailing address. Ideally, each record has more than one way to reach them. You should also add notes each time you communicate with someone in your database so you can review your last conversation when you talk with them next. Additionally, you should assign at least three **categories** (sometimes also known as tags or labels) to each record in your database. Categories can be used to organize your database for practical use. Your categories let you manage multiple records at once, such as sending a bulk email. For example, for your Christmas cards, use a “Christmas” category. For a newsletter, you could use the “Newsletter” category. Categories also help you quickly find groups of people, such as all your past clients. For vendors, include a “Vendor” category and specify the vendor type, such as “Vendor, Electrician”. For past clients, friends, family, and other agents, categories help you easily identify who is who. If you’re interested in exploring categorization strategies, I recommend my first book, *Real Estate CRM Secrets*, which offers a more complete explanation. > **The “Top100” Tango Secret:** Your most valuable contacts are clients, friends who refer you, key influencers, and vendor partners who send you business. Add a “Top100” category to these people. You should stay touch with everyone in your “Top100” and reach out at least once every 90 days. A good way to keep your database organized and healthy is to regularly call everyone within your contacts and prospects lists. The easiest approach is to **sort your records** by last contact date, so the oldest contacts appear at the top and the newest ones at the bottom. Spend an hour each day making outbound calls. During these calls, reconnect with the person, take notes, and update the last contact date. This will move them to the bottom of your list. If you find someone isn’t worth calling, add them to the “Cold” category. If they are a vendor or another professional, you can also add a “NoLead” category to show they’re not a lead but still worth keeping in your database. If you call someone and their line is disconnected, add a note to the phone number, such as “(BAD)”. This helps you easily identify which numbers are no longer valid. Also, include a dated note describing your unsuccessful call. If you call and someone asks you to stop calling them, add the note “(DNC)” to that phone number. You are required by law to avoid contacting people who have requested not to be called, so documenting this is essential to reduce your legal liability. You should also add a category “Cold” to these records, as these people are clearly no longer going to work with you. You should also use birthdays as an opportunity to call the people in your contacts database. One of the most significant benefits of a phone call is that it allows you to spend a few minutes finding out how your friend is doing. Who knows, they might mention they are thinking of moving, or know someone who is. Send an **eCard email** once or twice a year to people you know, like for Halloween or Thanksgiving. This email reminds them you’re thinking of them and checks if their email address is still valid. An eCard is an animated email with a brief message from you, intended to wish someone a Happy Halloween or to celebrate another holiday or event, such as a birthday. Your CRM automatically **verifies email addresses** and adds notes like OptOut, Complaint, or HardBounce when you send emails. These notes indicate whether someone has opted out of your emails or has reported spam to their email provider. A HardBounce indicates the email address is no longer active, likely because the recipient is using a different one. You should expect about 20% of the email addresses in your database to become invalid each year as people switch email addresses. This process is known as list decay. The most effective way to prevent list decay is to regularly review and clean your database to remove outdated, inactive records. > **The Big Bounce Secret:** A change in someone’s contact information could be the first signal of a major life change. You can detect this when you get a bounced email or a returned postal letter. Use this information as a signal to make a personal call and reconnect with a client when they may need you most. For your contacts database, I recommend mailing a Christmas card to everyone with a physical address. Use a first-class stamp so the Postal Service will return the card if the person has moved. This card is an excellent way to stay connected and to determine whether someone has moved. For people with an incorrect address, add a note in your database and assign the “Cold” category so you can identify them for removal from your list. They moved and did not use your services as a real estate agent, making them a poor candidate for your database. If you learn that someone in your database has died, update the record the same day you find out. If a spouse survives, make that person the primary contact. Update the mailing salutation to reflect the surviving spouse’s name, so it reads “Sandy Smith” instead of “Jack & Sandy Smith”. Few things feel worse than receiving a Christmas card addressed to someone who has passed. Move the deceased person’s phone numbers and email addresses to notes, and remove them from active fields to avoid calling or emailing the wrong person. Remove any birthday reminders and automations tied to the deceased. After a suitable period, reach out to the surviving spouse or the executor to offer assistance. If a property will be sold to settle the estate, provide a complimentary Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) and a seller’s set sheet. If asked, keep an eye on the property during probate. If you maintain contact, there’s a good chance your services as a real estate agent will become valuable to the executor of the estate. Keeping an accurate, up-to-date real estate CRM is crucial for generating referral business. By calling, emailing, and mailing postcards, you stay connected and verify the accuracy of their contact information. Expect phone numbers, email addresses, and mailing addresses to change over time. They might switch from an AOL email to Gmail, move to a new house, change phone carriers and numbers, or stop using landlines and switch to mobile phones. Some agents keep all the realtors from their local MLS in their contacts database. I advise against this practice because turnover on this list can easily exceed 20% per year. Instead, I recommend keeping only the agents you know and have interacted with in your contacts database. This creates a more manageable list and makes it easier to keep your database accurate. Your CRM can identify duplicate records, and I recommend running **duplicate detection** at least once a year. Duplicates can creep into your database when contact information is entered from different sources. Your CRM can **merge two records** into one, combining notes, phone numbers, contact details, birthdays, and other information into a single contact record. It can also detect which people are in your Christmas category but don’t have a valid physical mailing address. You can then contact these individuals and request their mailing addresses. If you have a single contact method and that method fails and you cannot find an alternative, delete the record. You can also use the **filters** in your database to view all records without a mailing address, phone number, or email address. You might be surprised to find that some records lack all three, which means that, besides telepathy, you have no way to reach them! A good time to review your database is between Halloween and Christmas, when you’re preparing your Christmas card list. Review each contact record and decide whether to send a Christmas card by mail. Review inactive leads in your database and decide whether to continue pursuing them or delete them. If you haven’t maintained regular contact, they will forget you. If you haven’t communicated with a prospect for 2 or more years, consider them a dead lead. Mark them with the “Cold” category so you can delete them eventually. At the start of each year, review all records in your database. One additional point about prospect records is that when people reach out to you, they are likely considering a move. This suggests their contact information might change soon. You could play a role in that process by helping them find a new home, or they might choose another agent instead. Either way, you should anticipate that their contact details will be more prone to change than they otherwise might be. Your time is best spent on new leads and your sphere of influence, as they are more likely to generate commissions over the long term. If you decide to work with your old, unresponsive leads, the most effective approach is to make personal contact by phone. Sending emails to old, inactive leads is challenging because it can lead to excessive spam complaints, which may harm the delivery rate of your other emails. There’s no substitute for regularly calling the people you know and care about. When you call, remember to record what you discussed in your real estate CRM. Most likely, everyone in your database will eventually need your services. The key is being available when someone you know or care about needs you. Talking with someone helps you recognize subtle signs they might be considering a move, possibly due to life changes such as a job transfer, divorce, marriage, or the arrival of a baby. > **Christmas Card Test Secret:** When preparing your mailing list each year, apply the Christmas card test. The test is simple: ask yourself, “Do I genuinely want to send this person a card?” If the answer is “no” then this person is cluttering your database, and you should add the category “Cold,” indicating they are marked for eventual deletion. You keep your database healthy by ensuring it’s full of authentic relationships, not strangers. Old, unresponsive leads are the weakest in your database. Therefore, I recommend removing them regularly. Using the “Cold” category is an excellent way to start. You should export all records in the “Cold” category and delete them annually, as they are not worth your attention. You need to prepare for the new selling season with fresh leads. Your CRM provider might offer free assistance with cleaning and organizing your database through an annual “Fall Cleanup” training session or webinar. If this training is available, I suggest you take advantage of it. ## Sync vs Import Your real estate CRM can sync your contacts and calendar with your smartphone, making it easy to access, add, and edit your information on the go. This is typically done by synchronizing your CRM’s contacts and calendar with Google’s, which is then synced to your smartphone. If you don’t use a Google email account, don’t worry, synchronization of contacts and calendar does not require you to use Gmail. Usually, all contacts on your smartphone are synchronized with your CRM’s contacts database. A friend or family member might ask you to help buy or sell their home, so even personal contacts should be stored in your real estate CRM. There might be rare cases where you want to keep some contacts on your phone that don’t sync with your real estate CRM, such as if you manage two separate businesses. The easiest way to do this is to have your smartphone sync with two email accounts: one for business and one for personal use. Your phone would display both lists, but your CRM would only sync the business contacts and calendar. There will also be records in your CRM that you won’t want on your phone, such as unqualified leads and farm lists. Loading hundreds of strangers into your phone’s address book can be confusing, and you might accidentally call the wrong person when using voice commands. Some CRMs solve this problem by letting you maintain separate databases—the “contacts” database for people you know, which syncs with your smartphone, and a second “prospects” database for unqualified leads that does not sync. As you qualify these prospects, you can move them into your contacts database. > **Separate the Strangers Secret:** Put strangers into a prospects database and people you know into your contacts database. That way, you can more easily weed out your old, dead leads each year. Besides synchronization, your real estate CRM can import data from multiple sources, including other CRMs, your MLS, and third-party lead providers. Your CRM vendor can provide import instructions and assist with the process. You may need to run a one-time import, such as when transferring data from a previous CRM. When you are migrating from your old CRM to a new one, your CRM vendor will have instructions for import and can assist in making sure that all your data is flawlessly copied from your old CRM to your new one. If you need to import information regularly, you can use the valet import feature. A common example is importing a list of For Sale by Owner (FSBO) leads from a third-party source. The data is typically stored as a CSV file. CSV (Comma-Separated Values) is a standard format for exchanging data between software applications. Importing this data involves mapping the CSV columns to your CRM’s data fields. Your CRM vendor can help with this mapping by creating a dedicated menu item so you can select it each time you want to perform the import. This can reduce a process that might take 15 minutes to just a few minutes. The prospects database is designed to manage leads. It includes two separate address fields: a **property address** and a **mailing address**. This setup is useful for property owners whose mailing address differs from their property address. For a buyer lead, this structure is also helpful. The property address field can store the home they initially inquired about, while the mailing address is for their current mailing address. This allows you to track a buyer’s specific interests while preserving their primary contact information. One additional consideration for imports is how to handle duplicate records. There are two common methods for managing duplicates. The most common approach is to allow duplicates during import and merge them afterward. For example, you might have your friend’s phone number on your phone and the same friend’s email address in your email program. You can import both contacts into your CRM, allow duplicates, and then merge them into a single record that includes both the email address and phone number.  Another method is to replace duplicate records. This option is useful when you are importing a newer version of the same data and want to overwrite the old version with the latest. ## Automations One of the biggest advantages of using a real estate CRM is the wide range of automations you can use. In some cases, these automations will save you time, while in others, it would be nearly impossible to replicate what your CRM can do manually. This section explains some of these automations and the benefits you can gain from using them. But first, I need to describe a few pitfalls of over-automation. Lead-nurturing automations can backfire if they are overly aggressive or never stop. You can easily leave a negative impression, especially when you are not interacting directly with someone. It can feel as if they are being hunted by a machine, like in the movie “The Terminator”. I recommend that, for all prospecting activities, you remain in control and be involved at each stage of the lead incubation process. That way, if someone says, “Get lost,” you can call off the hounds. Your real estate CRM can help automate unsubscribe requests from mailings by including an unsubscribe link in all your emails. For text messages, texting “STOP” will automatically disable future messages from that sender. These safety mechanisms are required by law, and your CRM can help you comply. Some agents use autoresponders to let clients know they are busy. Relying on a robot for initial contact is a major mistake. You should expect that anyone calling you is also calling other real estate agents. Agents pay good money for leads they can call. If you have a warm lead calling you, answer the phone! First impressions matter. When someone calls, answer the phone personally. When someone sends you an email, respond the same business day. Your sales skills are what will persuade your prospects to work with you and are essential for closing deals. There are too many ways a deal can fall through to rely solely on automation. > **The Person Power Secret:** Automation is for following up, not for first contact. A robot cannot build rapport through email, let alone over the phone. During your first call, do what automation can’t: build a human connection. Only after that should you use automated emails to deliver relevant and valuable information to your contact. A good example of helpful automation is a time-released email series, also known as a **drip mail**. When a drip sequence is applied to a prospect, mail-merged emails are automatically sent at designated intervals, typically one week apart. You can also apply a printed drip sequence, in which case your CRM would automate the process of printing your letters, typically on a weekly basis, so only the letters that need to be sent that week are printed, along with a mailing label of printed envelopes. When you first contact a prospect, it is important to understand their needs. Are they a buyer or a seller? Are they a first-time homebuyer? Or perhaps they are downsizing after the kids have left the house. With this information, you can send a carefully tailored series of automated emails that directly address their specific needs. Think of this series as a way to educate your prospect with your expertise. Since your prospect is trying to solve a specific problem, your emails will be warmly received if they focus on that topic. I recommend sending automated emails no more than once a week. Sending emails more frequently can be annoying. A good real estate CRM offers an extensive library of letters and dozens of pre-designed, time-released drip sequences for you to use and customize so that the drip sequence reflects your personal style and approach to doing business. Another example of automation is call capture. The most common way to use that is by adding a sign rider to your yard signs, which looks like this: 24-HOUR RECORDED HOME INFO: Text “999” to (970) 235-9114 or Call (970) 235-9114 Enter Code 999 **Call capture** replaces the traditional flyer box with an electronic flyer sent to the prospect via text message. At the same time, you capture the caller’s phone number and name using caller ID. The phone number and code above are active. Go ahead and call to see how call capture works. Studies show that an automated hotline generates significantly more leads than a regular phone number[10]. This is one example where automation delivers better results for you. The reason is twofold. First, people are more willing to call an automated hotline because they know they won’t have to deal with a pushy salesperson to get information on the house. Second, they can call at any time of day or night, unlike with a regular phone number, where they might feel self-conscious about calling outside normal business hours. Another example of helpful automation is automatically feeding leads from a variety of sources into your CRM via email feed and valet import. Consolidating leads into a single, unified database reduces the need to sign in to multiple platforms to review and follow up on new leads. Your CRM can generate a **daily call list** of people you need to contact, saving time. During the call, you can take notes and schedule your next follow-up. Your CRM can even dial your phone for you using a feature called **click-to-dial**. This feature works just like you would think. From your computer, you click on any phone number in your CRM, and your CRM automatically calls that person using your mobile phone. This is a tremendous time saver. By dedicating at least one hour daily to follow-up calls, you can make multiple calls efficiently, one after another. Using the **open house form** included with your real estate CRM is another way to automate tasks and save time. Instead of manually typing contact information into your CRM, an attendee at your open house can enter it directly on an iPad. Likewise, your CRM may include an **agent contact info form** that sellers can use to enter contact details from business cards left by agents after showings. The **mail merge** feature in your CRM lets you customize your letters by inserting contact details, mailing addresses, and property information. It starts with a template, which is then personalized using data from your contact record. The content library that comes with your CRM offers a wide range of mail forms you can use as-is or modify. This type of letter automation is especially useful for prospecting foreclosures, probates, FSBOs, and expired listings, as it lets you set up a process once and repeat it easily multiple times. The **content library** will save you time by letting you use the flyers, letters, and eCard templates in just a few minutes, rather than wasting hours designing your content from scratch. By leveraging real estate-specific content and tailoring it to your needs, you can accelerate your customization of these items. Another common automation is setting up **birthday and anniversary reminders**. Your CRM can help automate sending an eCard, a physical card, or even making a phone call. These touches are an excellent way to stay connected with friends and past clients. Maintaining contact increases the chances of a referral. Some agents add these activities to their calendars. While that works when you have only a few past clients, it doesn’t scale well. Your CRM lets you automate and manage these activities in one go each week. You can mark these tasks as completed in your real estate CRM. That way, you know who you still need to contact and who you have already wished a happy birthday to. That can be particularly useful if you have a few hundred people you wish a happy birthday to each year. The transaction management features in your real estate CRM allow you to create checklists of activities you need to complete for your listings and closings. By tracking showings, offers, promotions, and parties, you can work efficiently using standard procedures for each listing. You can even combine similar tasks, saving you more time. **Integrations** Although your real estate CRM offers many features, it can’t meet every agent’s needs. That’s why integrating your CRM with specialized third-party services is beneficial. An integration strategy provides flexibility, allowing you to switch partners while keeping the same CRM. This helps you leverage vendor competition for better service and prices. Being able to switch vendors keeps them on their toes and lets you drop services you no longer need. It also enables you to adjust your lead strategy over time, providing the flexibility that a single all-in-one solution cannot. A professional real estate CRM includes a built-in email feed, also known as email parsing[11]. The email feed captures lead notification emails from a variety of lead sources and automatically converts them into new prospect records in your CRM. Setting it up is simple: log in to your lead service’s control panel and add your CRM’s unique email feed address so that notification emails are sent there. Afterward, your CRM automatically parses incoming lead information to create new prospect records. The system then promptly notifies you of the new lead via email and SMS. This process eliminates manual data entry, helping you respond to inquiries more quickly.  A real estate CRM is pre-programmed to automatically recognize the unique email formats from hundreds of industry lead sources. While you could try to replicate this with a tool like Zapier, there are several reasons it isn’t an ideal solution. First, Zapier requires an additional monthly fee. Second, you would need to manually build and maintain the logic for each lead source. This process includes mapping every data field and creating rules to handle formatting differences and edge cases. You might also need to handle situations where a lead is missing a last name or phone number. Instead of spending time debugging a complex automation workflow, I recommend using your real estate CRM’s built-in email feed features. This lets you focus your valuable time on helping your clients. A generic CRM cannot effectively parse email feeds because it lacks a native understanding of the many email formats used in real estate. These are among the many reasons you should never rely on a generic CRM for your real estate business. > **The Capitalist Connection Secret:** Use your CRM as the central hub for your business tools. Integrate specialized third-party products for websites, paid lead services, postcards, and marketing, selecting the best vendor. This approach lets you choose the most competitive and prevents you from being locked into a single vendor. The email feed can also be used to parse contact information from any contact me form on any website. There are many types of websites you might want to connect with. At the most basic level, this could be a site built with tools such as Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress. For a more advanced presence, you might develop an Internet Data Exchange (IDX) to display listings from your MLS on your own website[12]. You can also create single-page property websites with a simple contact form that feeds directly into your prospects’ database via email[13]. > Zap Trap Secret: A good real estate CRM should include an email feed. Be cautious of vendors claiming similar features through Zapier. Zapier is a paid third-party service that connects various internet tools. Zapier requires extensive setup for each lead source. In contrast, the email feed that comes with real estate-specific CRMs is pre-configured to parse hundreds of common lead sources like Zillow, IDX websites, Trulia, and Realtor.com, without extra charges. Beyond capturing leads, your CRM can power your outbound communication. The built-in **phone dialer** lets you click a phone number in a contact record to dial it automatically. This simple feature can save hours of manual work during a prospecting session and keep you focused.  You can also **embed videos** in your email communications using tools such as YouTube, BombBomb, or VidYard. For physical marketing, your CRM can **export mailing lists** to postcard and greeting card vendors such as ReaMark or SendOutCards. You can filter your database by category and export only those with an email or mailing address. This filtering helps you create highly targeted mailing lists. The ability to seamlessly **synchronize** your CRM’s contacts and calendar with your smartphone is a key feature for many agents, as it gives them access to the CRM’s data when they are on the road. If you have an **electronic lockbox** (such as Supra, Sentrilock, or BrokerBay), you can also send information to your CRM via its email feed. Your CRM can convert email notifications from your lockbox software into showing information in your listing record. This automation is useful because it provides information for follow-up and for **soliciting showing feedback** from agents who have shown your listing. It also provides your clients with valuable insights, as they can review these showings and the feedback generated by viewing their service report. The open house form in your CRM can be used to collect contact information from anyone who has visited your open house. Be sure to load that form onto your iPad. This eliminates the need to transcribe handwritten registration forms, as visitors will enter their contact information directly, automating the process. Call capture automatically generates prospect records when someone calls your call-capture hotline or texts a code to that number. This works perfectly for your listings. Include a sign rider with your call-capture number, and watch the leads come in, even while you sleep! Contracts, photos, and other transaction-related information can be stored in Google Drive or another **cloud storage** service. This means you won’t need to visit the office to pick up a contract. It also lowers the risk of losing a document. Finally, your CRM can monitor your commissions and expenses in one place and **export** that data in a format your accountant can use to complete your quarterly estimated taxes and year-end filings. One advantage of integrations is that they let you add features to your CRM that people haven’t even thought of yet. The best way to explore what’s possible is to list the products and services you already use and share them with your CRM vendor. They can then provide instructions for integrating these services into your CRM. Your CRM vendor will also have a list of compatible integration partners, as well as a shorter list of recommended vendors. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. If you need a recommendation, your CRM vendor is a great place to start. ## Goals A common challenge for real estate agents is balancing current client demands with the need to prospect for new clients. Busy periods with clients often take up nearly all your time, leaving little room for prospecting. During slower times, you may finally have time to prospect, but there’s usually a lag between the first conversation and when someone is ready to hire you. This creates a stressful feast-or-famine cycle in both income and workload. The result is a constant feeling of losing control that impacts both you and your family. Breaking this cycle is crucial for maintaining a successful full-time career in real estate. The solution begins with your calendar. Dedicate a specific time each day to prospecting. This method is called **time blocking**, also known as **office hours**. Reserve at least an hour daily, preferably several, during times when you’re least likely to be interrupted by client needs. Mark these appointments on your calendar and treat them as equally important as any client appointment. This helps establish a consistent routine for maintaining your sales pipeline. Aim to spend at least half of your work hours on prospecting. If you are spending too little time, increase it. As you gain experience, more of your business should come from referrals and repeat clients. Working with people who already know and trust you requires less effort and yields higher conversion rates than working with strangers[14]. These leads also help balance the feast-or-famine cycle by allowing you to nurture them year-round. Spending time with your sphere of influence is an investment in future referrals, and you can do it in any season. Individual follow-up with your sphere is essential, including periodic phone calls, birthday wishes, and Christmas cards. As your past client list grows, you should also consider activities to show appreciation for past clients, especially those who have referred you to others. I discuss client appreciation later in the book. Your CRM allows you to measure the Return On Investment (ROI) of these activities by tracking referrals and repeat business. > **Streak Reward Secret:** Set a modest personal reward you will only unlock after five consecutive workdays of hitting your call and conversation targets. By rewarding yourself, you are using positive reinforcement to help build a habit. You should invest time in building your business network and prospecting for new clients. Your ability to do your job depends on being well-connected in the community. You need to be able to recommend house painters, electricians, plumbers, and other tradespeople. You also need connections with loan officers, attorneys, closing companies, and other industry professionals to recommend. Sometimes, you will need to refer other real estate agents for specialized situations, such as commercial transactions or out-of-town client needs. All of these relationships take time to develop. Just as with prospecting, you should also review which of the professionals you have been recommending provide you with reciprocal referrals and which do not. In some cases, you may identify an imbalance, such as referring several clients to a loan officer but not receiving any referrals in return. Identifying these inequities allows you to address them by either recommending a different loan officer or having a candid conversation with the person you have been recommending about the lack of reciprocity. Review your calendar from last year and assess how you spent your time. Are there activities that didn’t produce results? If so, consider making those activities more productive or eliminating them entirely. A common time drain is spending too much time on social media. While social media can provide great affirmation when a client checks you out, new leads often come from other sources[15]. This means that relying solely on social media for lead generation might not be as effective as other prospecting methods. After a few years, your CRM will become a valuable source of historical data that shows how your business operates. Your real estate CRM automatically tracks commissions, expenses, lead sources, follow-ups, conversion rates, and more. Because real estate is cyclical, what happens with closings and income in January will differ from what you see in August. Use the timeline in your CRM to review your income over different periods. Look at monthly, quarterly, and yearly data. You can compare one year to another to see results for the same month, year-over-year, and measure progress toward your annual goals. > **The Depression Diviner Secret:** Your CRM’s year-over-year reports reveal shifts in the market before they become obvious. For example, your data might show fewer buyers are converting or more deals are collapsing due to financing issues. Treat these as warning signs and shift your focus toward investors or rentals. You’ll be able to stay ahead while other agents figure out why their buyers have disappeared. You can also update your “Top100” contact category using insights from the **referral tracking** feature in your CRM. Referral tracking shows how you met each person in your database and the connections among these referral sources. Your “Top100” list includes the people you will contact regularly, as they are a reliable source of referrals and repeat business. If you use integrated tools like the open house form, valet import, and email feed, referral details will be pre-entered for you. The only records you’ll add manually are those for people you meet in person, such as at the gas station or grocery store. It usually takes a full sales season to identify which lead sources perform best. Be patient and always record how you met each prospect or contact in your CRM. When those people become deals, the information will already be entered. Use your real estate CRM’s goals section to track which lead sources generate the most income and which fail to convert. Some sources may generate many prospects but are low quality and do not convert. Low-quality leads can waste valuable time. Before dropping a weak source, review your strategy for managing it, as each source requires a different approach. Zillow leads are a good example. They often convert at lower rates, but results improve when you act quickly and use the right process. When a prospect enters their contact information on Zillow, they have likely asked about multiple properties, and several agents now have the same lead. To stand out, respond within five minutes and reach out by text, phone, and email[16]. Many younger buyers ignore calls but reply quickly to texts, and online leads often require multiple attempts before you connect, so keep following up until you get a response[17]. Continually evaluate both the quality of the source and your management of it, then refine your process to improve efficiency. The best way to handle lower-quality leads is with a repeatable system for every prospect, and your CRM can help automate that follow-up. Your CRM can also provide key insights into conversion rates across your sales funnel. This helps you understand how many prospects you typically need to reach before someone agrees to work with you as their agent. It also tracks the number of listings required to close and the number of buyers you need to engage before a purchase occurs. Not every buyer or seller will convert into a commission—some deals fall apart at the last minute. People lose jobs or are denied a home loan. Your CRM can help you identify these patterns. During slower months, focus on activities that drive long-term growth, such as writing blog posts, improving your website, and working on marketing projects. Stay visible in your community and nurture your sphere of influence. Simple gestures like sending Christmas cards, remembering birthdays, or visiting clients on the anniversary of their home purchase help strengthen relationships and generate future referrals. Use your CRM to identify which lead sources are effective and which are not. When a source consistently performs well, look for ways to increase the number of leads it generates. There are many potential sources: friends, geographic farming, expired listings, Zillow, and more. You don’t need to pursue every option. Often, specialization yields better results. If a source is working, focus on it and aim to bring in more of those leads next season. > **The Call-to-Closing Ratio Secret:** Leverage your CRM’s historical data to discover your actual conversion rate. Knowing this figure helps you determine how many prospecting calls you must make each day to reach your financial goals. At the same time, try at least one new lead source each season to uncover new opportunities. Remember, the market is always shifting, and your strategies should adapt accordingly. If interest rates rise, you might consider helping homeowners rent out their properties until rates drop. When sales slow, consider working with investors or flippers. Stay alert for opportunities that align with current market conditions. When setting goals, hold yourself accountable for following the plan you created in your CRM. Track how many people you contact each day and set a personal target. A contact is a meaningful interaction with someone. Use multiple communication channels, such as phone calls, text messages, mail, drive-bys, and postcards. By allowing yourself flexibility in how you reach out, you can switch methods if one isn’t working with a specific prospect. Many contact methods can be done at any time, including time-release drip email sequences or printing letters for the next day. Some agents rely too heavily on email, which can be a critical mistake. Spam filters are aggressive, so emailing strangers is rarely effective. Long-term success depends on forming a habit so the change becomes part of your daily routine. Reward yourself for achieving your goals. If you meet your daily goal, reward yourself with a small, symbolic gesture. Avoid using food as a reward, as it can lead to weight issues. Choose something enjoyable you might not usually do, such as going to a ball game. When you reach your annual goal, set a reward that matches the achievement. For example, if your goal is to increase revenue by 20 percent, reward yourself with a portion of the extra income once you reach it. Big goals call for big rewards. A weekend trip to Vegas is reasonable if the additional income from the goal more than covers the expenses. Set your phone or computer’s screensaver to a photo of Las Vegas at night to stay inspired each day as you work toward your annual goal. Avoid setting unattainable goals. Every goal should have a high likelihood of success if you follow your plan. Working with a coach can help ensure your goals and rewards are achievable. ## Coaches While advice for new agents is plentiful, every successful agent eventually hits an earnings plateau. Your income stalls not from a lack of effort but because the strategies that brought you there are no longer enough to take you to the next level. This is when you should invest in hiring a coach. A coach provides the strategy, mentorship, and accountability needed to break through that plateau and fundamentally grow your business. The first thing you should ask yourself is whether you can still learn from another agent in your office. You should ask yourself, “Is there anyone in my office that I admire who is just plain better at selling real estate than me?” If the answer is yes, you might want to ask that person to serve as your mentor. Try to learn as much as possible from the other agents in your office. If you consistently rank among the highest-income agents in your office month after month, it is time to expand your circle and find a coach outside your office. A great coach fulfills three key roles. First, they ensure accountability, much like a personal trainer who makes sure you complete your workouts. A coach helps you follow through on your commitments to yourself and your business. Second, a coach offers objectivity. They provide an unbiased, expert perspective on your habits, systems, and blind spots you might overlook. Finally, a coach provides mentorship and strategic vision, helping you set not only ambitious financial goals but also realistic “next-level” business objectives. For an experienced agent, reaching the “next level” means expanding your business. A coach helps you map the path, whether you’re growing from a solo agent to a team by hiring your first assistant or from a top-producing agent to a broker-owner. It could also involve mastering a new market segment, such as working with probate leads, entering the luxury real estate market, building relationships with real estate developers, or securing corporate clients. A coach might also help you understand how to use more leveraged forms of marketing, such as radio and video, to expand your reach beyond what you are currently doing. > **The Sister City Secret:** Hire a real estate coach from a similar market but in a different city. Picking an agent in a different city means they will not be your direct competitor. That way they have no reason to hold back their most profitable lead-generation systems, marketing materials, or scripts. That way you learn from their unedited playbook for building a top-producing business. Your goal should be to increase your revenue without working more hours. A coach can help you leverage your skills by introducing new techniques and technologies you might not have considered. The benefit of a coach is not incremental. They can help you reach a higher income level by scaling your business in new ways. The ideal coach is someone who has already achieved the level of success you are striving for. The real estate industry follows the well-known 80/20 rule where a small group of top agents handles most transactions[18]. To join their ranks, you need to learn from them. A coach is an advisor and a role model who has already reached the level you aim for. They demonstrate that your goal is not only possible but also achievable. A well-connected coach can also provide invaluable networking opportunities. —«◊»— ### Darci LaRocque Even the most seasoned agents can hit a plateau. Some might find themselves juggling multiple tools and struggling to maintain consistent client follow-up. Which is where real estate trainer Darci LaRocque comes in, founder of Agent Tech Mastery. She says the key to sustainable growth is pairing proven systems with personalized coaching. Her goal is to help real estate professionals work smarter by understanding digital tools that will drive predictable income. “When I first meet with Realtors, I look at their email address and website, and make sure those are set up properly,” Darci explains. “Only then do we start talking about the value of a CRM.” Many of Darci’s clients start without using a CRM, instead using multiple spreadsheets and disconnected apps. Through her coaching, Darci shows agents how to consolidate numerous databases and set up systems that integrate their website, email, and CRM into one cohesive process. Even after her clients have set up their systems, she remarks that, unless trained, many people don’t use their tools to their full potential. “Agents and brokers are often paying for systems they never fully implement,” she says. “When something’s too overwhelming to learn, you’re paying for nothing.” Sometimes hiring a coach can give you the knowledge you need to make your system sustainable. —«◊»— A coach provides the strategic “what,” not the technical “how.” They serve as your guide, not your helper, and they’re likely not experts in the specific software you are using. This creates a gap between their advice and your day-to-day implementation. That’s why your CRM vendor is another crucial partner in achieving your growth objective. Your CRM vendor can show you how to use your CRM’s features to achieve the goals you and your coach have set together. For example, they can help you set up your CRM’s multi-user features to add a partner or assistant, increasing your productivity. They can also show you how to use task plans and drip sequences to automate your workflows. A **Task Plan** is a preset checklist or series of steps in your CRM that you can assign to a transaction to ensure all tasks are completed consistently. Finally, your CRM vendor can assist you in integrating new lead sources using an email feed or valet import. This partnership with your CRM provider makes your coach’s strategic advice concrete. It connects your high-level plan to the daily tasks required to execute it. By helping you develop and implement systems in the software, the CRM provider ensures your coach’s goals translate into measurable results. Your CRM goal tracking also serves as a dashboard to monitor your progress, providing data that clearly demonstrates a return on your coaching investment. Just as a coach helps you break through an income plateau, your CRM vendor helps you break through a technology plateau. Most agents use only a small portion of their CRM’s features. As your business expands and your needs grow more complex, you also need to strengthen your technical skills. Take full advantage of the one-on-one training many CRM vendors offer, such as an annual “tune-up” or “spring-cleaning” session. Aim to master one new feature each month so your skills with your most critical tool grow alongside your business ambitions. ## Hiring an Assistant A high-earning real estate team typically includes one or more agents and an assistant. Agents focus on prospecting, listing presentations, and negotiations, while the assistant handles back-office tasks. The team shares a single CRM database and can assign tasks and appointments to specific members. This setup enables efficient collaboration and coordination. Team members can access the same data simultaneously, and all modifications are logged, showing who made which updates to which records. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), about 17% of agents have an assistant, with newer agents less likely to have one and more experienced agents more likely to have one. Hiring an assistant offers many advantages. You can focus on higher-value activities and delegate simpler, repetitive tasks to your assistant. You are best suited to handle listing presentations and cold calls. Your assistant can make follow-up calls to confirm appointments, put up yard signs, or deliver papers to clients. An assistant can also ensure all phone calls are answered promptly. —«◊»— ### Jenny Carlson For transaction coordinator Jenny Carlson, partnership is the foundation of a thriving real estate business. After nearly twenty years supporting agents across multiple states, Jenny says the one thing that keeps transactions running smoothly is collaboration. Jenny describes this support as “the A-to-Z of transactions. You’re not just managing paperwork; you’re coordinating between agents, clients, title companies, and lenders. Everyone depends on clear communication and follow-through.” Communication can only go so far. To become the best partner, you need to anticipate needs before they become problems. “With experience, you start catching issues early,” she says. “You catch issues that would delay a closing or cost the client money.” Catching these issues isn’t overly complex if you keep your systems simple. “Simpler is better,” Jenny explains. “When your systems are intuitive, and your process is clear, you can focus on the people instead of getting lost in the tools.” Over time, Jenny’s role has evolved beyond coordination. “Each agent runs their business differently. My job is to understand how they work and fill in the gaps. Sometimes that means acting as a coach or sounding board.” Her advice for other professionals: treat every partner as an extension of your own business. When everyone shares the same goal and communicates effectively, clients will notice. —«◊»— Before hiring an assistant, consider a few key points. Do you have enough work to keep both you and your assistant busy? Can you find the time to train and supervise an assistant? These two considerations often conflict. If you’re busy and need an assistant, finding time to hire and train one will take time you might not have! So, what qualities should you look for in an assistant? Find someone who is honest and conscientious. Ideally, choose someone with strong skills in productivity software, since many of the tasks you’ll assign will involve computers and software productivity tools. Review the tasks that take up most of your time and that you feel can be delegated. Some of these tasks might involve driving a vehicle. For example, you could delegate to an assistant the tasks of making a copy of the key, installing the lockbox and yard sign, creating a flyer, and having it printed. With that in mind, consider whether driving is part of your assistant’s responsibilities. After hiring an assistant, contact your real estate CRM vendor to set up an account for them. It’s essential that your assistant have their own login to access your CRM, as sharing your password is unsafe. Your CRM helps you organize your workflow by creating a checklist of tasks for each listing and closing. It also lets you track which tasks are completed and which are still pending. You can assign tasks to yourself and your assistant using categories. For example, I assign tasks to the “Scott” category for tasks I need to do, and I assign tasks to my assistant’s first name for tasks I want my assistant to complete. Task plans can have these assignments pre-set, automating who does what. Your CRM serves as the central hub for all activities. You can interact with it in the field, and your assistant can do the same from the office. Your assistant logs in with their own email and password, ensuring that any changes they make are recorded under their name. Additionally, you can **restrict access** to your database, such as hiding income information or preventing your assistant from accidentally deleting records. You should prioritize ease of use and foolproof operation in your CRM, especially given the likelihood of high assistant turnover and the possibility of hiring an inexperienced assistant. Many agents consider hiring a virtual assistant to support transaction management and prospecting follow-up. A virtual assistant works remotely. You may never meet them. They would interact with you by phone and online, including by accessing your real estate CRM to complete tasks. One of the largest benefits of using a real estate CRM is the ability for your team to access information from anywhere. So, for strictly office tasks, your assistant could be anywhere around the world. One appealing option is to hire a virtual assistant in another country, such as the Philippines. The main reason is that it can be more affordable. However, this approach has a few drawbacks. First, time zone differences can make live communication more challenging. Additionally, there may be language and cultural barriers to overcome. Finally, working with someone outside the country makes it challenging to maintain security. If you give someone in another country access to your database, what would you do if they stole your data and used it for criminal activities? Holding a virtual assistant accountable in another country is nearly impossible. Would you hire someone just for the season and then hire a new person each year? Given the seasonal nature of the real estate business, this might make sense. It would be particularly appealing because you could draw on a labor pool of people with summers off, such as students or teachers. NAR studies indicate that the average tenure of a real estate assistant is 1-4 years. Many factors contribute to this high turnover. While high turnover may be unavoidable, retaining staff who stay for a few years can reduce your workload. Hiring and training a new assistant each year takes time. There are several ways to reduce staff turnover. The most obvious option is to hire an assistant seeking a long-term role. Pay is often a key driver of turnover. The seasonal nature of the work may also be a factor, as you might not need an assistant during the winter months. Lastly, job satisfaction is especially important. If your assistant feels appreciated and recognized as a vital part of your team, that will significantly boost job satisfaction. The first thing you should do after hiring an assistant is have them document their role in a clear, written format that outlines their responsibilities and processes. This way, if you lose your assistant, you’ll have a ready-made training plan for your new one. Keeping this plan up to date will help reduce disruptions. The task plans in your real estate CRM will help you assign the responsibilities your assistant will handle. Also, check with your real estate CRM vendor to see if they offer training programs your assistant can participate in. You should also ensure your assistant can call technical support and receive assistance whenever needed from your CRM vendor. > **The Role Control Secret:** For an assistant email address use a role-based email address with a general term like “info” instead of a specific person’s name. For example, your assistant’s email could be info@SallySellsSarasota.com. This way, the email address stays the same if you hire a new assistant. There are some tasks an assistant cannot help with. These may be tasks you lack experience in and cannot explain clearly to your assistant. For example, building a website may be beyond an assistant’s capabilities and is better handled by hiring an external company. Similarly, creating a 3-D walkthrough of a property or creating aerial drone footage may be beyond a new assistant’s capabilities. However, an experienced assistant might be able take on these tasks with some additional training. To start, I recommend giving your assistant clear, simple tasks. For tasks that require a high level of skill, hiring a contractor who specializes in those activities is likely to be more cost-effective. I suggest you also consider what your ideal assistant's personality would be. That will help guide you during the interview process. Someone who would be happy in an administrative role might not be a super-extroverted salesperson. NAR surveys show that about half of assistants are licensed agents, and the other half are not. There is no single right kind of assistant for everyone. There are two main approaches you can take when bringing on an assistant. The first is to hire someone who can strictly help you with what needs to be done. You will take the time to train them and provide feedback on their performance and role. I think of this like a surgeon bringing in a nurse to assist with the operation. The personality of someone in this role would thrive on detail-oriented tasks. The second approach is to hire someone who can help with the tasks you need and will eventually grow into the role of being their own agent. This is more like an understudy than an assistant. This approach has distinct advantages and disadvantages. Among the advantages, you might just find a new agent in your office willing to work for you part-time to “learn the ropes.” They are motivated to understand the full sales process and are most likely to grasp the why as well as the what when you ask them to do a task. One disadvantage is that they might not want to remain in an administrative role and will eventually shift into sales. > **The Balanced Buddy Secret:** When hiring an assistant or choosing a partner, look for someone whose personality complements yours rather than mirrors it. Pairing different strengths creates a balanced and effective team. You should evaluate each candidate’s personality and fit. You might initially think you’d prefer to hire an assistant rather than an understudy, but if someone new comes into the office and you get along well with them, you might reconsider. You might even consider bringing an understudy assistant on as a partner eventually. Some offices have an administrative assistant who works with multiple agents, assisting each. The advantage of this approach is that multiple agents can keep a single assistant busy full-time, whereas a single agent might not. The CRM would be organized so that each agent has their own database visible only to them and their shared assistant. This setup prevents agents from viewing each other’s data, and the information is not co-mingled. Instead, it is siloed so that the assistant can switch between each agent’s account to perform work for that agent. This way, each agent has their own contacts, calendar, and transactions. ## Working with a Partner There are several advantages for real estate agents to work with a partner. You can take a vacation more easily, as your partner can cover for you. The same applies to spending time with family and to sharing the workload more effectively during busy periods. According to NAR surveys, 22% of agents are on a team. The primary benefit they report is increased productivity: an average of 20 closed sides per team member, compared with a median of 7.5 for solo agents. While joining a team does not guarantee success, it certainly seems to help. Before entering a partnership, you must evaluate several key factors. Are you truly equals, or is one partner more dominant than the other? It’s helpful to understand how your partner’s personality compares with yours. For instance, one might spend much of their time in the office, while the other prefers to work remotely. Is one of you more ‘bossy’ than the other? If you part ways, how would you divide your shared database? Have an honest conversation beforehand. There’s no single correct answer. However, many partnerships fail because of unclear roles and expectations. Your real estate CRM enables you and your partner to collaborate and share responsibilities. How you organize your CRM should reflect the nature of your relationship with your partner. There are two levels of partnership to consider. A good approach is to start with the least invasive option and, if it works well, move to the next. The most common partnership involves each person maintaining their own contact databases, calendars, and lists. You do not share commissions and share only a few expenses. Your CRM lets your partner see your information, and you can see theirs, but the data isn’t combined. However, you can access your partner’s database, and they can access yours. This way, when one of you is on vacation, the other can cover. You can also exchange appointments and leads between your databases. This approach is surprisingly common and durable. The main benefit is that it requires little adjustment on either of your parts. It allows both agents to operate independently while relying on each other when needed. This is also a great option for two agents with similar personalities. Because the databases are separate, it works regardless of each agent’s time commitment or skill level. If the partnership ends, each agent stops sharing their database with the other. No changes to the databases themselves are necessary. > **The Happy Handoff Secret:** A real estate career can provide income after you stop working if you follow a succession plan. Succession plans involve bringing on a junior agent and spending 1-2 years transitioning your clients and database to them. You kick-start a younger agent’s career while at the same time your CRM database generates referral income for you. A second option is to use the same combined database and assign categories to indicate who is working on which lead and attending which appointment. For example, if Sam and Cindy are partners, Sam would add the “Sam” category to all the contacts he manages for the partnership, and Cindy would add the “Cindy” category to her records. Similarly, income could be allocated across these categories. While categories are a good starting point, a mastery-level approach uses your CRM’s commission-tracking features to record the exact financial split for each transaction. This creates a definitive ledger that helps prevent future disagreements. If the partnership ends, the categories can be used to split the data into two separate databases. The advantage of this method is that it makes it easy to begin working with a partner. Leads can be assigned by specialization, allowing each agent in the partnership to focus on a specific type of deal. For instance, one partner might focus on buyer leads, while the other concentrates on listings. Another common division of roles with a shared database is for one partner to handle external work and the other to handle office work. These arrangements are typical of a husband-and-wife team or of a dominant agent bringing in a junior agent. Teams where each agent is independent-minded are more likely to prefer the first option, in which each agent maintains their own calendar, contacts, and leads, independent of the others. No matter what type of partnership you choose, it requires time and effort. The most common challenge is personality conflicts with your partner. One of the simplest ways to address this is to use your real estate CRM to clearly organize roles, commission distribution, and tasks. Being a solo real estate agent can be very stressful; working with a partner can significantly reduce that stress. # From Generalist to Specialist > “So why is it that Specialists work far less and earn far more? > Because they are sought out, in demand, and relevant.” —Knolly Williams, *Success With Listings* Every real estate agent who is a member of the MLS can sell any house listed on the MLS. This is a powerful advantage for new agents because it creates a level playing field for all agents. However, it also poses a challenge. How do you stand out from all of the other agents? One way is to focus on a specific niche within the real estate market. For example, you could specialize in working with investors seeking rental properties or assisting military veterans. You can then use targeted marketing to identify both buyers and sellers in that specific market segment. Over time, you also gain a better understanding of that segment’s unique needs and could even develop a reputation as an expert in that field. The advantage of focusing on a real estate niche is that it helps you gain a competitive edge and deepen your understanding of that segment’s unique needs, enabling you to be more effective in your job. ## Real Estate Investors Working with an investor can be advantageous because investors are more likely to understand real estate transactions, have financing in place, and close deals quickly. However, they may prefer lowball offers and are primarily motivated by profit, making strong negotiation skills essential on your part. What truly distinguishes an investor from a typical homebuyer is their willingness to explore opportunities that other buyers might avoid. A traditional buyer usually prefers a move-in-ready home that will pass a lender’s appraisal. An investor seeks undervalued opportunities, such as distressed properties or properties that can be remodeled for profit. They also look for properties that can be rented to generate positive cash flow or flipped for quick profit. An investor’s unique interests make them a valuable strategic asset. Sellers in distressed situations, such as divorce or probate, may prefer a quick sale with few or no contingencies rather than maximizing the price. This is where your investor client provides the perfect solution. Your ability to connect an investor with the seller of a difficult-to-sell property positions you as a problem-solver. You can also proactively identify these opportunities for your investor clients, benefiting both parties. > **The Interested Investor Secret:** When pitching a seller who needs a quick sale, mention that you sometimes work with cash buyers who are ready to close fast. Use your contacts database to stay in touch with deep-pocketed investors who are interested in special situations. Your CRM is the ideal tool for managing this valuable niche. By keeping a list of investors in your contacts database, you can notify them of opportunities that meet their criteria. If you come across a distressed property, one with unique challenges, or one that requires a quick sale, you will have a ready-made list of buyers you can contact. A robust CRM offers specialized features crucial to this work. You will need to generate a **Comparative Market Analysis (CMA)**, a report that estimates a home’s value based on recently sold comparable properties. For each potential property, you can help your investor determine whether it represents a good value. Your CRM should also include offer tracking to manage multiple offers and counteroffers for the same buyer. Since many investors are cash buyers, your CRM’s task plans should be flexible enough to accommodate deals without lending contingencies. By specializing in investor buyers, you can also focus on listing the types of properties that interest investors. These include distressed properties, undervalued properties, properties that generate positive cash flow through rental, and multi-family real estate that can be purchased and rented for profit. You can hire trusted locals to act as bird dogs, spotting vacant houses, neglected properties, or new FSBO signs in their neighborhoods. In real estate investing, a “bird dog” is someone who scouts potential deals (often distressed or off-market properties) for investors in exchange for a fee or “bounty.” When they find something promising, they send you a quick photo, address, and details in exchange for a set bounty. This way, you become aware of these opportunities early and can prospect them before other agents. In a hot market, using human intelligence gathering can give you an edge over others who rely on subscription services, which tend to lag by several weeks. There are lead services you can use to identify FSBOs, probates, and pre-foreclosure leads. You’re seeking a homeowner eager to get rid of their mortgage quickly. In such cases, the seller is willing to accept a lower price for a faster closing date. An investor will do that kind of deal all day long. Using the **rent vs. own calculator** in your CRM can help identify opportunities where rental income easily covers the property’s mortgage. Rental rates vary across a city, with some areas commanding higher average rents than others. These higher-rent neighborhoods are preferred by investors and should be the focus of your marketing. For example, in a college town, housing near campus usually rents for more than similar properties just a mile away. Many students don’t have cars, so walking distance or proximity to a bus line is crucial, and they are willing to pay extra for that convenience. Investors are sensitive to shifts in economic conditions, including interest and rental rates. As their trusted real estate advisor, you can alert them when it’s a good time to adjust their portfolios based on these factors. Use your real estate CRM’s rent-vs-own calculator to help determine whether it makes sense for your investors to sell or buy a property given these economic changes. Private investors hold real estate investments for an average of 4.6 years, significantly shorter than the 11-year average for residential homeowners. This makes an investor client particularly valuable, as investors typically do more than one deal, and there’s a good chance that every property you help them buy, you can help them sell eventually. Beyond the initial purchase, an investor’s focus shifts to generating returns, typically by flipping the property or holding it as a rental. Your CRM is crucial for supporting both approaches. For clients who choose to become landlords, a CRM with **property management** features helps you offer property management services—this is particularly valuable for an inexperienced investor. These features let you track tenant details, rent payments, and maintenance requests, creating an additional revenue stream for your business. If the investor prefers to handle rental management themselves, you can also provide services to find a renter by listing the property on the MLS. While each investor aims for maximum return, the flip strategy carries risks you are uniquely qualified to help mitigate. The investor needs to estimate a fair asking price after remodeling is complete. They are likely to ask for your help preparing a hypothetical Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) to determine that figure. You might also suggest running a seller net calculation that includes commissions and closing costs. With this information, your investor can account for remodeling and holding costs to assess profit potential. The main risk in a flip is cost overruns or delays, which can quickly erode profit margins. Therefore, when advising a client on a flip, emphasize the importance of a contingency budget (usually 10-15% of the renovation cost) to cover unexpected expenses, such as structural or system issues, helping the investor—and your reputation—avoid financial disaster. You might also consider analyzing current rental market conditions and estimating the property’s pre- and post-remodeling rental rates. You could then use that information along with the rent-to-own calculator in your CRM to decide whether it’s more advantageous to rent the property instead of flipping, and whether remodeling makes sense. When it’s time for your investor to sell an asset, you can add value by advising them on the tax benefits of a 1031 exchange, a strategy under the U.S. tax code that allows an investor to avoid capital gains taxes on the sale of an investment property by reinvesting the proceeds (via a Qualified Intermediary) into a new, ‘like-kind’ property within a strict timeframe[19]. If your client chooses this option, you will earn two commissions: one for the sale of the original property and another for the purchase of a replacement property of equal or greater value. Beyond doubling the commission opportunity, a 1031 exchange also creates time pressure because the offer must be made and accepted within a short timeframe, and the exchange must be closed quickly afterward. This means your investor is more concerned with timing than price. That second deal must be completed to avoid taxes, making it far more likely to close than it might otherwise be. The timing of these deals has to be exact. You can use your CRM’s transaction management tools to monitor contingencies, deadlines, inspections, involved parties, and other details, making sure nothing delays either deal’s closing. Once the first transaction is complete, there’s a limited window to secure an accepted offer for the second, which must also be completed within a designated period. Maintaining a vendor list of tradespeople in your CRM can be valuable for time-sensitive investors. When your client needs a trusted inspector, contractor, plumber, or electrician for a renovation or rental repair, you can quickly provide a reliable referral. By serving as a long-term, well-connected expert, you become a crucial part of your investor’s team, ensuring a steady flow of repeat business. > **The Outstanding Offer Secret:** Investors are looking strictly at the numbers, and do not fall in love with a property. A savvy investor might use multiple consecutive lowball offers with tight deadlines as a negotiating tactic. They might keep one offer active at a time, then once it’s rejected, quickly make an offer on a different property. The first seller to accept is the winner. Use your CRM to track each offer and its deadline, ensuring you do not have more than one offer active at a time. If you’re selling in a market area with a college, you can target parents looking to buy a rental property where their child can live during college. This creates a unique investment opportunity that allows parents to offer their child free lodging and even pay them to manage and maintain the property. If the child brings on roommates, it can even become profitable! You should also consider that some people in your circle may be interested in owning an investment property for rental. You could host a real estate seminar on the benefits of rental properties. By providing a full range of services, you can make it easier for first-time investors to get started. You can help them find the right rental property and secure tenants. You might even offer to manage the rental process for them, and when it’s time to sell, you will be there to support them. You might even offer seminars that highlight the benefits of being a landlord. This can be particularly compelling when the stock market is underperforming. You give people the opportunity to access an alternative investment vehicle that is more stable and reliable than the stock market. When someone owns a rental property, they can see their investment firsthand. ## Rentals As a real estate professional, you will encounter clients who either cannot qualify to buy a home or do not want the responsibility. Or, perhaps you have a listing that isn’t selling, but you’re confident you can rent it. In either case, it makes sense to offer your services to match a rental property with a renter. The typical fee for such services is one month’s rent as a finder’s fee. You might also offer rental management services, where you charge a percentage of the monthly rent to ensure payments are made and cover any necessary property upkeep. Keep in mind that if you offer to manage a client’s property for a fee, you are acting as an agent or fiduciary. This service requires a real estate license and, in some states, a separate Property Management License to oversee client funds. > **The Rental Reconnaissance Secret:** Managing rentals for someone else helps you learn how to handle rental management for when you eventually become a landlord yourself. Many real estate agents own rental properties and consider them an excellent investment for retirement1. 2024 NAR Member Profile, 44% of Realtors own one or more investment properties↩︎ Your real estate CRM can help you manage both finding a renter and rental management. While you might prefer the higher reward and lower hassle of a traditional closing, where you earn a commission and complete the deal, rentals offer a diversified income stream that can be beneficial when the economy slows. You may also eventually convert a renter into a buyer or turn a rental into a future sale. You should use your real estate CRM to track lease expirations and reach out to both the buyer and the seller to determine whether your services are needed. You can also rent out a property for short-term stays—such as a summer cottage rented for the season or for a few weeks at a time. You would handle tenant screening, collect rent, ensure cleaning services are completed, and ensure the property is in excellent condition for rent. Managing short-term vacation rentals (such as those listed on VRBO or Airbnb) is often treated as hospitality or temporary lodging, similar to operating a hotel. Consequently, these services usually do not require a Property Management License unless the agent’s responsibilities include general maintenance or financial activities that qualify as property management under local laws. Always consult your state’s Real Estate Commission and local ordinances on transient occupancy taxes before engaging in any management activities. The success of rental management hinges on meticulous tenant screening. Your agency relationship requires you to protect the landlord’s assets from damage, loss of rent, and liability. The CRM’s transaction management features can support this required due diligence by tracking tenant employment, obtaining credit reports, noting any prior eviction history, and contacting prior landlords. Finding qualified renters may require a different lead-generation strategy than finding homebuyers. While the MLS handles some rental listings, the most effective platforms are Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Zillow Rentals, Apartments.com, and local university housing portals (especially in college towns). Your marketing should also be highly localized. Eventually, you will likely discover an investment opportunity you want to pursue personally. That makes you, the real estate professional, the owner, landlord, and property manager. Your real estate CRM can help you track this side of your business. Nearly all successful real estate agents end up buying properties as personal investments, so it’s just part of the business. When the time comes to sell that property, you, as an agent, can manage that part as well! ## Vacation Homes Selling vacation homes or a second home requires a unique marketing approach. For a primary home, buyers prioritize the school system, proximity to work, and amenities such as shopping. A vacation home is a luxury purchase primarily for leisure. Therefore, emphasize the amenities. A vacation home can often be shared with friends and family. Take the time to discuss how owning a vacation home can bring families together for gatherings and create memories. When you sell vacation homes, you’re selling the dream, so concentrate on the intangible benefits. Many people rent out their second homes as short-term rentals when they aren’t using them. This can help offset the costs of owning a second property. There are tax implications to consider, and you should understand these options to provide your clients with the most accurate advice. Second homes tend to turn over more quickly than traditional homes. After a few years, many owners realize they are not using their second home as much as they did when they first bought it. Staying in regular contact with your buyer gives you a great chance to be the listing agent for that sale. After all, who better to sell the property than the agent who helped the buyer purchase it? The simplest way to do this is to use your real estate CRM to track the closing anniversary. Call your buyer each year to check in and see how things are going. > **The Remote Reassurance Secret:** Owners of vacation homes may be unaware of the daily real estate activity near their homes, as they may visit only a few days each year. Periodic postcards, like “just listed / just sold,” and an annual summary of properties sold in the neighborhood are especially effective tools for fostering engagement among vacation homeowners. These postcards are valuable items that your prospects will likely keep. I recommend sending these cards to the owner’s home address rather than the vacation home’s address. Maintaining phone contact with your past clients is important, but you should also consider sending occasional postcards and other mailings to the entire neighborhood. You can easily create a mailing list from local property tax records, which include the owner’s name, property address, and mailing address. Then import that data into your real estate CRM using the valet import feature. Your CRM can store both a property address and a mailing address in the prospects database. For vacation homes, your mailing should not go to the vacation home address but instead to the owner’s primary residence address. This mailing list is ideal for postcards and periodic printed letters. You can use your CRM’s mail merge feature to reference the vacation home’s address while printing the label at the mailing address. Your marketing budget is best spent on the warmest leads: individuals already engaged with the vacation lifestyle. The most efficient lead generation comes from intercepting potential buyers while they are enjoying the area. One of the easiest ways to generate buyer leads is to host multiple open houses, especially during periods when vacation homes are actively rented. Someone renting a vacation home may dream of owning one. Use the open house registry feature of your real estate CRM to capture this information. In addition to follow-up calls, I recommend creating a semiannual email newsletter that highlights activities in the vacation community you serve. You’re selling the dream. When your prospect reads about the clam bake by the beach this weekend, they are one step closer to deciding that owning is far better than renting. You can also expand your prospecting by partnering with local short-term rental agencies and property owners in the area. You might be able to obtain a mailing list of past clients. You could also include information about your services in the welcome packet provided with the short-term rental. Additionally, you can contact the local visitor’s center to have a brochure and your business cards available there. You might also be permitted to use the visitor registration log. Similarly, reaching out to local hotels to arrange the same might also be beneficial.  Financing a second home differs from financing a primary residence. Lenders view second homes as riskier, so buyers typically need larger down payments and must meet stricter debt-to-income ratios. As an agent, you should work with a lender experienced in second-home or investment property loans. Additionally, vacation homes are sometimes purchased by multiple parties, such as friends or extended family. You should be familiar with common ownership structures, such as Tenancy in Common (TIC) and Limited Liability Companies (LLCs), which help manage shared expenses, liability, and usage schedules. Your ability to advise clients on these financial and legal arrangements not only helps these deals go more smoothly but also places you in the room when decisions are made. Because this is an emotional, leisure-based purchase, the quality of visual marketing is essential. Listings must go beyond standard photos and use cinematic video tours and drone footage to showcase the full experience—not just the house. The video should highlight the lifestyle: a sunset view from the deck, a family gathered around the fire pit, or a short walk to the lake. The focus should be on the community and the experience, treating the property like a destination retreat. This high-end, emotional presentation justifies the luxury purchase and helps buyers envision the memories they will make. ## Veterans & Active Military If you are a veteran or have a connection to one, this niche can be a smart market to target. Veterans and active-duty military members are spread across the United States, but some regions have higher concentrations, making marketing to this group especially effective in those areas. Although a veteran’s needs are similar to those of any other homebuyer, they also have specific needs that are unique to their experience. Your ability to empathize with and understand these needs can be helpful when assisting military families with buying or selling a home. A VA loan is a powerful financial tool available exclusively to active-duty service members and veterans, enabling home purchases with little or no down payment. In a competitive market, offers financed with a VA loan are sometimes viewed as less attractive because of stricter appraisal and property-condition requirements. Your job is to proactively address these misconceptions. When submitting a VA-financed offer, you should immediately contact the listing agent, provide the buyer’s strong pre-approval letter, and confidently explain that your team—including the lender and inspector—is highly experienced with the VA process and can ensure a smooth, timely closing. You can also appeal to the agent’s sense of patriotism. This proactive communication is essential to securing a contract for your veteran client. While the zero-down-payment benefit of a VA loan is well known, another advantage is that VA loans do not require Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI), regardless of the down payment amount. For a borrower with a conventional loan and a down payment of less than 20%, the monthly PMI cost can be hundreds of dollars. Eliminating this fee provides substantial monthly savings, significantly increasing your client’s purchasing power and reducing their total housing cost. Many veterans and service members mistakenly believe they can only use their VA loan benefit once. The VA loan is a lifetime benefit, and the entitlement is often fully restorable. Even if a veteran has already used a VA loan and sold that home, they can apply to restore their full entitlement and use the benefit again for their next purchase, often with no restrictions on location or time. Additionally, if they still own their first home, they may be able to use their remaining “second-tier” entitlement to purchase a second home with a VA loan. > **The Veteran’s Valet Secret:** Many listing agents dislike VA loans due to the strict appraisal requirements and associated delays. For this reason, VA loan offers are considered less competitive than other offers. You can deal with this concern by pre-inspecting the property against the VA Minimum Property Requirements before making an offer. After the property is inspected, you’ll need to show that your client’s financing won’t cause delays. Have your VA lender call the listing agent to confirm the buyer is fully underwritten and the loan is ready to close. Active-duty military families are often required to relocate between duty stations, sometimes across state lines or internationally. Move-in-ready homes that are easy to sell are highly valued. Your client will often face tight deadlines set by a Permanent Change of Station (PCS) order. This often condenses house hunting into a short, intense “House-Hunting Trip” (HHT) of about ten days. Increasingly, the entire process must be managed remotely while the service member is deployed or already at the new duty station. Be prepared to conduct comprehensive virtual showings, including live video tours and detailed neighborhood analysis. Because VA loans are managed by a private entity but underwritten by the military, you should build relationships with local mortgage professionals experienced in VA loans. Additionally, it is important that you maintain a network of local contractors and inspectors in your CRM contacts database who can work on short notice. Your ability to provide dependable remote service is a key differentiator in this niche. Beyond the home itself, military families prioritize community and support systems. As part of the services you offer your clients, include resources for local school registration, connections to nearby military family support groups, and identification of neighborhoods with high concentrations of military residents. Your value is not just in selling a house; it is in helping a family quickly and seamlessly integrate into a new, unfamiliar community. In many military moves, the spouse manages most of the logistics, especially when the service member is deployed, in training, or has already moved ahead to their new duty station. The military spouse is often the primary decision-maker on the ground. When working with military families, you must always treat the spouse as a critical partner and the primary point of contact for day-to-day details. You should maintain separate contact records for the husband and wife in your database, each with complete contact information. It is important to keep in touch with any active-duty family members you have helped with a home purchase. They typically receive a Permanent Change of Station (PCS) order on a 2-5-year cycle. This means it won’t be long before your buyer becomes a seller. Place the primary decision-maker (spouse) on a regular 90-day touch cycle in your CRM. While the military can be predictable, orders can arrive quickly, and military families need to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. Military families will be more aware than most others of how salable their home is and what needs to be done to maintain its condition so it is always ready to sell. If you send an annual CMA analysis of the property’s value, it would be greatly appreciated and put you at the front of the line when it comes time to select an agent to help sell the property. Many military families may move to another location for a few years but expect to eventually return. In that case, instead of selling their home, you might be asked to rent it for the duration of the military family's overseas assignment. You can offer to help find a renter, qualify them, and handle rental management while your client’s family is overseas. Your CRM can help you manage your rental management tracking needs. Children’s needs are paramount in a PCS move, making school systems and the school transition and registration process critical factors. Unlike civilian families, military families do not always have the luxury of relocating in the summer, when children are out of school. You should be prepared to provide resources on local school district rankings, magnet programs, and youth sports leagues. Since the spouse is leaving their existing support network, your service should include connecting them with local military family organizations, such as base Family Readiness Groups (FRGs) or Spouse Clubs. By providing this “soft landing” support, you alleviate the immense stress of relocation and earn the family’s trust and long-term loyalty. When both spouses are active-duty service members, the logistical demands of buying or selling a home are uniquely compounded. Their military schedules are often inflexible and may include simultaneous deployments, extended training periods, or staggered move dates. This can leave neither service member available to attend the closing or even view the final property. As the agent, you must be prepared to use Power of Attorney (POA) documents for tasks such as contract signing, loan closings, and final walk-throughs. Because military POAs can have specific expiration or usage limits, coordinate closely with your VA-specialized title company to verify the document’s validity well in advance. In these transactions, the ability to execute quickly and flawlessly with remote tools is essential to success. Veterans who have separated or retired have different needs from active-duty families. When assisting this group, the main priorities are often access to healthcare and community connection. Many veterans rely on the VA healthcare system, so proximity to a VA Medical Center (VAMC) or a major VA clinic is often a key consideration. When guiding your buyer’s home search, research the nearest VA Medical Center and discuss commute times and local VA services. Retired military families often prefer to live near military bases for the community they provide, as well as other benefits such as discounted shopping. Additionally, veterans often seek communities with strong veteran organizations—such as the VFW, the American Legion, or local veteran-run social clubs—to preserve camaraderie and a sense of belonging. By including proximity to these resources in your home search criteria, you further demonstrate your commitment to being a military-friendly agent. NAR also offers a Military Relocation Professional (MRP) certification course you might consider. You can also use this coursework toward your continuing education credits. Keep track of your continuing education requirements and the classes you’ve completed by recording them in your real estate CRM’s **education tracking** feature. If this is a niche you want to focus on, there are many ways to reach this target audience. Check with local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and American Legion chapters. If there’s a nearby base, the base housing office can also be a resource. Additionally, many military-specific websites, such as MilitaryByOwner, serve the housing needs of military families. Your marketing efforts should focus heavily on education: host free webinars and create blog content that directly addresses military financial benefits and logistical challenges, including “Mastering the PCS Timeline” and “Avoiding VA Loan Closing Delays.” Within the military community, the agent-client relationship demands a level of trust rarely seen in traditional real estate. Military families often face unpredictable orders and tight deadlines. They frequently need to make purchasing decisions from thousands of miles away, sometimes relying on an agent to serve as their eyes, ears, and on-the-ground representative. As a result, agents who are Veterans or military spouses have a natural, immediate advantage, sharing experience and cultural understanding that help them empathize with the stress of a PCS. In the end, the agent who earns the client’s confidence is the one who demonstrates transparency, stays organized, and shows that they prioritize the family’s stability over the commission. The sacrifices made by military families, including frequent moves, interrupted careers, family separation during deployment, and the inherent risks of service, are part of the challenges of military life. When the client entrusts you with their housing during a Permanent Change of Station (PCS), they are asking you to stabilize the one area of their lives the military does not control: their home and family life. Your job is to honor this sacrifice by working with military precision, complete transparency, and unwavering integrity. ## Short Sales A short sale occurs when a property sells for less than the outstanding mortgage balance. In this situation, the homeowner is underwater and won’t receive any proceeds from the sale. The homeowner must obtain the mortgage note holder’s acceptance of a loss for the difference between the sale price and the loan payoff amount. Short sales require additional effort and time from everyone involved and typically result in a lower sale price than a conventional sale. This lower price helps offset the buyer’s inconvenience. Your real estate CRM will help you track the progress of a short sale. If you decide to list an underwater transaction, your real estate CRM can help you manage these challenges. You will need to coordinate with the noteholder company to document financial hardship. The noteholder must first approve a short sale, which is likely to involve time-consuming back-and-forth. By documenting each communication and placing the loan’s owner on a touch cycle, you can manage this process with minimal strain. Assuming this step is complete, you can then list the property. The listing description in your MLS must state that the deal is a short sale. Because a short sale is considered a distressed sale, you should expect lowball offers from buyers. You can use your CRM to track the status of each offer. Because acceptance requires approval from both the seller and the noteholders, negotiations are typically prolonged and require significant follow-up on your part. Use your CRM to track offers and deadlines, and set up a touch cycle for each party to keep everyone in the loop. It is all too easy for one party to be unresponsive, requiring you to follow up repeatedly. In a traditional transaction, inspections and appraisals are usually done in parallel. However, in a short sale, the process must follow a specific order. The last thing you want is to have the termite inspection done too early, only to be forced to repeat it 60 days later when the house is ready to close because the original inspection has expired. You can use the contingencies tracking feature in your real estate CRM to monitor your contingencies and their deadlines, along with the inspection reports, including when they were completed and when they expire. It’s crucial to identify potential points of failure—such as noteholder approval, inspection issues, buyer loan approval, and appraisals—to reduce the risk of the deal falling apart. The last thing you want is for the buyer to lose patience and back out at the last minute. There are numerous disadvantages to accepting a short sale as either the buyer's agent or the listing agent. These deals are more likely to fail. They are also more time-consuming and can be aggravating because more people need to approve the deal. But there are also advantages. Short sales are more common when the economy is poor, in which case, for the listing agent, a short sale listing is better than no listing at all. If you represent the buyer, you should expect your client to secure a better price than in a standard sale as compensation for the added hassle and delays that a short sale entails. One important due diligence step you must complete for all your listings is to use the seller net calculator in your real estate CRM to determine whether your listing is likely to become a short sale. This tells your seller exactly how much money they will receive when the deal closes. In many cases, this money is earmarked for the down payment on another home; therefore, it is important that the seller understand precisely how much down payment they will have remaining after accounting for loan repayment, fees, and your commission. Remember, the exact sale price cannot be predicted with precision because the market determines the home’s final selling price. However, it is important to identify when a listing could leave the seller owing more than the home’s value. If the home is clearly underwater, it makes sense to contact the noteholder immediately. If the home is underwater and the sale price is only slightly below the asking price, that creates a dilemma. The noteholder may be hesitant to agree to a slightly underwater deal, and the seller might be reluctant to accept a lower sale price, knowing that they would have to bring money to the closing table. Both factors increase the likelihood that the deal will fall through. Spotting these problems early will save you time in the long run. Understanding the seller’s motivation is helpful. Are they having difficulty making payments? Did they lose their job? For a bank to approve a short sale, the seller must demonstrate financial hardship. If a seller is underwater but not experiencing economic hardship, the bank will likely expect the seller to bring the necessary funds to closing to pay off the mortgage. This is a step few sellers are willing to take. One of the biggest risks for the agent in a short sale is the uncertainty about whether they will earn your full commission. Because the noteholder is accepting a loss on the loan, they can unilaterally reduce the commission paid to both the listing and buyer’s agents below what was agreed in the listing contract. The listing agent must obtain the noteholder’s written approval of the commission amount (usually a percentage of the final sale price) before allowing the buyer to spend money on inspections and appraisals. If the noteholder proposes a reduction, the agent must be prepared to accept the lower fee or risk the bank rejecting the entire short-sale package. This financial risk is a key reason many agents avoid these transactions. If you represent the buyer in a short sale, your strategy should focus on presenting the cleanest, most hassle-free offer to the note holder. This includes encouraging your client to submit a strong, non-contingent pre-approval letter (preferably from a local lender who can close quickly) and proposing a swift closing timeline once the bank approves the short sale. The bank’s goal is to approve the highest, cleanest net offer with the least effort. Importantly, the buyer must exercise patience, as the bank approval process can take months and often involves extended periods of silence. The buyer’s agent must use their CRM to manage the buyer’s expectations, providing regular (even if minimal) updates to prevent the buyer from losing confidence and walking away. As a listing agent, you’re not obligated to accept every listing that comes your way. You should evaluate the likelihood of closing the deal and earning commissions. If the chances of success are low, it’s smarter to refer the seller to another agent. You can then receive a referral fee from the agent when the house sells. No seller wants to go through the process of listing their home only to see the deal fall through. If you suspect the agreement may result in an underwater transaction, it’s essential to have an honest conversation with the seller. Your real estate CRM can help you avoid listing a property that won’t close. ## Real Estate Seminars Many Americans dream of owning a home. They enjoy the financial benefits of long-term appreciation, better school options, and the freedom to make a space their own[20]. There are also lifestyle benefits, such as space for a garden and a fenced yard for a dog. Yet for some people, the path to homeownership is unclear. As a real estate professional, you are always looking for ways to reach prospects who might not otherwise contact you and to show them how attainable homeownership is. One of the most effective ways to do this is to host an educational seminar. These events let you guide first-time buyers who don’t understand the process or help retirees explore options such as downsizing or relocating closer to family and healthcare. You can also focus on specific challenges, such as credit repair, and provide step-by-step plans for people who may not think they qualify for a loan. By addressing their concerns directly, you establish yourself as a trusted advisor from the outset. To attract motivated attendees, your seminar should provide targeted, relevant information. This could include concrete steps for credit repair or a list of the specific tax benefits of homeownership. You might also present a rent vs. own analysis based on current market conditions. Additionally, you could review the financial benefits of downsizing. In each case, you could display accurate sample data during the seminar and offer private, individualized consultations in which attendees’ actual information can be analyzed. This would allow you to work one-on-one with each prospect and is the perfect call to action for the seminar. You can add even more value by partnering with a mortgage broker who explains how buyers can get pre-qualified for a loan, what down payment requirements apply, and which loan programs are available. They can also shighlight why a strong credit score matters and how reducing debts, such as car or student loan payments, improves eligibility. From there, you can step in to describe the character of different neighborhoods, the long-term appreciation potential of homeownership, the tax benefits, the quality of local schools, and other intangible benefits. By working with another professional, you can address specific topics in greater depth in ways that are uniquely valuable. For example, when working with a financial planner, you can both emphasize opportunities to use real estate for portfolio diversification and estate management. You could also partner with tax professionals, such as CPAs, to cover topics including the tax benefits of owning rental properties. This way, you can tap into the client list of the tax professional and give them an opportunity to guide their clients toward real estate investments that minimize their tax burden. These are advanced topics that a real estate agent might not otherwise address. You could partner with a local independent living facility to discuss the benefits of downsizing, with special emphasis on cost comparisons and the simplicity of living in an adult community, where expenses such as internet, electricity, trash collection, and property taxes are included in the lease. This means fewer bills to pay, less hassle, and overall cost savings. Not to mention the no longer needing to mow the lawn, shovel snow, or do repairs and maintenance. Once your seminar content is ready, you’ll need to fill the room. Distributing flyers in upscale apartment buildings can reach renters open to change. Targeted ads on platforms like Facebook let you focus on geographic and demographic groups most likely to buy. Bridal shows can also connect you with couples preparing to buy their first home. If you’re partnering with another professional, they can promote the seminar to their clients, extending your reach even further. Throughout the event, you can reinforce your role as a trusted real estate advisor by guiding clients through the purchase process and helping them understand the protections in place to ensure a safe, transparent home-buying experience. The perceived value of your seminar is closely tied to its setting. Avoid small, crowded meeting rooms and choose venues that project professionalism and comfort. Consider partnering with a local bank, title company, independent living facility, or community center that offers a clean, well-equipped space at no or low cost. Timing matters: evening events (6:30 PM - 8:00 PM) are ideal for working professionals, while Saturday morning sessions are better suited to families. Always provide light refreshments such as coffee, water, and perhaps a baked good, and ensure professional-grade audio-visual equipment. Paying attention to these details enhances the value of your advice and helps elevate your brand beyond basic sales pitches. > **Realtor Roots Secret:** A great parting gift is to give your prospects your business card taped to a packet of seeds. This is a subtle reminder that owning a home means that you can enjoy planting flowers, having a vegetable garden, or just sitting under a shade tree with a cool beverage. Your real estate CRM can collect contact information from conference attendees. The ideal pretext for collecting a phone number and email address is to offer a value-added item via email. For example, you could provide a PDF of your presentation slides so attendees don’t need to take notes. To eliminate data entry on your end, you can use the open house form or the call capture feature built into your CRM. To maintain a steady flow of new leads, treat seminars as recurring events rather than one-time efforts. Plan to host an event at least semi-annually, timing it strategically around periods of high interest, such as early spring or late fall. If your topic focuses on tax benefits, schedule your seminar around April 15th, when taxes are due. Maximize the value of seminar leads by following up promptly. Use your real estate CRM to add attendees to a drip email sequence, with the first email delivering the promised item of value. An ideal Call-to-Action (CTA) is to offer a free consultation tailored to your prospect’s specific needs. Reach out by phone or text to stay in contact. Many seminar attendees will be uncertain, and it may take weeks or even months for them to decide to move forward. ## Commercial Real Estate Any agent with a real estate license can sell both residential and commercial properties. If you’re looking to focus on a market where you can earn more with fewer deals, commercial real estate is a strong option. There are fewer agents competing there, and the average deal size is much larger. There are also a few disadvantages — the commercial real estate market can be difficult to enter, with only a few agents controlling most of it. Your MLS lists some smaller commercial properties, but many are listed on other sites, such as CityFeet and LoopNet. You should not treat commercial real estate as an either-or proposition. Instead, I recommend considering that some of your residential clients may need a trusted real estate professional for a small commercial transaction, in addition to their regular residential needs. In that case, it would make sense to consider you for that task.  You can use your real estate CRM to track your commercial buyers, including their needs and contact information. Additionally, the homes database, also known as the properties database, can be used to monitor commercial properties for sale. This is useful because there is often no single centralized location where all commercial properties are listed. Leasing is a major part of the commercial market. If you’re interested in entering the commercial market, you’ll likely need to handle both leasing and sales. Again, your real estate CRM can help you track rental deals just as well as sales. Unlike residential real estate, where marketing relies primarily on digital ads and open houses, the commercial market depends on active networking and referrals. You should be prepared to consistently engage with professionals involved in commercial deals: commercial lenders, land use attorneys, CPAs, and economic development officials. Join and actively participate in professional organizations such as the Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) or Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) to build trust and gain vital market knowledge. Your main goal is to be part of the team responsible for achieving your client's goals. Leads may come from Certified Public Accountants (CPA) whose clients need a 1031 exchange, or from bankers whose borrowers need to sell a property quickly. —«◊»— ### Zahid Moghal Toronto real estate agent Zahid Moghal was left looking for a new path after his partnership as a residential agent dissolved. He found that the path led him to commercial real estate, but upon transitioning, he noticed stark differences. “The deals were a lot more complex,” Zahid said, “And the deals would take longer, so long in fact that juggling multiple deals at once was the new normal.” Zahid needed to adapt his approach to keep up, but he didn’t want to lose revenue by taking time to migrate to a new CRM. Instead, he adapted his workflow to commercial real estate and realized how universal a real estate CRM can be. Zahid said, “Residential and commercial real estate have more similarities than differences. The biggest similarity is that people make deals with those they trust, and trust is built by being reliable”. Zahid believes that while you do need a good CRM, success in real estate comes from how you use that CRM. —«◊»— A key difference in commercial real estate is the transaction timeline. Be prepared for deals to take six months to a year, or longer, to close, especially when financing, zoning, or environmental due diligence is complex. This requires a significant financial runway and a different mindset than in the residential market, where deals typically close in one or two months. Your marketing to prospective clients must reflect this by highlighting thorough due diligence and expertise in managing the entire process, including Environmental Assessments and complex lease negotiations. Because you close fewer deals, your clients’ financial stability and the thoroughness of the contract are crucial. Your long-term marketing strategy should focus on building relationships over years, not weeks. Because commercial deals can last for months and involve detailed financial reviews, the closing process is often more complex than in residential transactions. Using your CRM is essential to manage this extensive due diligence. Use your CRM to track every contingency—including securing appropriate financing (often complex commercial loans), completing Phase I Environmental Assessments, securing municipal zoning and permit approvals, and reviewing detailed tenant leases. Your CRM can also monitor critical deadlines and ensure documents are sent to the right people at the right time. You can use the parties section of your transaction management system to track inspectors, loan officers, city officials, and others involved in the approval process. Your contacts database should include Commercial Lenders (specializing in bridge loans, SBA loans, and portfolio lending); Specialized Inspectors (covering Phase I Environmental Assessments, structural engineering, and ADA compliance); and Legal/Accounting Experts (CPAs specializing in 1031 exchanges and attorneys focused on land use, zoning, and tenant law). You should also maintain connections with local zoning and planning departments, economic development offices, and utility providers. Understanding this regulatory “red tape” and having direct access to these key public and private contacts enable you to navigate complex contingencies and de-risk the transaction for the investor. While large institutional brokerages often dominate metropolitan commercial markets, the situation in small cities and tertiary markets is different. In these areas, there are typically fewer agents, making the market less competitive. Transactions tend to be smaller, and deals are generally less liquid. In this environment, an agent’s greatest advantage is local knowledge. Major commercial listing services like LoopNet may be incomplete, so local deals are sometimes off-market or uncovered through close-knit networks with local business owners, banks, and the town’s planning department. A successful small-market agent relies less on national data and more on localized, ground-level information—such as knowing a local business owner’s retirement plans. For this reason, a top marketing priority in tertiary markets is consistent in-person networking, including regular attendance at local Chamber of Commerce meetings, municipal planning board sessions, and business association events. The commercial market often requires agents to proactively prospect by contacting property owners about properties that are not currently listed for sale. Agents can use public tax records to create targeted lists of commercial property owners. You can import this information into your CRM using the valet import feature, then use the click-to-dial function in your CRM to call business owners and find out whether they have considered selling. The **click-to-dial** feature significantly speeds up the process by allowing you to call someone from your mobile phone by clicking a link in your CRM on your computer. It can significantly accelerate calling multiple people in succession. After speaking with your prospect, add notes to your database and schedule a follow-up call as part of your touch cycle. Prospecting for commercial buyers can be done in a few ways. You could identify gatekeepers, such as attorneys and CPAs, who may have high-net-worth clients interested in a commercial investment opportunity. These professionals often understand the tax benefits of commercial real estate and will recommend investments that minimize their clients' tax burden. You can also identify professionals who might benefit from commercial investment, such as dentists and doctors, and contact each one individually to gauge their interest in these opportunities. For larger investments, such as a large apartment complex, you might be able to organize a pool of investors to share the risk. Unlike residential real estate, commercial brokerage relies heavily on an intensive apprenticeship model. Because transactions are highly complex, errors can cost clients millions, making it nearly impossible for a newcomer to succeed without dedicated, experienced guidance. An agent entering this field should focus on joining a successful commercial team or a brokerage that offers a formal mentorship program. The mentor provides essential oversight of due diligence, lease negotiations, and complex financial analysis. This relationship enables the new agent to learn from deals, build credibility through association, and gain access to off-market listings, significantly reducing the time needed to become proficient. An agent should plan to dedicate their first 1-2 years entirely to learning and supporting their mentor’s book of business. Although there are commercial real estate-specific CRMs, these products are typically less advanced than those designed for residential agents. Prices for commercial CRMs are also significantly higher. For these reasons, it is not unusual for commercial agents to use a CRM primarily dedicated to residential real estate for their commercial business. # Life Changes, Real Estate Gains > “The first agent to call back and act as if they want the buyer’s or > seller’s business will get the buyer’s or seller’s business. In my > first year, this was a huge factor in my success. I was always the > first agent to call back and was always cheerfully ready and willing > to show the buyer whatever he or she wanted to see.” —Jennifer Allan, *Sell with Soul* Very few people buy or sell a home on a whim. Almost every real estate transaction is driven by a major life event: marriage, a new baby, a job change, divorce, or retirement. These are not just personal milestones; they are the primary reasons why someone buys or sells real estate. An experienced agent understands this and recognizes that their role is to support people through life’s biggest, most emotional changes. By paying attention to these events, you shift from reactive to proactive, helping you anticipate when a friend or relative might need your help. When you recognize these signs, you might even foresee the need for your assistance before your friend is aware of it themselves. Your friends will appreciate your professional advice because they know you have their best interests at heart and that you will do everything possible to maximize their return on the sale or purchase of their home. > **Baby on Board Secret:** When someone shares that they are having a new baby, that’s a sign that they might need your assistance soon. One of the most common reasons why someone might want to upsize their home is that they have a growing family and need more space. The following sections examine the most common life events that prompt a move. We discuss each situation in detail and suggest ways to connect with your clients and prospects during these critical, often emotional moments. These are just a few examples. Once you understand the main idea, you’ll develop an intuitive sense of which friends will soon need the help of a trusted real estate agent. This enables you to spend more time and focus intentionally on those friends during these key milestones in their lives. ## Marriage When a couple gets married, one of their first considerations is usually where to live. Are they already living together, or will they move in together after getting married? They may be renting and are looking for a more stable option, such as buying a home. If that’s the case, you might be asked for advice on how they can become new homebuyers. There are many questions to consider, such as how much of a down payment is needed and which neighborhoods are good for raising a family. According to a study by Colwell Banker, approximately 35% of all married couples buy their first home together by their second wedding anniversary. With that in mind, a newly married couple has a 1-in-3 chance of needing your services within the next two years. You should maintain regular contact with anyone you know who is engaged or recently married. The best way to do that is to add them to a touch cycle in your CRM so you can follow up with them every 90 days. Strengthen your friendship so you can be the agent they turn to when they need a real estate professional. Typically, the bride will be more aware of the benefits of buying a home than the husband-to-be. Because of this, you might consider visiting bridal shows. You can meet with brides and hold seminars on the home-buying process. You can explain the importance of a good credit score, the down payment that might be needed, and run maximum loan calculations for brides to see what types of homes they can afford. You could partner with bridal show vendors and exchange mailing lists. You might host a raffle where participants enter by sharing their contact information. One easy way to gather this info at a bridal show is to use your real estate CRM’s call capture feature. Brides can text a 3-digit code to your call capture phone number, which records their phone number and caller ID name. You can ask them to text a specific detail related to the raffle, such as how many jellybeans are in the jar. The winner receives a $100 gift card or free tickets to a local “Street of Dreams” event. Call capture creates prospect records in your CRM, so you can follow up with calls and texts to help the newlywed couple on their journey toward homeownership. Newly engaged couples likely have not yet purchased a home, so they may benefit from information on the home-buying process, how to get pre-qualified for a home loan, and how to check their credit scores and address any blemishes on their credit record. You can provide general advice, but it is beneficial to partner with a loan officer when you go to bridal shows. The benefits of having a team comprised of a real estate agent and a mortgage broker become especially clear when working with new homebuyers who have no experience in the process and don’t even know where to start. > **Bride’s Buddy Secret:** Marriage often triggers a couple’s first serious consideration of homeownership. By attending bridal shows and offering educational seminars like a “Home Buying for Couples”, you can connect with engaged couples early, provide practical advice, and capture their contact information for follow-up. This positions you as a knowledgeable, trustworthy resource for newlyweds and first-time homebuyers. The period between a wedding and a couple’s second anniversary is the most critical and responsive window for turning newlyweds into active homebuyers. This is known as the “nesting phase,” a psychological and practical stage that typically occurs in the first few years of marriage, during which the couple focuses on building their shared life and home. It involves moving beyond the initial excitement of the “honeymoon phase” to establish a deeper sense of safety, comfort, and permanence in their new life together. This transition often manifests as a practical need to purchase a stable home before starting a family. While buying a home together is an exciting milestone, newlyweds should first understand that money can be a major source of marital conflict and stress. The home-buying process requires couples to confront and align their financial goals, credit histories, and spending habits. The essential first step is for the couple to achieve financial clarity and organization. You could host a “Financial Fitness for Future Homeowners” seminar in partnership with a loan officer. This event would guide the couple toward financial alignment by discussing and agreeing on savings goals, consolidating or paying down debt, and resolving credit report issues. You can use the maximum loan calculator in your real estate CRM to demonstrate how current debt affects borrowing power, and the rent-vs-own calculator can be used to demonstrate the tax and appreciation benefits of ownership over renting. During the nesting phase, newlyweds might engage in “window shopping” for a home without feeling pressured to commit. You can leverage this inclination by hosting a “Designing Your Dream Future Home” seminar to help the couple begin visualizing their shared future. The seminar would cover neighborhoods and schools, and discuss the pros and cons of specific home features. You can also explain how commute times might influence their decision. This low-pressure event encourages the couple to dream together, fostering an emotional connection to homeownership while positioning you as the key partner in turning that dream into reality. Beyond the seminar, you can use your MLS listing alerts to support the couple’s “window shopping.” Set up a weekly email alert based on their ideal home criteria, such as neighborhoods, price, and features. Explain that these alerts are for informational purposes only and that the couple should not feel obligated to act on them. This helps your newlywed couple visualize homeownership and identify target neighborhoods and preferred home types. To harness the aspirational energy of the nesting phase, encourage engaged couples to create a Dream Board—either physically or digitally—on platforms like Pinterest. This activity turns their abstract dreams into clear visuals. Suggest that the couple fill their board with magazine photos or pins of ideal home styles (such as Modern Farmhouse or Mid-Century Modern), specific design features (like kitchen layouts or backyard landscaping), and home decor ideas. This is a valuable tool for you as well. When meeting with the couple, ask them to share their Pinterest board. Analyzing their pins gives you a clear understanding of their preferences, allowing you to set up highly targeted listing alerts and guide them toward the perfect neighborhood, home style, and features when they’re ready to buy. There are many intangible benefits of homeownership that a newly married couple might not yet appreciate. You can highlight the extra freedoms and space a home offers: the ability to adopt a pet without landlord restrictions, the peace of mind that comes from not hearing neighbors above or below, and the luxury of dedicated space for new hobbies. For instance, a home can provide a garage for a partner who wants a workshop for car maintenance or woodworking, or a fenced yard and garden beds for a couple interested in gardening or landscaping. This is just one more way you can help a newly married couple imagine themselves as homeowners. Prospecting newly engaged couples can be very rewarding, both financially and emotionally. You’re helping a couple who have fallen in love find their forever home together. However, you need to be realistic about the multi-year commitment required to nurture these kinds of leads. You might meet someone today, but not close on their home for another two years. ## Job Changes Do you have a friend who just started a new job? A new job often brings changes in commuting distance, finances, or lifestyle. For example, your friend may have taken a night shift, and their home is too noisy during the day to get a good night’s sleep. One solution is to find a quiet neighborhood with lower daytime noise so your friend can rest properly. A new job could also mean new friends and shifts in social life. Perhaps their current living situation is no longer ideal. For example, someone who recently graduated and lives with their parents might find that their new job provides the financial means to live on their own. That new job creates an opportunity for you to help them find a new home to purchase. One reason someone might consider buying or selling real estate is a major promotion at work that makes a larger, better home more affordable now. Therefore, it is helpful to understand the business situations of people in your circle of friends. Are their careers progressing? Did they get a promotion? If so, are they thinking about upgrading their home? Or might they be considering buying a vacation home? You will likely meet people socially, especially within your sphere of influence, who mention a promotion or a new job. If that happens, consider how that change could lead to new real estate needs. Another reason someone might need to sell their home is that they have lost their job or need to relocate for a new one. In either case, your friend—the seller—is highly motivated, and the timeline is urgent. They will also aim to maximize their sale price. So, your sales pitch should focus on those three points. This would be a fantastic opportunity to offer them a friends-and-family discount on your commission as a goodwill gesture. Some companies transfer employees between locations within the same organization. These job transfers might include company assistance with selling their current home and buying a new one. As a real estate professional, you could help with either of these transactions. To secure these opportunities, consider building relationships with local companies that transfer people between job sites. Reach out to their personnel departments, visit in person to meet the personnel director, and send a mail-merged printed letter describing your services. You could offer to pick up employees at the airport and escort them and their families around their new city. You could show them suitable homes that meet their criteria and take them around town. Use the showings feature of your real estate CRM to preview the selected homes and plan a curated route so that you make the most of their time. With careful planning and use of the **route planning** feature in your CRM, you could pick them up from the airport, show them a few homes, take them out to dinner, and drop them back off at the airport—all in a single long day. > **The Showing Scorecard Secret:** After enough showings, your buyer will start to blur the houses they see together. Use your CRM’s showings feature to log their thoughts on each property they tour. If they forget which house had the nice fence or stonework, you can remind them, even if weeks have gone by. For sellers, you can add value by offering to list their old house. You could also offer to monitor their vacant home and arrange services that a recently transferred employee might not be able to handle after moving out of town. For example, you can use the vendors’ list in your CRM’s contacts database to arrange lawn care and any necessary repairs. For a longer-term situation, you can use the rental management features in your CRM to provide rental management if your client decides to rent their property instead of selling it. About 64% of job transfers include some form of relocation assistance. These benefits typically cover living expenses, home-finding trips, moving costs, and assistance selling the current home. The most common approaches to selling the home are a Guaranteed Buyout (GBO) or an Amended Value (BVO), both managed by a Relocation Management Company (RMC). A GBO provides the employee with an immediate offer based on independent appraisals, enabling a quick sale and move. A BVO is similar but allows the employee to find their own buyer; if that buyer backs out, the RMC steps in to buy the home at an amended, guaranteed value. These programs are highly desired because they guarantee a commission and a smooth, timely closing. When working with an RMC, your commission may be reduced because a portion will be paid as a referral fee. Before engaging, be sure to follow their strict protocols; failure to do so can jeopardize your commission. You can use your CRM to document the final commission after the referral fee. You should also follow the RMC’s specific documentation requirements to meet their deadlines and stay compliant. Building relationships with these RMCs can lead to a steady source of repeat, high-value business. Your ability to assist the employee during the transfer process is valuable to both the employer and the employee. While closing a single deal like this is beneficial, the true goal is to become the preferred agent for multiple transactions with that employer. Therefore, you might spend time building relationships with the HR departments of local employers in the neighborhoods you serve. Identify the largest employers in the area and add them to your CRM, including the contact details for the person responsible for relocation assistance. A mailed cover letter, along with a packet of information about your services, would be exactly what is needed. For executive relocation assistance, a higher level of service is expected. If that is your target, you should list the additional services you optionally provide, such as nanny services, driver services, and airport pickup and drop-off. > **Firm Friend Secret:** By building relationships with large local companies that have employee relocation programs, you can offer specialized services to help transferring employees buy or sell homes with a minimum of disruption. This is an excellent source of repeat business. An employee taking part in a job transfer is a valued team member. The employer will appreciate how you can minimize disruption to their employee’s life. Your ability to add value sets you apart from other agents. You should consider the large employers within commuting distance of your area. These high-touch services offer an extra level of service that justifies a full commission, which is always a positive. ## Divorce Divorce can be a tough period for everyone involved, especially children. An interesting statistic shows that 61% of divorces involve the sale of the marital home. If someone you know is going through a divorce, stay close to them because there is a better-than-even chance they will need your services soon. A good way to stay in touch is to set up a follow-up schedule in your real estate CRM. Your services may be needed not only to sell the home but also to estimate its value during asset division. So, it’s important to check in every few weeks throughout the divorce process to offer emotional support and trustworthy real estate advice. If you want to expand beyond your current sphere of influence, consider becoming a real estate agent who specializes in divorce cases. A great way to generate divorce leads is to build relationships with family law attorneys. Sending emails to divorce attorneys seeking their support is typically ineffective. Instead, I recommend using your real estate CRM's mail merge feature to send a printed letter. Identify attorneys who specialize in divorce law in your area. Enter their information into your real estate CRM, including their name, phone number, email address, website, and other relevant details. Initially, establish relationships with at least three attorneys who might consider recommending you. In many cases, the divorcing couple will select their own real estate agent. However, that may be impractical due to a lack of trust between the parties; in such a case, the attorney could recommend a neutral agent, such as you. As you build a reputation within the community of lawyers, you will be able to draw upon recommendations that will significantly improve your odds of being hired. Divorce attorneys often have a heavy workload, so once you are considered a solid agent, you should expect a steady amount of work. To elevate your status beyond that of a listing agent, consider specialized training. Certifications such as the Certified Divorce Real Estate Expert (CDRE) or similar designations demonstrate your understanding of the complex legal, financial, and emotional aspects of these sales. This training focuses on the specific requirements for valuation in court-ordered situations, preparing you to handle cases where the home may be sold under direct court supervision. Attorneys are highly motivated to use an agent with an official designation, as it adds a layer of professional credibility to the valuation that can be presented in settlement or in court. You can use the education section of your real estate CRM to track your progress toward CDRE certification. In many states, this certification counts toward the continuing education requirements for license renewal. Your first step is to prospect the attorneys you have selected. Create a complete packet of information, including details about the services you provide and the areas you serve, along with a mail-merged cover letter generated in your real estate CRM. Send the packet via postal mail. You should call after a week to check whether the attorney has received your packet and whether they have any questions. You might also offer to drop by, as you will be in the area later in the day, and would love to discuss how you might assist with an analysis of the value of marital property and with its sale. As with buyers and sellers, follow up with each attorney more than once, using multiple communication channels. Use the touch cycle features in your CRM to ensure it is completed. The legal process of a divorce can often be lengthy, with your role as a real estate expert potentially lasting a year or more. During this time, attorneys will rely on your expert opinion to determine a fair, neutral valuation of the marital home for asset division. You will be asked to provide a **Comparative Market Analysis (CMA)** that evaluates recently sold, currently listed, and expired properties in a specific area to estimate a home’s likely sale price. This value will be used to determine the division of marital assets. Your ability to accurately assess a value that is reasonably close to the final sale price will be an essential factor in gaining additional business, so take the time to do your due diligence. One particularly compelling prospecting approach is to offer a CMA for three properties the divorce attorney is currently handling. The understanding would be that these CMAs could serve as a second opinion and be used alongside the current real estate professional already engaged for the CMA and sale. The advantage of this approach is that the attorney really has no reason to turn down your offer. If the couple decides to sell the house as part of the settlement, your established relationship positions you to assist with the transaction, but that is not guaranteed. Just because you’ve provided the CMA does not mean you will be asked to list the property. Therefore, you should maintain regular contact with the attorney and the seller using the touch cycle features in your CRM. The property being sold may be in poor condition due to the marital situation. There might be items in need of repair, holes in the walls, and damaged doors. Due to animosity, one of the sellers may be less inclined to make the house look its best for showings. For this reason, you might need to use your skills to bring a different kind of buyer to the table, such as an investor willing to overlook cosmetic blemishes and able to close quickly. If you keep a list of special-situation investors in your CRM contacts database, now would be the time to pull them out and let them know about a special situation coming to market. > **Attorney’s Ally Secret:** Befriend divorce attorneys and offer neutral property valuations for their cases. By offering these services, you increase the odds of gaining an eventual listing. Divorce attorneys are an excellent source of repeat business. Divorce sales can be emotionally charged, and your primary role is to serve as a neutral, stabilizing force. To do so, use your real estate CRM to maintain completely separate communication channels and records for each party. Ensure you keep separate contact records for the husband and wife, each with their own email address, phone number, and mailing address. It is crucial that you stay in regular contact with the attorney and both of your clients. Divorce deals like these mean you have three people to keep informed, so it is extra work, but the last thing you want is for anyone to feel you were not keeping them “in the loop”. Log every phone call, email, and text message for each individual in their own contact record within your CRM. This careful record-keeping helps you deliver fair service and creates a communication log that can protect you if disputes occur between the divorcing couple. In divorce situations, avoid including both the husband and wife in the same email chain; instead, send separate emails to each party. This straightforward practice prevents accidental ‘reply-all’ incidents and protects each party’s confidential feedback. You can use the parties section of your transaction manager to track both sellers. That way, both sellers receive your weekly status and service reports, allowing them to see progress. Be careful with any notes you add to your CRM, as they might offend one party. There may be animosity between the parties, and the last thing you want to do is make that worse. ## Probate Real Estate When a property owner passes away, the estate executor faces the challenging task of managing assets during a time of grief. As a real estate professional, your role isn’t that of a typical salesperson but that of a trusted and compassionate advisor. This calls for a patient, methodical approach that emphasizes providing value and expertise well before a listing agreement is signed. In 1989, AARP reported that 90% of probate cases involving people age 60 and older included the disposition of real estate. This means that if you know someone whose older family member just died, there is a good chance a real estate agent will need to be involved in handling some portion of the estate. That could involve selling the home or conducting a CMA to estimate the property’s value. If someone in your circle of influence passes away, it is a time of mourning for you and others who knew your friend. It is also understandable that, in addition to offering comfort, your services as a real estate agent might be necessary for your friend in need. There are also methods for you to find probate listings through prospecting. One option is to subscribe to a lead-aggregation service that provides probate leads. One such service is ForeclosuresDaily, but others are available online. You would download a weekly CSV file from your probate service and import it into your real estate CRM using your CRM’s valet import feature. The advantage of this method is that all the preliminary work, including gathering information about the deceased, the property, and contact details for attorneys and executors, has already been completed. Another method is to collect this information yourself by reviewing public death notices and researching property tax records. Although it can be tedious, once you’ve done this a few times, you can repeat it weekly and get fairly reliable results. This approach can save you money and might even provide more accurate information than subscribing to a lead service. There is also a third approach: building a referral network by connecting with local professionals who handle wills and estates, such as lawyers, financial advisors, and accountants. These professionals often need a trusted agent who can provide impartial property valuations during estate planning and after a death. You can also contact them directly with a series of professionally formatted mail-merged letters. If you opt for this approach, it can drastically reduce the time you spend prospecting, as the attorney would provide a letter of introduction to the executor. Regardless of how you gather the information, the main advantage of working with probate leads is the reliability of the results. Once you establish a system and see results with a few leads, you can expand your prospecting with little extra effort. The ability to grow, along with consistent results, makes this a uniquely predictable prospecting pipeline for agents willing to operate in what some might consider an emotionally charged field. Once you have compiled your list, the next step is initial outreach, which is the most delicate stage. Aggressive cold calling is inappropriate and likely to backfire, making you seem like a “hearse chaser.” The best approach is a drip campaign of printed letters. Given the sensitive nature of the topic, you should avoid email for your initial contact. An unsolicited email about a probate can be easily misunderstood and may provoke a negative reaction. A series of four printed letters, spaced over five weeks, is a good starting point. These letters should focus on showing empathy and offering help before requesting their business. > **Probate Patience Secret:** Prospect probate leads with patience and sensitivity. The agent who acts as a trusted advisor, not a pushy salesperson, ultimately wins the listing. The legal probate process often takes 6 to 9 months, and sometimes longer, to settle a property[21]. Your CRM is essential for managing this lengthy timeline. Use it to plan your letter sequence and follow-up calls, and to carefully record every interaction. The competition for probate leads is low, and the success rate is high. This increased likelihood of success justifies spending more time on each lead. By using your CRM’s prospects database, you can track the property address as well as the executor’s address. You do not want to send correspondence to the property; instead, send it to the executor’s mailing address. You should also take advantage of the parties’ section of your prospects database to record the full contact details for the deceased, the executor, and the attorney. This information is separate, so you’ll need full contact details for all three individuals associated with that prospect record. Under some circumstances, there may not be an attorney. Sending a series of mail-merged letters that reference the property’s address but are addressed to the executor, include the deceased’s name, and mention the attorney, is a complex process. You can automate some of these tasks using the **mail merge variables** in your CRM. However, given the sensitivity of the matter, I recommend that you review and personally edit the final draft of each letter. It is unlikely you can fully automate the process, and some manual entry into the mail-merged letters will always be required before printing. Just as we live our lives as individuals, death is also unique to each person. Once you have established contact, focus on providing value. Executors and beneficiaries sometimes live in different cities or states, making it impossible for them to manage the property directly. They will appreciate your expertise in navigating the complexities of the sale from afar. Offer to prepare a formal CMA for the estate and a seller net sheet to clarify the financials. Since many probate properties are vacant, you can add extra value by monitoring the home. This includes coordinating lawn care, suggesting repairs, and conducting security checks to prevent vandalism. You can also assist in coordinating the disposal of personal property, such as recommending a reputable estate sale company to handle the home’s contents. This service is invaluable to an overwhelmed executor. > **Pen Pal Probate Secret:** Prioritize probate leads where the executor lives out of town. Sellers are more likely to be motivated to move the property quickly, and less likely to pit your services against those of other listing agents. Finally, you will handle the probate sale. These properties may have been neglected if the previous owner was elderly or ill, often requiring major maintenance or renovation. This condition makes them less attractive to traditional buyers but ideal for your investor clients, who can make quick, all-cash offers. Beneficiaries are usually eager to receive their inheritance, so a fast, reliable closing often matters more than the highest price. Ensure the person signing the listing agreement has the legal authority to represent the estate. Usually, the seller should be the named Executor or Personal Representative and hold the Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration issued by the probate court. Without this court document, the agreement is invalid, and the sale cannot proceed. When working with an executor, request a copy of this official document and store it in your CRM’s **document management system** to confirm you have the proper legal authority from the start. State-specific laws add complexity to the sale process. For example, California includes an auction step in which the accepted offer can be outbid in court. To stand out as a probate specialist, consider pursuing specialized training. Certifications such as the Certified Probate Real Estate Specialist (CPRES) or similar designations demonstrate your understanding of the complex legal, financial, and emotional factors involved in these transactions. This training highlights the specific valuation requirements for court-ordered cases, preparing you to handle situations where the home may be sold under court supervision. Attorneys prefer working with an agent who holds an official designation, as it adds credibility to the valuation used in settlements or court. Use the education section of your real estate CRM to track your progress toward this certification, as it may also count toward the continuing education credits needed for your license renewal. The legal complexities and long timelines of probate sales can seem intimidating at first. However, these challenges are exactly what create a strong competitive advantage for you. While most agents compete fiercely for the same traditional listings, a probate specialist is valued for their ability to guide clients through the legal red tape and ensure their loved one’s financial affairs are settled. This focus results in a less crowded niche and often greater profitability. A careful, long-term strategy required for these deals is ideal for a detail-oriented agent who uses their CRM to nurture multiple leads simultaneously. This approach transforms a complex process into a steady, profitable workflow. One way to break into probate real estate sales is to hire a real estate agent mentor in another city who already works with probate leads. Because you won’t be competing with them, they will be willing to share the best approaches to probate leads, sample letters, and recommended strategies. There is also an online community of other real estate professionals who share information about working with probate leads. One such community is US Probate Leads. Maintain regular contact with each attorney who provides referrals. Add each referring attorney to your “Top100” category. Also, establish a 90-day touch cycle and include them in your “Christmas” category so they receive a holiday card. After each closing, personally thank the referring attorney and give a small token of appreciation. Use your real estate CRM to track these referrals by entering the attorney’s name in the **“referred by” field**. At year’s end, review all referrals from each attorney. For key referral sources, show extra appreciation—perhaps with complimentary theater tickets or another gesture of gratitude. ## Upsizing and Downsizing The primary reason for upsizing is that the family has grown larger, possibly due to the birth of a new baby or an extended family member moving in. Your friend might be selling an existing home and buying another one, perhaps nearby. As an agent specializing in these moves, you can help the homeowner with many details, such as how they will transition between homes. Wealthy clients may choose to buy the new home first, move in, and then sell the older home once it becomes vacant. Although this method is convenient for the family, it carries risks and costs: if the old home doesn’t sell quickly, the homeowner could end up paying for two mortgages simultaneously. A second approach would be to list the first home for sale, then scramble to find a new home in the short window between contract and closing on the existing home. This option is the most common and also the most complex to arrange. Timing must be impeccable. An agent experienced in these kinds of situations has a competitive advantage when speaking with clients. They can explain strategies to maximize the odds of success. Of course, in the worst case, the homeowner can move into temporary housing while they find a new home, but that means packing their belongings into storage and doing a double move. No fun, especially if school-age children are involved. > **The Stepping Stone Directive:** Helping someone upsize or downsize can be tricky because it involves selling one home and buying another at the same time. If you manage both transactions, that’s double the commission and double the risk of something going wrong. Use your CRM to coordinate contingencies, timing, and complexity. This type of transaction is called a concurrent closing and typically involves a contingent offer on the new home. In this case, the contingency would be the sale of the old home, which must occur before closing on the new one. A contingency is a clause in a purchase agreement that must be satisfied for the contract to become legally binding. This means the purchase of the new home depends on the sale of the old home. A concurrent closing with a contingency sale is less attractive to sellers than one without such a contingency. Your ability to clearly explain the benefits and feasibility of this offer will be key to closing the deal. You might also negotiate a rent-back agreement, allowing your client to remain in their current home for a few weeks after closing until they move into their new home. Again, your experience and persuasion skills will be crucial, as most buyers prefer to take possession immediately after closing. Use your real estate **CRM's contingency-tracking** features to monitor these contingencies. In this case, the seller must schedule the closing date for the new home immediately after the closing of their existing home, possibly even minutes later. If you’re fortunate enough to handle both transactions for your client, you’ll have a slight advantage in coordinating the process and increasing your chances of success. This gives your client a strong incentive to select you for both deals. The available down payment will likely depend on the sale price. Therefore, accurate net calculations for both buyer and seller are crucial to helping your client find a new home within their budget, based on the net proceeds from selling their current house. Your real estate CRM can support these calculations and track the timing of both transactions. In this case, you’ll have two linked transactions in your CRM, with the second contingent on the sale of the first. To reduce your client’s risk, you should arrange a consultation between your client and a trusted mortgage professional experienced in this type of transaction. Your client’s down payment is likely tied up in their current home. Additionally, the loan for the new home should be applied for with the assumption that the current home will be sold. Otherwise, the loan could be denied because it assumes the homeowner would be paying two mortgages at once. This process is more complex than a standard loan application and may require applying for a different type of loan. Since these deals are more complex, approvals will take longer, and the pre-approval might be more detailed than usual. The stress of a concurrent closing often peaks during the move. To provide exceptional service, you can offer your client a curated list of moving companies and professional packing and unpacking services. If your client plans to sell their first home in the morning and buy the new one in the afternoon, what happens to all their belongings? You can’t instantly transfer everything from one home to the next. One way to handle this is to use temporary storage units, often called PODS. These storage containers are delivered to your client’s current home a few weeks before the move. Your clients can then take their time packing and storing their belongings in the PODS. At closing, the buyer will inspect an empty house with the PODS sitting on the curb. After closing, the PODS are moved to your client’s new home and unpacked. By using these temporary storage units, your client also has some breathing room between moves. They could stay in a hotel for a few days, for example, if the second closing is delayed. One type of home seller who might be sympathetic to a concurrent closing is a new home builder. They have flexibility on the move-in date because the home is unoccupied, and they might be able to adjust the completion date to align with the closing of the other house. By building relationships with new home builders, you could gain an advantage when working with them. You might also target vacant homes for the step-up home, since those properties would be available for immediate occupancy and could accommodate the buyer’s short timeframe. Another reason for selling is the need to downsize. This is another situation where you might need to manage two transactions. Retirement often involves downsizing, which may include buying a new home in a different city, such as Florida or Arizona. If you are unable to handle the transaction yourself because you don’t serve the area they are moving to, you should offer to connect your seller with a real estate agent you know in the destination city. This allows you to earn referral income by finding an agent willing to accept your referral in exchange for a portion of the commission on the new home purchase. You can use your real estate CRM to stay in regular contact with the agent in the other city and track the referral income you earn when that sale is completed. Knowing when someone has outgrown their current home and is considering moving up or down can be straightforward if you recognize the signs. You might hear a friend say they are “busting at the seams” now that little Johnny is getting older. Or they might mention that, with the kids out of the house, the place feels empty, and they are considering relocating to a place with a smaller yard or a better climate. Pay close attention to these signs. As their friend and trusted advisor, you are well-positioned to offer helpful advice. For some prospects, upsizing or downsizing is optional, driven by desire rather than necessity. Your role is to sell the dream of the next phase of life by highlighting the emotional and lifestyle gains their current home cannot provide. For upsizing, focus the conversation on future memories and family growth. You are selling a higher quality of life and the physical space to achieve their family goals. For downsizers, the focus should be on freedom and a simpler way of living. Highlight the low-maintenance lifestyle—no more large yard work, lower utility bills, or a single-story layout for easier aging. Emphasize the new home’s proximity to amenities like restaurants, cultural centers, and healthcare, presenting the move as a way to save time and money for travel and hobbies. By consistently reinforcing these specific emotional benefits, you position the move as a necessary step toward their ideal future lifestyle. By offering a clear plan and sharing your experiences with similar projects for other clients, you reassure them that risks can be managed and that they can succeed. You can also emphasize why you are the best and only agent to assist them with this move. ## Our Furry Friends Our pets play a vital role in our daily lives. Would it surprise you to learn that about half of pet owners consider their pets as much family as any human member? In the US alone, there are 90 million households with pets. That’s more than the 30 million households with children under 18. There is roughly one pet for every two people in the USA. A SunTrust Mortgage survey found that 33% of millennial homebuyers said their decision to buy a home was driven primarily by their dog, surpassing marriage and children. When helping a buyer find their forever home, consider their pet’s needs as well. For some, it is the main factor in their decision-making! When comparing two homes—one with a fenced yard and one without—one with a fenced yard is preferred by 49% of pet-owning buyers. You can track the home features a buyer is looking for in your real estate CRM to see which are most important to them. Your ability to understand the needs of the entire family will help identify which home looks perfect from the buyer’s perspective. They might prefer a house with a yard or a nearby park for playing frisbee. These preferences can also shape which neighborhoods or home types they consider. For example, a condominium might not be suitable for Fido, or an urban setting might be ruled out. If your client has a pet that tends to howl, whine, or bark frequently, they might prefer a large yard with plenty of space between their home and the neighbors[22]. People with small dogs might even prefer ranch-style living to better accommodate their tiny feet. In any case, it helps to keep track of which pets your clients and friends have[23]. Your **CRM should include a field for tracking pets**; if it doesn’t, add this information to your notes. You should also find out whether your client celebrates their pet’s birthday, and if so, record that date in the annual dates field of your CRM. Most real estate-specific CRMs can store multiple annual dates, such as birthdays for the client, spouse, children, and pets, as well as the closing date of the home you sold them. Each of these dates is significant and offers an excellent opportunity to make a quick call when it arrives. “Just wanted to wish Fido a happy birthday! How’s it going?” Your CRM enables you to view all these birthdays and anniversaries in a single, date-sorted list. You can mark the task complete once you have sent your well wishes, and it will reappear next year on the same date. > **The Fencing Friend Secret:** Maintain a relationship with a reliable fencing contractor. Dog owners are likely to prefer a fenced yard, and might not realize how easily a house without a fence can be made perfect with the addition of a fence. Tracking whether a loved one, even a pet, has passed away is something friends do. If you learn that a family pet has died, you might send a **pet condolence eCard** or a traditional physical card by mail. Your real estate CRM can help you print a mailing label for a card sent by postal mail. If you’d like, you can even use the pet condolence eCards to send your thoughts via text message. As a real estate agent, you’ve seen many homes with pets. Have you ever wondered whether you can learn something about the homeowner from their pets? You can. Americans in rural areas are more likely to own pets than those in suburban and urban areas. 71% of adults in rural areas have a pet. Strangers shown only photographs can match purebred dogs to their owners 64% of the time—six times better than random guessing—because the pairs genuinely resemble each other. This research goes beyond skin deep. Studies have shown that a dog’s personality often predicts its owner’s personality. While you may not be able to judge a book by its cover, you might be able to judge the owner by spending a few minutes with their pet! If you have a listing with pets, there are a few things to keep in mind. You should talk with the owner about having a professional carpet-cleaning company deodorize the house. They will deep-clean the carpets, then apply enzyme-based cleaning solutions that break down urine. Consider adding room fresheners to mask any remaining pet scents. While many people love pets, others do not. You should also consider that approximately 10% of the population is allergic to pet dander, which is the shed skin cells and hair from dogs and cats. Nearly 30% of people are sensitive to pet dander. So, a clean, odor-free space is your best approach to selling a home. You never know what the new owner will prefer, and if they are allergic to pet dander, you want to allow them to consider your listing without eliminating it. You should also include pet details in your CRM and MLS notes, along with your lockbox instructions. While many pets are friendly and showings usually go smoothly, it’s important to prevent potential buyers from being surprised by a vicious Rottweiler or pit bull. Your buyer can also use baby gates to restrict pets’ access to certain parts of the house during showings. Signs posted in areas where pets are kept, such as the garage and back yard, can serve as helpful reminders for the showing agent. Lastly, it’s a good idea to ask the showing agent to ensure that fence gates are always closed after a showing to prevent pets from escaping. Some agents may refuse to show a home if an aggressive dog is present. In such cases, you should arrange to have the aggressive pet removed for a few hours so the house can be shown at its best. You should discuss this with your homeowner if they have an aggressive pet. Sometimes the easiest solution is to place the aggressive dog next door in the neighbor’s yard for a few hours. A frightened showing agent cannot do their best, and it’s in your best interest to be considerate of their needs. Each year, documented cases show that real estate agents have been attacked, and some have been hospitalized, due to out-of-control pets in the house during showings. If, while showing a home, you see a pet in danger or being abused, contact the listing agent so they can handle the issue directly with the seller. As a real estate agent, you are not a mandatory reporter, so you are not required to alert the authorities. However, this situation must be addressed immediately for the pet’s health and the safety of anyone showing the home. In some cases, feces and excessive filth can be dangerous when inhaled or touched. These issues will affect the home’s price, and the homeowner should be made aware so they can address the issue directly, rather than at closing with a lower sales price. Some homes may be unshowable due to pet issues. These issues may include a large number of animals, aggressive behavior, or odors and feces beyond reasonable control. In these situations, as the listing agent, you may need to market the property in a special way. For example, an investor might be interested in buying such a home at a lower price. This is where a good agent can demonstrate their value, as unique situations require unique marketing strategies. When you first meet with a client, take time to get to know the entire family, including the pets. Ask about their needs. If the pets like you, you’ve passed a key test. If they don’t, you probably won’t get hired by the owners. Pets are a pretty good judge of character, after all! # Fueling the Funnel > “The brutal fact is the number one reason for failure in sales is an > empty pipe, and the root cause of an empty pipeline is the failure to > prospect.” —Jeb Blount, *Fanatical Prospecting* Almost all homebuyers start their search online, yet many agents still lack systems to automatically capture and convert these leads. In this chapter, I explain how to build and manage an effective lead-generation and incubation sales pipeline. First, I cover how to use your website and paid sources to generate new leads, and how social media can support that effort. Then, I show you how to organize and track prospects in your database for lead incubation and follow-up. You will also learn how to use social media and recommendations as a key catalyst for lead conversion. Finally, I will teach you how to build your credibility with client testimonials and grow your referrals through outreach across multiple communication channels. After learning these lessons, you’ll know how to turn your online presence and database into a steady stream of new clients and referrals. ## Your Own Website Creating your own website can attract new leads, build authority, and help you stand out. Your first step is to register a domain name. This is the web address people type to access your website. Choose a name that is easy to say and type, reducing the chance of typos or misspellings. Most agents use a combination of their name or the city they work in (e.g., SallySellsSarasota.com). While the .com top-level domain is the most common, you can also choose other top-level domains. One option specifically for real estate agents is .realtor[24]. For example, your website address could be SallySellsSarasota.realtor. There are three main advantages to owning a dedicated site like SallySellsSarasota.com. First, once you register your domain name, you can start using it for email. The easiest way is with Google Workspace[25]. This lets you enjoy Gmail’s strong spam filters while using your own domain. Think of it like a vanity license plate for your email. For example, you might use the email address info@SallySellsSarasota.realtor. The second benefit of owning your own website is that it boosts your credibility with clients and prospects. Using a professional email address and having a custom website help you project an image of stability and success. Just as wearing professional clothes shows professionalism in person, having a website demonstrates professionalism online. The third key advantage of having your own website is the ability to create custom landing pages. A landing page is a single, targeted webpage designed to collect a visitor’s contact information. These pages offer specific incentives, such as a free CMA for sellers or a guide for first-time homebuyers, in exchange for their details. If your prospect must enter their contact information before accessing the incentive (e.g., a PDF guide), this type of landing page is called a squeeze page. A squeeze page is meant to “squeeze” contact information from visitors by offering a high-value piece of content in return. A special type of landing page is a single-property website—an online flyer for one of your listings. By creating a web page like this, you can use it alongside your targeted advertising to promote that listing. You can also link a printed flyer to your electronic flyer using a **QR code**. When someone scans your QR code, they will be sent to that single-property website page. This allows you to provide additional information, such as video walkthroughs, floor plans, and, if applicable, the home price—details not included in the printed flyer. You could also use a single-property website as part of your call capture system for that listing. When someone calls your automated hotline, they receive a text message with a link to the single-property website page, allowing them to view your listing details. When they call your call capture phone number, their phone number and caller ID are recorded, and a prospect record is automatically created in your CRM. You can also use any of these landing pages as part of an advertising campaign on Facebook or Google. Usually, you would target a specific geographic area where your prospects are located, ideally near your listing. For Google, you might focus on intent-based keywords, such as searches for “house for sale.” On Facebook, instead of targeting intent, you would focus on interests and the pages people visit. You could target pages related to living in a specific city, relocating to that city, and similar topics. In each of these cases, the contact-me forms on your website collect a name, phone number, and, in many cases, an email address. That information is then sent via email to your CRM. All contact forms would automatically create new prospect records in your CRM email feed, a process known as lead parsing. When a prospect submits their details, your website sends them to your CRM via email. Your CRM then parses those emails, creates a prospect record, and notifies you to follow up. You are also notified by email and text message so you can respond immediately. > **The Speed-to-Lead Secret:** Respond to all internet needs as quickly as possible, preferably within 5 minutes. Each lead you get is probably also reaching out to other agents as well. Take advantage of the features in your CRM to minimize your response times such as email feed, call capture, click-to-dial, and smart phone synchronization. Your CRM would track which landing page, contact-me page, and single-property website generated each prospect record. That way, you can identify which landing pages are producing results and which are not. One of the biggest challenges in creating a website is the wide variety of options available, some of which can be quite costly. By attributing your lead sources to your leads, you can use your CRM to determine your return on investment for specific marketing campaigns. Some CRM vendors provide an all-in-one solution that includes an integrated website. This setup offers the convenience of managing both your database and online presence on a single platform. Leads are captured directly without setting up an email feed, and technical support is handled by a single vendor. However, this convenience comes with a major trade-off called “vendor lock-in,” meaning it’s difficult to switch to a competitor without high cost or hassle. If you decide to change CRMs or website providers later, you’ll lose your website (or CRM) and have to rebuild everything from the ground up. These integrated sites also tend to offer less design flexibility than standalone platforms. Keeping your CRM separate from your website is strongly advisable for these two reasons. > **Freedom First Secret:** If you choose a CRM that also includes a website, it becomes harder to leave if you’re unhappy, since you’d have to leave both. To maintain freedom of choice, use two vendors—one for your CRM and one for your website. A good starter website can be built on a simple platform like Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress. These tools are affordable, easy to update, and let you quickly create prototypes and test what works. While you could handle registering your domain name, setting up Gmail, and building a website yourself, it’s often best to leave these tasks to experts. The best approach is to start small by hiring someone on a fixed-fee basis to handle these tasks for you. You’re bound to make mistakes and learn a lot. Once you’ve gained experience, you can consider elevating your web presence by working with a company on a monthly basis and building a more advanced website. The advantage of hiring someone for a fixed fee is that you will own your domain name and have the flexibility to hire a new vendor to take your efforts to the next level. When you engage with a company for a monthly fee, you need to determine who owns your website should you decide not to continue with that company. Most companies that charge a monthly fee consider any content they create, including anything on your website, to be their property and would not allow you to transfer it to a new firm. You might not even own your domain name, and it might be considered the property of the firm you engaged with should you decide to stop paying your monthly fee. For this reason, your first step should be to secure clear ownership of your domain name and website. Your initial website should include biographical information about you and your team, details on any areas of specialization, and a contact form. Filling out the contact me form will send your CRM the contact information via an email feed. You should also consider creating a series of web pages for each neighborhood you serve, especially any **geographic farm** neighborhoods you are targeting. A geographic farm is a neighborhood you intend to focus on to gain market share there. The best content includes the neighborhood’s history—when it was first established and what was there before the development—and details about the community, including HOA information. If you can provide a neighborhood map and photos of unique locations, it would be more compelling. If someone is interested in buying a home in that neighborhood, there’s a good chance your landing page will appear in their Google search results if the neighborhood is small enough and the information you provide is detailed enough. Most agents will stop there. However, if you are a highly successful agent with a team, the next step is to upgrade your website to include IDX support. This means your website pulls local listings from your MLS and displays them. This technology has a monthly fee, so you need to determine whether your website receives sufficient traffic to justify this additional cost. For most, the decision will likely be to skip adding IDX support. It is relatively easy for your website to appear when someone searches for you by name, but it is much harder to appear in Google search results when someone searches for real estate agents in your city. The reason is that you are likely the only real estate agent in your city with your name, so Google can easily recognize that your website is the primary source for a search like “Sally Smith real estate agent Charlotte.” For more general searches like “real estate agent in Charlotte,” you are competing with all the other real estate agents in Charlotte who have websites — possibly hundreds or even thousands. The process of getting your website to appear at the top of that list is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There are books that explain how to format your website to improve search engine visibility and attract attention. I won’t go into much detail here, except to say that you should either hire someone to do this or spend some time reading a book on the subject. Unfortunately, it can get complicated. One specific suggestion is to publish helpful, hyperlocal content on your website, such as information about local infrastructure projects, events, shops, and restaurants. This type of content is often shared on social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. If you’re already doing that, consider also making it available on your website to help promote yourself there as well. Ideally, you want your website to be mentioned and linked to by other sites. By creating hyperlocal content, you can then reach out to local vendors you’ve mentioned and ask them to link to your review of their business. This increases awareness of your site among search engines and users. You can also register your website on Facebook using a business page, and there are similar options on LinkedIn. You can also set up a business profile with Google. These strategies should be sufficient to help people find your website. For instance, if they search for “Sally Smith Real Estate,” they will likely find your site once you have done some basic work. At this point, you have gained online credibility because people can find you when they search for you by name. Getting your website to appear in organic search results takes time. Organic search results are the results that Google and other search engines generate based on the phrases that someone uses. Google search experts say that significant quality improvements may take several months to show in results, and larger gains could take even longer. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a consistent effort that builds gradually over time. Some successful agents take the next step: getting their website to appear in organic search results when someone searches for real estate in their local area. The search might be something like “Real estate agent in Charleston.” This is much harder to rank for. By ranking, I mean where your website appears in search results. Ideally, you want to be in the top 10. If you are the 2,000th listing for that search, it probably won’t generate much traffic. Competition is fierce for these types of search results. There are likely other real estate agents who have already created websites and established themselves so they will outrank you. This means you have to work hard to stand out among some pretty tough competition. For immediate traffic, consider Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising on platforms like Google and Meta to drive visitors to your landing pages. PPC is a form of online marketing in which you, the advertiser, pay a fee each time someone clicks your ad. Instead of paying for the ad to be seen, you bid on specific keywords (such as ‘Sarasota homes for sale’) to have your ad appear at the top of Google’s search results. You pay only when a user clicks the ad, helping you outrank organic search results.  In summary, start with your broker’s website, but as your business grows, consider establishing your own domain for both email and your website. At first, hire someone for a fixed fee to help build your website so you can make mistakes and learn. Feed your website’s contact forms directly into your CRM via an email feed. From there, you can decide whether to pursue additional opportunities, such as advertising and improving your organic rankings. Because these efforts are complex, you’ll likely need to hire someone if you decide to take this next step. For a high-end website, your monthly budget could be substantial, but you shouldn’t feel pressured to choose a more expensive option right away. Begin with limited effort and expand in ways that attract more visitors. Track which leads come from specific landing pages on your website so you can use your CRM to monitor your return on investment. Regardless of which options you choose, always keep your CRM separate from your website. That way, you can switch vendors without causing too much disruption. ## Paid Lead Sources There are two kinds of paid lead sources you can use. The first are live lead sources, such as Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com. The second type of lead source is data-aggregation lead sources. They are not gathered in real time; instead, they are pulled from databases. Examples of these types of leads include expired listings, FSBOs, and probate leads. The advantage of paid lead sources is that, if you have the budget, they can generate leads instantly. If you’ve built a system to convert a specific type of lead, paid sources can help you feed your engine and achieve results that might otherwise be out of reach. Your CRM is the key to this effort because it allows you to systematize the lead incubation and conversion process. One disadvantage of paid lead sources is that other agents are also working the same leads. Paid lead sources are usually not exclusive. For some leads, such as Zillow leads, the prospect may expect your call. But for others, like expired listings, the prospect doesn’t expect it and may not appreciate your call. Generally, you should expect paid lead sources to be weaker than other types of leads. This means you’ll need to be persistent and patient. You might have to contact someone several times before they become a client or before you decide to give up. If you treat paid leads like other kinds of leads, you’ll find they don’t convert easily. Persistence is what makes these leads work, and the best way to manage them is to call first and then include them in a touch cycle so you keep reaching out to them repeatedly. You’ll also encounter fake leads—people who enter false contact information. Be sure to mark any disconnected phone numbers as (DNC) in your CRM. Invalid email addresses will automatically be flagged as HardBounce when you attempt to send an email. I also suggest watching out for obviously fake contact information, such as DonaldDuck@Disney.com. It’s best not to try emailing an obviously fake address. You will also want to add a “Cold” category to any fake prospect records or to those for which the prospect asks you to get lost. Some leads are live, meaning you receive their contact details seconds after your prospect enters them. These are, by far, the best and most expensive leads. Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com are examples of these lead sources. These leads are loaded into your real estate CRM in real time via an email feed, also known as lead parsing. Your CRM will accept lead emails from these sources and automatically convert them into prospect records. It will automatically check for duplicates and verify that there’s enough contact information to reach the prospect. You will then be instantly notified of the new lead via email and text message. Other leads might not even realize they are leads. They could be a group of For Sale By Owners (FSBOs) simply trying to sell their house. They didn’t ask for a real estate agent to contact them. These leads would be loaded into your real estate CRM using valet import. This process efficiently transfers data from a paid lead source, such as RedX, into your CRM with just one click. Agents usually import this data weekly. These leads are less urgent than live leads. My first book, *Real Estate CRM Secrets*, offers a thorough discussion of prospecting systems for FSBOs and Expired Listings, including scripts and multi-touch follow-up plans. For new agents, paid lead sources are often a poor investment. New agents often lack the skills and persistence to achieve results. Instead, I recommend that new agents focus on alternative lead sources that better suit their needs. Another way lead aggregation companies gather data is by crawling the internet. For instance, automated bots scan Craigslist’s For Sale By Owner (FSBO) listings and Facebook Marketplace ads. The data is then cross-checked against property tax records. As you can imagine, the quality of this information isn’t always perfect. Sometimes, you’ll get a phone number that isn’t connected to the prospect or an email address that’s outdated or no longer in use.  Skip tracing software is a specialized tool that finds an owner’s contact information from a property address alone. It helps identify off-market properties, vacant homes, or estate heirs. These services analyze data from private and public sources to link phone numbers, emails, and relatives to a specific address. The best services can also navigate complex ownership structures, such as trusts or LLCs, to reveal the individuals behind them. A key feature of any reputable skip-tracing service is its ability to identify phone numbers on the Do Not Call (DNC) registry, ensuring your outreach remains legally compliant. The lists generated by these services can be imported into your CRM to manage the multi-touch follow-up campaigns needed to turn these weak leads into clients. > **Pay for Profit Secret:** Once you have perfected your incubation sales funnel, paid leads can provide you a steady stream of prospects to feed your pipeline. You can reach out to your real estate CRM vendor to get a list of paid lead sources they have partnered with in the past. Don’t feel limited by this list, since your CRM vendor can import data from any paid lead source. Working with paid lead sources is a numbers game. Only about 5% of leads typically result in a closed transaction. Gary Keller, author of *The Millionaire Real Estate Agent*, estimates the lead-to-close rate can be as low as 2%. These leads also tend to have longer incubation periods and require multiple touches to see results. Managing such leads is most effective with a real estate CRM, which lets you set up automated drip sequences via print, email, or postcards. You should also reach out to each prospect by phone or text, as email alone rarely converts these kinds of leads[26]. On average, expect to contact each prospect 7 times before converting them into a client. I suggest using a mix of communication channels when reaching out to your leads. An email is most effective after you’ve made initial contact. Emails from strangers often end up in the spam folder. However, if you call or text someone and mention that you’ll be sending an email, they are more likely to expect it. If your email ends up in their spam folder, they can easily find and retrieve it. Always focus on the value you offer each prospect. Emphasize what you can do for them. Every prospect has a motivation, and when you pitch your services, be as specific as possible. For example, if it’s an expired listing, explain why the property didn’t sell and that you have a detailed plan to sell it quickly and for the best price. If the lead inquired about buying a particular home, research that home and neighborhood, and offer to show either that property or one in the same area. Your ability to directly address your prospect’s interests will help build trust in your ability to provide valuable services. Treat people in your prospects database as valuable only for a limited time. Organize your prospects by their initial entry date in your real estate CRM. If you sort your database from oldest to newest, you can decide which to call and which to categorize as “Cold”. When you contact a lead, remember that a cold call is always more complex than a warm one. This is why you should never delay calling a prospect in your database when they are first added. If you decide a lead isn’t worthy of an initial phone call, it’s probably too weak to be in your database. The most effective way to make initial contact is to immediately explain why you’re reaching out. If they submitted a Zillow information request, mention that. If you contacted them because their listing recently expired, be sure to clarify that as the reason for your outreach. When you reach out to your prospect, update the last contact date and include notes. These notes should cover whether you’ve called them and the outcome. Your real estate CRM allows you to mark phone numbers as disconnected, and you should add notes if you leave a voicemail. ## Social Media According to the 2024 NAR Member Profile, the typical real estate agent receives only 2% of their business directly from social media. Social media’s primary role is to act as a catalyst, boosting your reputation and credibility, while its secondary role is as a direct source of leads. After a prospect meets you, they will search online to read reviews and verify how you market your listings. So, even if the lead wasn’t generated online, your strong digital presence reassures them and influences their decision to work with you. Therefore, your social media activities provide validation and reassurance, helping prospects decide to choose you over other agents. Facebook is an essential platform for building and validating your reputation with potential clients. Your Business Page serves as your public resume. When a prospect looks you up, they will see a history of client success stories, local market updates, and community event involvement. This shows you’re an active, connected local expert. Participating in local Facebook Groups to answer questions further reinforces this expert status without overt selling. While Facebook targets consumers, LinkedIn is the leading platform for Business-to-Business (B2B) networking. Use it to build referral relationships with mortgage lenders, attorneys, financial planners, and corporate relocation managers. In contrast, X (formerly Twitter) is your platform for real-time engagement with local news, businesses, and journalists. TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube serve as your visual portfolio, showcasing your current listings through walkthroughs. You can provide market reports on local conditions and video reviews of local establishments. When a potential client visits your YouTube channel, they see the professional content you have created. A well-produced, comprehensive property tour on YouTube underscores your professionalism and builds trust in your ability to represent a seller’s most valuable asset. These high-touch marketing strategies not only sell that listing but also demonstrate the quality the seller can expect from you and your team. > **Reliable Realtor Secret:** Do not rely on social media to generate new leads. Industry data shows that only about 2 percent of business comes directly from these platforms. The real purpose of social media is validation. It serves as a professional background check for referrals and prospects, demonstrating that you are active, credible, and trusted before you ever speak with them. A well-executed social media strategy shifts your role from a salesperson to a trusted, publicly vetted community resource. Its primary goal is to provide strong social proof, a psychological principle in which people look to others’ actions and approval (such as reviews and testimonials) to validate their own decisions. Prospects who find you through other channels will use your social media to validate their decisions. A professional profile, supported by client testimonials and community involvement, signals that you are a credible and trusted expert. Therefore, the true value of social media isn’t in the leads it produces but in the trust it builds and the prospects it helps convert from other channels. The key to social media is engagement. You should review which of your posts and videos generate the most feedback. Most agents post information about their listings and sales. While this provides social confirmation that you deliver results, these posts are unlikely to generate much engagement. You should also create posts that encourage engagement, such as an online poll or a post about a neighborhood event people should be aware of. Perhaps there is a local gardening event or a Street of Dreams event you want people to know about. ## Gathering Testimonials Public third-party review platforms have largely replaced private reference letters. These sites provide social proof and help prospective clients choose an agent with the most and best reviews. To stay competitive, solicit reviews and ensure they are publicly available online. The key elements of this strategy include timing your review requests, asking the right clients, and making the process as easy as possible. The best time to ask for a testimonial is immediately after a successful closing, when your client’s positive feelings are at their peak. Send a simple email with a direct link to one or two preferred review sites. By requesting reviews only from your most satisfied clients, you can shape the feedback that appears publicly. Following up with a handwritten thank-you note or a quick phone call shows appreciation for their time and effort, strengthening your relationship. It’s essential to build your reputation authentically. Never pay for testimonials or post fake reviews. You should also avoid offering gift cards or other monetary incentives as direct compensation, as this violates most platforms’ terms and can undermine the trust you’ve worked hard to establish. With many review platforms available, it is important to focus your efforts. I recommend selecting two primary locations for your reviews to establish a strong, easy-to-find presence in online searches. This creates a good impression on prospects and provides a backup if an issue arises on one platform. Your platform choices should align with your business goals and fall into three main categories. First are the major real estate portals, such as Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com. If you rely on these sites for paid leads, building a substantial review collection is essential to boosting your credibility and conversion rate. Even if you don’t actively request reviews on these platforms, maintaining a complete profile with your biography and photo enhances your visibility and helps with search engine rankings. However, be cautious about concentrating reviews on a single paid portal, as it can be risky if you later decide to shift your business away from that lead source. > **Commitment and Consistency Principle:** When a client writes a testimonial for you, they become more likely to seek out your services again. Psychology shows that when people make a public, positive statement, they feel compelled to stay consistent with it. By giving you a positive review, your client reinforces their positive view of you and aremore likely to refer you to others. The second category includes local business platforms, which are essential for establishing your presence in the community. A Google Business Page is free, highly recommended, and offers significant benefits. It prominently displays your business information, location on Google Maps, and star rating in search results, providing unmatched visibility and trust. These reviews also influence your website’s search ranking. While most effective for agents with physical offices or brokerages, it remains a key tool for local marketing. Similarly, Yelp! provides a platform for building a profile, though it tends to give brokerages more visibility than individual agents. Although Yelp ads receive priority placement, it’s best to focus initially on the organic reviews people leave. For established teams and brokerages, membership in the Better Business Bureau (BBB) offers the highest level of credibility. The BBB assigns a letter grade based on criteria such as your length of time in business and how effectively you handle complaints. It can also mediate disputes to ensure fair resolutions, and its trusted review system is carefully vetted, reflecting a strong commitment to ethical practices. Displaying a BBB badge on your website can enhance both consumer trust and your site’s search rankings. The third category is social and professional networks, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, which emphasize community and personal branding. A Facebook Business Page is one of the easiest platforms for an individual agent to manage. I recommend creating a complete profile and enabling the reviews feature. Because Facebook is community-driven, you might receive unsolicited feedback from people who know you, making it a more interactive space for building your reputation. You can also leverage this platform by posting photos of smiling, satisfied clients in front of their new homes, holding your sold sign. There is no better visual proof of your success and ability to deliver results. Managing public feedback involves addressing both negative and fake posts. Negative reviews are unavoidable, and a profile with only five-star ratings may seem inauthentic. When you receive negative feedback, respond publicly, professionally, and positively. Acknowledge their comment without sharing specific transaction details, and let them know you’ll reach out privately to resolve any specific issue. This demonstrates accountability to potential clients. It’s also important to watch for fake reviews from spammers, which can harm your credibility. Report these to the platform’s moderator for removal. To protect your reputation’s integrity, avoid review sites that allow you to copy and paste testimonials from other sources. Such practices diminish a platform’s credibility, can be flagged by search engines as duplicate content, and create confusion about the legitimacy of your reviews. > **The Reputation Ripple Secret:** Write a detailed positive review for a local business you admire once a week. The local businesses you review can range from a favorite coffee shop to your go-to home inspector. If you know the owner, let them know you left a review. This will start a network of reciprocal relationships in your local area. Your reputation management strategy should be a two-way street. Use the same review sites to evaluate the tradespeople, local shops, restaurants, and vendors you recommend. Before adding a painter or inspector to your preferred list in your CRM, check their online reputation. To establish yourself as a trusted, impartial advisor, keep a list of at least three vetted professionals for each trade. Recommending someone with negative reviews can damage your credibility. Additionally, you can build goodwill by actively posting positive reviews for local businesses you frequent, from the coffee shop where you meet clients to the restaurant where you celebrate closings. As a recognized regional expert, your endorsement carries weight. Telling a business owner that you’ve left them a glowing review is an effective way to strengthen relationships and encourage reciprocal referrals. Building mutually beneficial connections with other local professionals is a powerful yet often overlooked part of a referral-based business. To ensure you never miss the optimal window to request a review, integrate the ask directly into your CRM’s closing task plan. This systematic automation ensures your request is timely, consistent, and tracked, turning every positive closing into a guaranteed opportunity to build social proof. Ultimately, gathering testimonials is about more than marketing; it is the foundation of a trusted, credible brand[27]. Real estate agents help clients through what is likely the most significant financial transaction of their lives. A substantial collection of public and third-party reviews provides credible, word-of-mouth evidence of your integrity and ability to deliver results[28]. This social proof not only attracts new business but also builds loyalty among past clients, creating a sustainable cycle of referrals and repeat business that will support your career for years to come. ## Converting Prospects into Clients If everyone you met were ready to buy or sell immediately, life would be much simpler. But that is rarely how things work. People take time to make up their minds. They may not even know the price of the house they can afford when you first meet them. Organizing your lead follow-up is the primary benefit of using a real estate CRM. Sometimes, lead incubation can take days, weeks, months, or even years. Your real estate CRM can help you schedule follow-up calls and track what you discussed during your last call. While this is possible without a real estate CRM, it is nearly impossible when you meet hundreds of people each year. Your CRM lets you build a **daily call list** of who needs follow-up. It also allows you to document the pre-sales process and capture all details for each lead. In addition to notes, you can kick off automatic time-release follow-up emails and send printed letters and postcards. The process of reaching out to a prospect and scheduling a follow-up is often called a **touch cycle**. Industry studies consistently show that persistence pays off. For example, real estate coach Tom Ferry has noted that the contact rate for a new online lead can reach 90% by the sixth call attempt[29]. However, data from the Market-Wise report show that 48% of agents give up after the first call[30]. I have found that most agents give up too early due to a lack of an organized follow-up system. An organized and persistent follow-up strategy, managed through your CRM, is what separates top producers from others and greatly increases the chances of turning a lead into a closing. When making your initial calls, stay fresh, rested, and prepared. Turn off the TV and ensure the dog won’t bark. Review what you know about the prospect and their needs. Spend a minute or two doing research—if someone asks about a property, pull it up on the MLS. Visualize your immediate goal for the call and identify the steps to achieve it. Are you aiming to set an appointment for a listing presentation? Be clear with yourself about the steps needed to make it happen. Then, make your call. I recommend creating a few standard scripts for these calls to streamline your prep before each call. If possible, avoid making prospecting calls from your car. Instead, make your touch cycle calls when you’re in front of your computer and prepared. For most prospects, it’s best to schedule the next follow-up right after hanging up. If your call goes to voicemail, consider texting your prospect. More people respond to texts than listen to voicemail messages. Save voicemails for older individuals who don’t use texting. Phone calls are effective when you reach the person you’re calling. However, the main limitation of phone calls is that the person must be available, willing, and have time to talk. In today’s world, that’s often unlikely. People have jobs, dinner to prepare, and kids to look after. The advantage of sending a text message is that people are more likely to read it within a few minutes and respond quickly. Your real estate CRM includes a **text messaging** feature that works just like sending an SMS from your mobile phone. For prospecting, there are many advantages to using text messaging through your CRM. You can quickly review the text conversation, your notes, and any other information you’ve collected about your prospect, all in one place in your CRM. You can type your message using your computer’s keyboard. If you’ve identified a particularly compelling text message, save it for reuse so you can paste it into the chat to save time. Your CRM allows you to send 10 text messages in just a few minutes. > **The Single Step Secret:** After each interaction with a prospect, schedule only the next follow-up. Avoid the urge to create a complicated follow-up plan. A simple touch cycle is almost always the right approach; it lets you adapt based on your prospect’s feedback. The touch cycle works best when you regularly block time on your calendar and schedule several follow-up calls in a row during that period. Once you find your rhythm, you can make many follow-up calls quickly, especially if you use the click-to-dial features in your real estate CRM. The highest chance of reaching someone by phone is when they call you, and you answer. When you call someone after a week, the chance they will answer is about 20 percent, but if they call you and you answer, it’s 100 percent. This means you need to make five times as many outgoing calls to achieve the same result as simply answering when someone calls. If someone leaves a voicemail, texts you, or emails you, respond promptly. The odds of reaching someone are highest within a few minutes and decrease over time. This is because when someone is trying to reach you, they need something. After a few minutes, your prospect will likely have moved on to something else. The most costly mistake agents make is poor follow-up. Imagine you have 10 leads this week. Seven aren’t quite ready to move, but two are. Naturally, you focus on those two hottest leads. The mistake happens when you overlook the other seven. The following week, the same pattern continues. Would it surprise you to learn that you could double your income by scheduling follow-up calls with people who weren’t quite ready to buy or sell? It doesn’t take much of your time. Most agents start strong with new leads—calling and leaving voicemails, expecting a callback. After a few days, they forget about unresponsive leads. Your CRM can help you maintain persistence in ways that you could never sustain on your own. It is only natural for agents to focus on the most lively prospects. But when you do that, you leave money on the table. It’s tempting to create a complex follow-up plan for each prospect. These plans might include scheduling calls, emails, letters, and other communications with precision. However, I’ve found that such complicated plans often fail almost immediately. Instead, I recommend making initial contact and then scheduling a single follow-up task right afterward. Be flexible in your follow-up approach based on what you’ve learned from the last interaction. If your calls go to voicemail, try texting. If your emails aren’t being opened, consider visiting the prospect at their home address. By keeping your follow-up simple, you can adapt to what you learn from your last contact attempt. Most leads will start with incomplete contact details. When you reach someone, try to gather more information about their needs and additional contact details. For example, if you discover that the prospect is looking to downsize due to retirement, you can offer to send a timed email drip sequence tailored to that need. While email is helpful, having a phone number is better. Also, if you have to leave a voicemail, try a different follow-up approach next time, such as calling at a different time or sending a text message. Don’t overlook the value of a home address. The problem with complex plans is that they lack flexibility and are too rigid to work well. For best results, give yourself the option to decide what kind of follow-up makes the most sense when you are actually doing it, not beforehand. Qualifying a prospect helps you determine whether they have the motivation and means to buy or sell a home. Avoid showing homes to buyers who cannot qualify for a loan on the property. Identify the home price range your buyer can afford. If your prospect has not yet met with a mortgage professional, recommend a trusted loan officer. You can also use the mortgage calculators in your real estate CRM to build a shared understanding of what is possible. For example, the maximum loan calculator determines the best-case scenario based on income and available down payment. The payments calculator explores alternative scenarios based on different loan terms, such as interest rate and mortgage duration. Gathering this information can be subtle, woven into a natural conversation. Some people may feel uneasy about sharing income details when asked directly. However, you can quickly gather basic information about the employer, job title, and office location. This allows you to start the discussion about the best neighborhoods within a short commute of their employer and at a price point they can afford.  For a seller, you can research the subject property by obtaining an estimate of its value. You can also ask about the outstanding mortgage balance and any additional home equity loans the seller may have. Then, use the seller net real estate calculator built into your real estate CRM to estimate how much cash the seller can expect from the sale. One issue to watch for is a lack of equity in the house. A seller with no equity has limited price flexibility, which can make your job more challenging. Part of the pre-qualification process includes understanding your prospect’s motivations. Why are they looking to buy or sell? What is their timeframe? Do they need to sell before they can buy? Do they have realistic expectations for the sale or purchase price of a home in the neighborhoods they’re interested in? This information will help you determine the best way to convert this prospect into a client and increase the likelihood of a successful sale. It makes sense to develop a relationship with at least one mortgage broker or banker. If a buyer approaches you before being pre-qualified for a loan, you can refer these leads to a trusted mortgage professional with whom you have a good rapport. It’s also equally likely that your mortgage professional friend will encounter buyers who aren’t yet working with a real estate agent. Both a real estate agent and a mortgage professional are typically needed to close a deal, making this a mutually beneficial relationship. There are positive incentives for both of you to collaborate and share information, such as the pre-qualified mortgage amount and the buyer’s motivation level. > **Lead With the Lender Secret:** Before touring houses with a new buyer, have them meet with your trusted lender. Your lender can help them get pre-qualified for a loan, which shows what they can afford. This saves you from chasing a unobtainable homes in the wrong price range. I suggest that you give a stack of your business cards to at least one mortgage professional you trust. You should also ask that mortgage professional to give you a stack of their business cards. This way, you can share their contact info with clients who need a recommendation. There are other ways to turn this into a more complete partnership. For example, invite your mortgage professional friend to co-host open houses and seminars. The flyers you hand out could have the home details on one side and bank loan information on the back, including an estimated mortgage payment. You can also co-market specific neighborhoods using postcards and door-knocking. In addition to flyers, consider sharing the cost of postcard mailing campaigns in your farming area[31]. Each of you will save half the cost while providing even more valuable information. The same cost-sharing approach applies to advertisements in local school, church, and community newsletters, local HOA newsletters, and newspapers. You can also share expenses for other types of advertising, such as sending out a co-branded calendar or sports schedule magnet to a geographic farm. Additionally, you can partner to sponsor local youth sports teams. Qualifying your real estate prospects involves gathering information and determining the best approach to achieve optimal results. If you have a highly qualified, motivated buyer, you’ll prioritize them over a prospect with poor credit or someone who plans to decide several months from now. Your real estate CRM will be especially useful when working with prospects who aren’t ready to buy or sell immediately. They may need time to decide or face external barriers, such as needing to improve their credit score or save for a down payment. You can monitor these prospects’ progress and schedule follow-up calls over time. Without a real estate CRM, those who aren’t looking to buy or sell right now are likely to miss out on effective follow-up. ## Repeat Business & Referrals For an experienced agent, a large share of income comes from referrals and repeat business. According to the National Association of Realtors, agents with 16 or more years of experience generate a median of 68% of their business from repeat clients and referrals[32]. A referral or past client requires significantly less effort to cultivate and close than working with a stranger. Acquiring a new client takes more effort than working with someone you’ve already helped. If you’re working with a friend who already knows and trusts you, you don’t need to spend as much time building trust. You’re also less likely to face competition from other agents. Your friends already recognize how great an agent you are. They’ve already decided that when they’re ready to buy or sell, they’ll call you. So, your job is mostly done. All you need to do is maintain your friendship. When your friend is ready, they’ll let you know. Your chances of closing a deal with a friend are much higher than with a stranger. Another advantage of working with friends is that they might refer you to someone else they know who is also looking for a real estate agent. When you do a good job, people notice, and your ability to get new clients grows. Your ability to serve your past clients’ needs will depend on maintaining relationships with them long after the transaction closes. A great way to do this is to record the anniversary of their closing, along with their birthday and their spouse’s birthdate, in their contact record. For birthdays and anniversaries, you could give them a call, send a text message, send an eCard, or even send a physical card. Your CRM will automatically remind you when it’s time to make contact using repeating tasks. You should also add them to your Christmas card list by placing them in the “Christmas” category. You already have their mailing address from the closing, and you can easily print mailing labels through your real estate CRM. That’s four touches each year with almost no effort at all. There are several reasons you might decide that someone in your contacts database needs more frequent contact. If so, you can place them on a touch cycle to reach out more often. For example, they may have recently experienced a life-changing event, such as getting married, having children, getting divorced, or losing a loved one. You might also want to contact someone more frequently if they are an investor or if you helped them buy a vacation home. In those cases, they might need your services sooner than they otherwise would. Another great way to stay connected is to host **client appreciation events**. These are organized activities designed to show your gratitude to past clients and others. The benefit of organizing these activities is that they allow you to regularly communicate with people in your sphere of influence, not only at the event itself but also when you call to inform them about it. You can use your CRM to organize your mailing list and send notifications via email and printed invitations. These events often generate additional referrals, as they give your friends a chance to think of you again and consider whether they know someone who might benefit from your real estate services. More details about these activities are provided in the client appreciation section later in this book. Some of your friendships will be with people who can be great sources for referrals. Building and nurturing relationships with influencers can boost your ability to earn referral income. For example, a divorce lawyer can recommend a good real estate agent to divorced couples selling their property as part of a divorce settlement. > **The Bridge Builder Secret:** Develop relationships with people who can connect you to many clients over time. Working with divorce attorneys, mortgage brokers, investor, and HR managers will generate a steady flow of quality referrals. I suggest creating a “Top100” category in your Contacts database. These are people likely to recommend your services. They could include investors, loan officers, attorneys, coaches, and influential social figures. A good way to build this list is to review your friends and identify those who have previously recommended your services. I also recommend building relationships with influencers by reaching out to people you believe could benefit from endorsing your services. These relationships can be mutually advantageous. Make sure to connect with everyone on your “Top100” list at least once every 90 days. Attend social events with them, call them, and send them a Christmas card. In addition to this regular contact, you can host smaller, exclusive appreciation events for this group. If they recommend your services, call to thank them. When a deal they helped you close is completed, drop by with a small gift, such as a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine. The simplest way to begin is by filtering your Contacts list to display only your “Top100” contacts. Then, **sort your database** by last contact date so that the person you interacted with the longest ago appears at the top, and the person you most recently spoke with is at the bottom. Start by calling people from the top of the list. When speaking with them, take notes and update the last contact date. Before ending the call, set up a **recurring touch task** for every 90 days. Since you’ve just spoken with them, you’ll reconnect in three months. The transaction management feature of your real estate CRM helps automate tasks during and immediately after closing, boosting your chances of referrals from past clients. Your CRM automatically updates the contact’s address after closing and adds a closing anniversary to the contact record. Your post-closing follow-up plan should include sending a housewarming gift, requesting a positive online review, and following up a few weeks after closing. This demonstrates you care. Staying in touch ensures the buyer remains satisfied with the transaction. The closing anniversary date is a particularly useful annual occasion because it provides a perfect excuse to drop by, say “Hi,” notice the new trees in the back yard, and compliment your buyer on the tremendous improvements they’ve made to their new home. With patience and relationship-building, you’ll increase your chances of helping your past client sell when they’re ready to move again. After all, you know their home better than anyone else. You appreciate the many changes over the years and know just the right family who would enjoy owning such a wonderful home when it’s time to sell. > **The Adoption Angle Secret:** When you sell a home, add the buyer to your CRM. Their agent will probably forget them, allowing you to adopt a new client for their next move. When you assist someone with one transaction, ask whether you can help with another. If their real estate needs are in a different city, offer to connect them with a trusted local real estate agent. Then reach out to an agent in that city who will pay you a referral fee in exchange for your client’s contact information. Use your real estate CRM to track the referral fee and set reminders to stay in touch with the other agent throughout the sales process. Another source of referrals includes tradespeople, closing companies, insurance agents, and loan officers. These individuals regularly interact with potential buyers and sellers. When asked if they recommend a real estate agent, you want them to mention your name. The simplest way to start is to show your value by referring business to them. Hand them business cards and ask them to recommend you. If they send someone your way, be sure to thank them, preferably with a small gift to show your appreciation.  Relocation companies can also be a reliable source of steady referrals. You can also contact the personnel departments of major employers in the area. Some will work with a relocation company, while others will manage relocations internally. In either case, employers are always seeking ways to make it easier for their employees to transfer between job locations. Do you have a distinctive, high-end listing near a major employer? If so, contact the employer’s personnel department. Luxury homes within walking distance of a workplace are rare. Finding the ideal home for a CEO of a large company in your area could lead to a quick sale and, more importantly, connect you with that organization and generate additional referrals. Gift-giving is a traditional way to express appreciation. For a buyer, a housewarming gift from the agent is common. For a referral from someone who is not an agent, giving a gift after closing to express gratitude is also typical. Rules govern the types of gifts and the conditions under which they may be given. These rules are set by the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA). When a referral comes from someone who is not a licensed real estate agent, agents may give a small, unconditional appreciation gift—such as a modest basket or a branded item—as long as it is not promised in advance, not tied to future referrals, and not excessive in value. The key point is that the gift must be a sincere thank-you, not a payment for services. To remain in compliance, agents should ensure that such gifts are modest, non-cash, and given only after the business is completed, in accordance with all applicable state licensing laws and their brokerage’s policies. When it comes to referrals from other real estate agents, cash payments are legal and common practice. A more formal referral fee is typically negotiated, often as a percentage of the commission the referring agent earns at closing. You can use your real estate CRM to keep track of the gifts you’ve given and when. You can also track any referral fee due to the referring agent in your commission calculator. While agents always appreciate a referral payment, it’s also helpful to use your CRM to track follow-up with the referring agent. You want to make sure the agent who referred you is well-informed about the deal’s progress. They might even be able to help you keep a deal on track, particularly if they have a close personal relationship with your client. Some listing agents are too busy to handle buyer leads, and in exchange for staffing their open houses, they will let you prospect buyers who visit the home. For new agents, I recommend finding one or two successful agents in your office who focus mainly on listings and are less interested in buyers. You can offer to manage their buyers in exchange for a referral fee. Use the commission calculator in your real estate CRM to track the exact fee you agree to. If your brokerage is part of a larger franchise or has multiple branches, check whether it has an internal referral system. Such a system allows agents to refer clients to agents in other locations and often provide additional financial incentives to keep referrals in-house. Whenever a friend or influencer refers you a lead, immediately add their name to the “Referred By” field in your new prospect’s CRM record. This process is already automated for all leads added to your CRM via open house registration, call capture, email feed, and valet import. However, you will need to add this information manually if you enter the contact details from your smartphone or computer. When you create a new listing or closing, make sure to include the referral party in your transaction. That way, your CRM will remind you to stay in regular contact with the person who referred you. For real estate agent referrals, your CRM will track the agreed-upon referral fee and even calculate your net commission based on these figures, while also tracking when your referring agent has been paid. Your real estate CRM will also remind you to provide a thank-you gift and thank the person who gave the referral. At the end of the year, you can use the goals-tracking feature in your real estate CRM to see which referral sources generated the most closings. It is a good idea to send an additional thank-you around the holidays to people who have provided more than one referral that year. You can also update your “Top100” category to always include the people who are giving you the most referrals. As you gain experience, word will spread about the excellent service you provide. This is an area where the longer you’re in business, the greater the benefits you’ll receive. ## Tracking Vendors Your contacts database should include a curated list of tradespeople and vendors you recommend for maintenance and home improvements. You can organize these contacts by category. For example, a plumber could be listed under the “Plumber” category. It’s helpful to have at least three vendors in each category. That way, if someone asks for a house painter, you can provide a list of three options so your client can contact each and get three bids. You should also add the “Vendor” category to all those contacts. While vendors are people you know, they are part of your professional network, not your personal marketing list. As a professional courtesy, I recommend that you not market to these contacts, send them eCards, or send them your newsletter. When communicating with them, you want immediate responses. Sending unnecessary emails increases the risk that your important messages will end up in their spam folder or be ignored. The obvious candidates for your vendor list are the main trades—plumbing, electrical, house painting, drywall, trim work, and HVAC. Don’t forget to include other vendors who can handle smaller tasks, such as lawn mowing, handyman services, installing a fence, and even a babysitter. All real estate transactions are local, and your knowledge of local vendors within a few miles of the property helps build your reputation within the local economy. As a real estate professional, you need a dependable list of vendors you can trust to keep your real estate transactions running smoothly. Maintain a list of recommended experts for financing, appraisals, insurance, home inspections, and specialized trades, including pest control, well services, and septic systems. By maintaining a trusted partner list, you leverage the powerful principle of reciprocity. When you generously recommend a preferred home inspector or mortgage broker, they will likely return the favor by recommending your services to their clients, creating a self-sustaining referral loop. You should also consider identifying accountants and attorneys. These professionals are also likely to recommend your services. An accountant might recommend real estate investments to help a client lower their effective tax rate. An attorney who specializes in probate or divorce will have clients with real estate assets. These assets often require valuation and sale as part of the legal process. Offering your services to these vendors can benefit both parties. Build a relationship with a local title company. This will help you recommend trusted options to your buyers. You’ll also need to work with the title company to resolve any issues that arise. The last thing you want is a deal delayed or canceled because of a title search issue or slow processing of paperwork. You might also consider adding a few financial planners to your vendor list. Did you know that many financial planners recommend homeownership? Homeownership offers significant tax benefits and can be a solid investment while also providing housing. Therefore, a financial planner might advise someone who doesn’t yet own a home to buy one. Additionally, there are many tax advantages to owning additional investment properties, especially for high-net-worth individuals. People who work with a financial planner are also more likely to engage in multiple real estate transactions. Fire and flood insurance is often a last-minute concern that can be tricky to arrange for specific homes. When buying a home, it’s wise to build relationships with several insurance agents. You should get to know at least one independent agent who can provide coverage from multiple companies, as well as agents from major insurers. Insurance rates vary by provider, underwriting history, location, and property type. For instance, if a provider has had many claims after a recent tornado, they might charge higher premiums in that area. Therefore, it’s important for buyers to shop around and gather multiple bids. Understanding local market conditions can also be helpful. You might run into situations where a house is an imperfect fit for the buyer. But with a little work, it might be perfect. Your ability to recommend a general contractor who can review the property on short notice and provide a quick bid for remodeling might turn an otherwise unsellable property into a hidden gem. This is the power your vendor list can provide. When someone buys a house, think about what upgrades the new buyer might be considering – like finishing the basement, remodeling the kitchen, or the bathrooms. These are great opportunities to have more conversations after they move in, perhaps when you visit on the first anniversary of their closing. You should check public review sites like Yelp! and Google, as well as Facebook, LinkedIn, and the Better Business Bureau (BBB), to confirm a vendor’s online reputation is excellent. Recommending a vendor with poor reviews could damage your own reputation. Additionally, you should leave positive reviews when you have a good experience with a vendor. In today’s environment, finding a reliable vendor with strong reviews is difficult, and even a few negative reviews can harm a business. > **The Warranty Wall Secret:** Older homes often struggle to compete with new construction. To level the playing field, consider having your seller offer a home warranty. A home warranty is a contract that covers repairs or replacements of major systems and appliances if they fail. These costly repairs can be a major concern for buyers when buying an older home. Providing a warranty against these unexpected expenses makes older homes more competitive when compared with new construction. While some real estate transactions go smoothly, that is rarely the norm. Expect some setbacks during the sales process. For example, the home inspector might identify electrical wiring issues, and the deal might be put on hold until they are fixed. Having friendly vendors who are willing to come out and take a quick look can greatly streamline the process. Because of this, I recommend taking the time to build strong relationships with your preferred vendors. If you ask them for a favor, such as a quick turnaround on a project, be sure to thank them with a kind note and maybe a small gift. Also, if they send business your way, show your appreciation. You can use the deal management features of your real estate CRM to track which vendors are involved in a transaction. This information is typically added to the parties section of your closing or listing record, allowing you to quickly view a list of participants and their contact details. If a vendor recommends your services, you can track it by entering the vendor’s name in the ‘referred by’ field for the prospect record. Your CRM can support three stages of the referral process. First, send a thank-you message when you learn a vendor has recommended you. Second, send a thank-you gift to that vendor after closing to show appreciation. Lastly, conduct an annual review of your lead sources to identify patterns and top referral sources. It is not unusual for a few key vendors to generate most of your recommendations. You can then decide how to strengthen these relationships, perhaps by sending a Christmas gift card and a thank-you note to celebrate a successful year. You should add the category “Top100” to people who consistently refer others to you. These might include vendors, past clients, friends, or local influencers. Do you know someone who always seems to be in the know, with the latest gossip about neighbors, divorces, pregnancies, and more? If so, that’s a person worth spending time with. I recommend reaching out to people on your “Top 100” list at least once every 90 days. They might mention someone who is looking to buy or sell, often without realizing it. If someone is going through a divorce, there’s a good chance their house will eventually be sold. Your database of recommended vendors is a valuable resource. You might find that a past client calls you for your recommendations when they are ready to start a home improvement project. You can establish yourself as a trusted local expert, and your advice will be highly valued and sought after. By providing these vendor recommendations, you are building social capital. People will reciprocate by providing you with leads and referrals for buyers and sellers[33]. # Keeping In Touch > “One of the drawbacks of most real estate schools is they teach you > only how to pass the real estate exam. They don’t teach you how to > succeed as a Real Estate Agent once you get your license.” —Mario Jannatpour, *The Honest Real Estate Agent* Your database of past clients, prospects, and friends is your most valuable asset. To keep this information accurate and maintain your relationships, it’s essential to connect with them regularly. This chapter explains how to use your real estate CRM to nurture your relationships through consistent communication via email, texting, postal mailings, newsletters, and eCards. I will demonstrate how to track engagement and use these communications to maintain the accuracy of your database. ## 360 Degree Outreach I recommend reaching out to your prospects and contacts through multiple channels, including phone calls, text messages, emails, drop-ins, eCards, and postcards. Some people prefer speaking on the phone. Others, especially younger individuals, are less likely to answer calls but more likely to reply to text messages. Still others might prefer email, while others will be most impressed by meeting you in person. Using different communication methods lets you connect with the people in your database in a meaningful, memorable way. If you rely on only one form of communication, like email, you’re not able to make the kind of impact you can by taking advantage of multiple forms. > **Text After Voice Secret:** When you call a lead and they don’t answer, do not leave a voicemail. Instead, send them a text message along the lines of “Hi Sally, this is Josh Wheeler, from RE/MAX. I just tried calling you to give you an update about the house on Main Street. When is a good time for a quick chat?” While personalized one-on-one communication is the ideal way to build and maintain relationships, mass communication methods, such as bulk email and postcards, also have value. You will see the best results when you combine personalized messages with mass communication. The most effective form of mass communication is sending an annual Christmas card to everyone you know. Regardless of which communication method you choose, your real estate CRM helps manage and coordinate your efforts to achieve the best results. You can use the built-in content library to send printed letters, scheduled drip emails, eCards, and flyers. You can also use the text message chat feature to send text messages, and your CRM can even dial your mobile phone for follow-up calls. Don’t overlook the effectiveness of postal mail either. Your CRM can assist by printing mailing labels, creating mail-merged letters, and exporting targeted mailing lists for mailing houses to send postcards. > **Lucky Ladder Secret:** Your aim in every prospect interaction is to communicate as interactively as possible. Think of communication methods as rungs on a ladder. At the bottom are email exchanges; a little higher are text messages; even higher are phone conversations. You should always work to climb the ladder by moving away from one-sided communication. Your ultimate goal? Meeting face to face. One of the main advantages of using a real estate CRM is that it helps you gradually collect contact information. In lead nurturing, having multiple communication channels increases the chances of turning a lead into a client. Additionally, offering multiple connection methods provides backup options if one fails. For example, if you only have an email address and that person changes their email address, you might be stuck—unless you also have their phone number! You should also add notes to the contact records in your database about how you communicated and what you discussed. For example, you might have called on a weekday at 5 pm and left a voicemail. The next time you try to contact that person, you might try a different time or use a different method, such as a text message. Calling someone can be tricky, as many people screen their calls and may not answer, especially during business hours. So, the chances of someone answering when you call might be quite low. I recommend maintaining a use-it-or-lose-it strategy for managing your database. If you haven’t reached out to someone in your database in over 2 years, consider deleting their record. If you don’t remember them, delete their contact—they probably won’t remember you either. Maintain regular contact with everyone in your database. This keeps you top of mind as the helpful real estate agent who is always available to assist. Additionally, consistent outreach helps ensure their mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses remain accurate. People often change their contact details, and your clients are especially likely to do so—after all, they’re considering moving! Send a Christmas card each year to confirm their mailing address, an eCard at least annually to verify their email address, and call them at least once a year. ## Email Deliverability When you send an email from your CRM, several processes occur behind the scenes to maximize the likelihood that your email is delivered and read, a metric known as deliverability. About 48% of all emails sent are spam[34]. Spam is unsolicited bulk email. Every email recipient has a spam filter that decides whether your email is spam. This automated process considers many factors, including your server’s email reputation, the email’s content, the sender’s identity, and the history of emails exchanged between the sender and recipient. When an email is flagged as spam, it goes to the recipient’s spam folder. In extreme cases, the email may be rejected or automatically deleted. This can happen if the original email contains or is suspected of containing malware, such as a virus. To maximize deliverability, your CRM vendor employs a **postmaster** whose role is to ensure the CRM’s mail servers maintain a good reputation with other email servers. Each email server has a reputation based on the quality of the emails it sends. The reputation of your CRM’s email server is one factor used to determine whether your emails will be placed in the recipient’s spam folder. If the sending server’s reputation is particularly poor, the server itself can be blacklisted, causing all emails from that server to be automatically routed to the recipient’s spam folder or even blocked from delivery entirely, a process called blacklisting. For this reason, the postmaster is primarily responsible for ensuring that a single bad actor does not harm the server’s reputation, which could reduce the deliverability of all the other agents’ emails. This is a labor-intensive job that free CRM or low-quality vendors often lack, leading to disastrously low email open rates. When you send an email, your CRM monitors whether it was successfully delivered. A failed delivery is called a hard bounce and shows that the email address is invalid or no longer active. Sending many hard-bounced emails can harm your email reputation. To prevent this, your CRM keeps a list of invalid email addresses that have hard-bounced. As a precaution, it automatically avoids sending emails to addresses that have previously hard-bounced. > **Unread Alert Secret:** Your CRM tracks when an email is sent but not opened and read. If several emails aren’t being read, they may be ending up in spam or the recipient may no longer be using that email address. Usually, four emails in a row are considered a red flag. Your CRM may identify these low-engagement records by adding a category called “Unread” To those records. If that happens, stop sending additional emails, as it could damage your email reputation. Instead, contact this person through another method, like a phone call. Along with automated spam filters, the recipient of your emails can also manually mark any email as spam. They do this by clicking the spam icon in their email program. When they do that, your email goes to the spam folder, and both the email server and your CRM are notified that any emails from you should be considered unwelcome. After this, future emails you send to that person will automatically go to their spam folder. You might wonder why people click the spam icon instead of the unsubscribe link in an email. Maybe they opted out earlier, but the emails keep coming, so they become angry. Or perhaps they don’t trust the sender and want to alert the authorities. A complaint rate of 1 complaint per 1,000 emails sent is considered reasonable, but higher rates can harm your reputation and increase the likelihood that all your future emails will be automatically marked as spam. If you continue sending emails to someone who has marked one of your messages as spam, your email server’s reputation could be harmed. Therefore, your CRM will monitor all spam complaints and automatically stop you from sending any more emails to that address. Mail servers regularly share their lists of senders flagged for spam. For example, if you send an email to someone with an AOL address and they mark it as spam, AOL’s servers will share that information with Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook, and other email services that may be interested. While this sharing doesn’t automatically block all emails from you, it warns other email servers that your address might be suspicious, prompting them to proceed with caution. Federal regulations require all bulk emails to include a physical mailing address and an opt-out option. Your CRM automatically adds this information to all your email communications to ensure compliance with federal laws. Your CRM also tracks when someone opens and reads your email. This is done by including an invisible image in each email. When the email is opened, the image loads, and the CRM’s servers then record that your recipient has opened it. If you send multiple bulk emails, you can analyze trends and see whether a specific mailing has a notably high or low open rate. A typical open rate for bulk email is around 31%. You can also check whether your open rate is declining month to month. This might indicate email fatigue, meaning you’re sending emails too often or that recipients are no longer interested in your content. When you send an email, the recipient’s spam filter checks whether your email address is in their address book and whether you have exchanged emails before. Both factors are considered positive and significantly reduce the likelihood of your email being flagged as spam. That makes your first contact the most important. If you’re sending someone their first email, ask them to reply with a quick note confirming they received it. That helps train their spam filter to recognize you as safe. You can think of this like visiting someone’s house and having their dog sniff you in front of the owner so the dog knows you’re OK and will consider you a friend in the future. First impressions count, especially in email subject lines. In a crowded inbox, your subject line often determines whether your message is opened or deleted. It also helps spam filters decide whether your email belongs in the inbox or the spam folder. Attention-grabbing subject lines can trigger spam filters. The best approach is to use a subject line you might send when emailing a friend. It’s wise to avoid tactics spammers use to make their subject lines stand out. Spam filters are constantly evolving and getting better at detecting old tricks. Avoid using ALL UPPER CASE or replacing letters with special characters to make your email look more appealing. Overuse of punctuation or emojis in email subjects can flag your message as spam. Avoid words like “money,” including a large dollar amount, alluding to a get-rich-quick scheme, or offering spam filters that call a “free lunch,” which is something for nothing. When something looks too good to be true, spam filters become suspicious. Just including the word “free” can sometimes be enough to send your email to the spam folder. Your goal is to make sure your emails aren’t mistaken for spam or scams. Since most people read emails on their smartphones, avoid long subject lines, as those won’t display well on small screens. Also, don’t reuse the same subject line for multiple emails to the same recipient, as it can confuse both recipients and spam filters. Is this the same email sent twice or a new one? If they delete your first message without opening it, their spam filter might remember that and start sending future messages with the same subject line to the spam folder. —«◊»— ### Bob Licher Once an agent becomes successful enough, they’ll need to start building a team to keep up their quality of service. For the Colorado real estate agent Bob Licher, he learned this in an unexpected place: from his life as a musician. To build a strong band, you need to assemble a group of talented and driven individuals who share a common goal. Bob says that even when you’ve made your perfect band, you still need to listen to the audience. “If you’re not feeling the room, you won’t connect,” Bob says. “Real estate’s the same way. You must read people, know what they need, and respond.” With over 14 years of helping clients buy and sell homes across the Front Range, Bob has built his reputation on one key principle: relationships first. “It’s obviously a relationship business,” Bob explains. “What’s important is keeping the customer service on point. Prospecting and marketing are aspects of that service, and I can’t do it all on my own.” After years in “big box” brokerages, Bob launched his own company and built a team to support it. Even with a well-communicating team, individual team members may find themselves on different pages. “Our CRM system keeps the team in tempo,” says Bob. “It makes sure our entire team is working the same way, and our follow-ups are on track. I can see what’s working or what needs to be fixed.” Becoming part of a real estate team can seem daunting, but it also offers the benefit of learning from others and being stronger together than as individuals. —«◊»— Always include a call to action at the end of each email. Invite them to visit your website to learn more, reply to your email, or call you. Emailing someone without expecting a reply or phone call isn’t helping you. Your main goal should be to create a back-and-forth conversation. Your real estate CRM offers a library of letters that follow all these guidelines, pass spam filters, and are clear and engaging for your prospects. You can personalize these email templates to better reflect your personality, and they serve as a great starting point for your email outreach. > **Postscript Powerplay Secret:** Eye-tracking studies show that the postscript, or “P.S.”, is one of the most-read parts of any email, often getting more attention than the body of the message itself. The P.S. last thing your reader will see and the first thing they will act on, so make your P.S. count. Most people will read your emails on their mobile phones, so keep the formatting simple and the length as short as possible. Excessive formatting can make your email harder to read on a smartphone screen and cause readers to lose focus more quickly. Stick to one font and avoid jarring changes in font size and style. You should also limit the use of color in the text, as it can be distracting and look unprofessional.  I recommend including a letterhead with a portrait photo and a company logo at the top of your emails. This way, your recipient sees that information immediately and recognizes your email as legitimate, not spam. If they read your email on a smartphone, they might need to scroll to see your signature at the bottom, so placing your branding at the top ensures they see it even if they don’t have time to read the full email right away. Even if they don’t reach the end, they will already know who you are.  You should also include a signature at the bottom of each email with your name, job title, brokerage, and phone number. Keep your signature simple so it doesn’t overshadow the email content. Too many contact options can lead to decision paralysis when someone decides to call you. Never include an email address in your emails that differs from the one you use to send them. This is something scammers do, and you don’t want your email to look like a scam. It's common to include images in your emails. If you add images, be sure to include some text as well. Spam filters sometimes flag emails containing only images as suspicious. Spammers may try to bypass spam filters by embedding their content in an image, hoping to trick the filter into ignoring the text within the image. Another consideration is that some people might view your emails with images turned off, which is common in high-security situations, such as those involving bank officers, attorneys, and others with strict security requirements. ## Newsletters While a newsletter can still be part of your promotional strategy, it should be viewed as just one of many channels for sharing your content, alongside modern formats such as your website and social media. One challenge with sending a monthly newsletter is that it can lead to high unsubscribe rates and low open rates due to reader fatigue. > **Seasonal Send Secret:** Send your newsletter only twice a year in the fall and again in the spring. This maximizes the impact of your market updates. If you send your newsletter via email, a deliverability strategy is essential. Your CRM automatically tracks opt-outs, invalid addresses, and spam complaints to help you maintain a clean list. It can also monitor who has read your newsletter. Your open rate significantly influences how spam filters treat your emails; if recipients consistently ignore your newsletter, future messages may end up in their spam folders. Regularly check your open rates. If you notice a decline, a high number of opt-outs, or complaints, consider narrowing your distribution[35]. The postmaster of your real estate CRM is a valuable resource and can provide statistics to help identify issues. Finally, consider alternative distribution options for your content instead of creating your own newsletter. Some brokerages and franchises offer a joint newsletter in which agents share mailing lists. This approach requires less work and can be ideal for agents who lack the time to produce their own content. You might also contribute to existing newsletters from local organizations. Many schools, churches, and community groups publish newsletters, and you can often place an ad for a small fee and benefit from their established distribution. You might also focus on social media instead, which allows you to reach an audience beyond your mailing list. Once you’ve established your overall strategy, the content of your newsletter will ultimately determine its success. Your newsletter should highlight your expertise in the local real estate market. Avoid generic articles, such as home improvement projects with the best returns, because this information is readily available online and offers little added value. Remember, your newsletter is selling YOU, so it should offer information only you are uniquely qualified to provide. Keep it local and fresh. Because you focus on real estate in a specific area, your newsletter should feature hyper-local content. Just-listed and just-sold homes are a great starting point, helping homeowners gauge home appreciation and giving potential buyers a sense of current market prices. Be sure to include regional trends in home prices. Are home prices trending upward? How do they compare with state and national levels? Discuss new construction projects, such as shopping malls or new home developments, and share your expert insight into how they might affect the community and property values[36]. Non-real-estate content can also work well, as long as it’s local. Consider reviewing a new shop or restaurant in your neighborhood or sharing information about local fundraisers and charity events. Finally, avoid certain types of content. For example, including a recipe is common, but it doesn’t support your message as a local real estate expert. If you’re proud of your apple pie, bake one for your next open house and include the recipe on the back of the flyer. The smell will create a memorable connection to the property, making it a much more effective use of your culinary skills. Consider collaborating with a local mortgage broker, who can provide valuable content on interest rates and refinancing, and with whom you can share costs, effort, and distribution lists. Other potential partners include home stagers and local moving companies. I recommend sending a newsletter no more than twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. The higher the frequency of your newsletter, the greater the likelihood that people will unsubscribe. Instead, I recommend treating your newsletter as part of a multichannel approach to staying in touch with your prospects. Make sure each newsletter’s subject is unique by including the month and year in the newsletter’s subject line to prevent it from looking identical to previous editions.  A newsletter does not eliminate the need to call, text, drive by, and even send postcards to your prospects. You can use drip emails, a sequence of highly targeted emails delivered over time, as well. The advantage of a drip sequence over a newsletter is that your newsletter addresses the general market, whereas a drip sequence can address the specific life circumstances of the recipient. For example, a first-time homebuyer could receive a targeted sequence of emails educating them on the home-buying process. When you use multiple communication channels, the results are synergistic. You can maintain regular contact without being overwhelming. Avoid traditional multi-column layouts, as they are hard to read on mobile devices. A single-column email body performs best with spam filters and readers. Most people will scan your email first, then decide whether to read it thoroughly. Short, straightforward messages are often the most effective. Given modern readers’ limited attention spans, keep your content concise and ideally to a single page. Consider including a snippet of your newsletter and a link to your website or blog for the rest. This approach keeps your emails easy to read while also driving traffic to your site and increasing your visibility in Google search results. Finally, incorporate modern media into your plan. Video content is increasingly popular, so consider creating a short YouTube video for each article. Video doesn’t replace written content; it complements it, making it easier for search engines to understand. Combining a well-written blog post with an embedded video is an ideal formula for online promotion. Your CRM can **embed videos in your emails**. When you do this, a thumbnail image of the video appears inline in the email body with a prominent play button. When clicked, the video player opens. While YouTube is the most common video platform, other options such as Vimeo and Vidyard are also available. Once you’ve created your content, decide who will receive your newsletter. Add a “Newsletter” category to the people in your database who should receive your newsletter. Sending your newsletter to everyone in your database is a mistake, as it can lead to many people opting out. While your mother might love to hear from you more often, that newsletter isn’t what she had in mind! You should definitely avoid sending your newsletter to vendors and other real estate agents. It is simply a matter of courtesy. When you contact these people, it should be for something important, such as presenting an offer or getting a vendor to assist with one of your listings. The worst possible outcome is being unable to reach these key parties via email because they previously marked your emails as spam. Some real estate CRMs offer a **generic newsletter** you can personalize and send. This is a particularly risky practice because generic content is far more likely to be flagged as junk than hyperlocal, personal content. If you send that newsletter monthly, you should expect at least half of your database to unsubscribe within the next 12 months. You might tell yourself that people who opt out are not potential clients, so good riddance. Instead, consider that you’re making a bad impression with a generic newsletter sent too often. When done properly, newsletters can be a useful part of your overall strategy. But they cannot replace the personal attention a top agent provides to their friends through phone calls, birthday wishes, and physical Christmas cards. ## eCards In addition to a letter library, your real estate CRM includes an eCard library. These are emails featuring an animated image and text, similar to a greeting card. eCards offer several benefits. They’re easy to read on a phone and don’t take much time to send or view. Past clients who know you well might be more receptive to a quick greeting than a lengthy monthly newsletter, especially if they recently bought a home with you and aren’t very interested in current market trends. Sometimes, just checking in means more than the message itself. Like a greeting card, eCards can be used to wish someone a happy holiday, “Get Well Soon,” or “Happy Birthday.” They are best suited for reconnecting with someone you already know. Receiving a greeting card from someone you’ve never met can be a little disconcerting. Birthdays and home anniversaries are perfect occasions to send an eCard. They are personalized for the individual, and for a home anniversary, they can be directly relevant to your relationship with past clients. Few things provide a better reason to reach out to someone unexpectedly. The ability to schedule your greeting cards makes it even easier, and your CRM can automate this process. That way, you never miss an important date. > **The eCard Engagement Secret:** Sending a friendly holiday eCard helps you maintain a healthy database. Active contacts will open your email, while inactive ones won’t, and invalid email addresses can also be identified. Use these results to see who’s still engaged and remove invalid or inactive people from your database. Holidays like Halloween, the 4th of July, and Easter are great times to send an eCard. While a birthday eCard is sent to someone on a specific day, a holiday eCard is usually sent as a bulk email to many people at once. Not everyone wants to read a monthly newsletter full of market analysis. Often, a short, simple greeting does the same job of staying in touch and remaining top-of-mind. It doesn’t have to say much, but it reminds them you’re there when they need you. There are holidays all year round. Pick one or two that matter to your audience and use them as check-ins. While easy to send, eCards should be used sparingly. Sending a monthly eCard can clutter inboxes and dilute the impact of your more personal messages. Think of eCards as a supplement to your high-touch communication, not a replacement. Use them for minor holidays like Halloween or the 4th of July as a friendly, low-stakes touchpoint. They also serve a second purpose: verifying email addresses in your database. I recommend sending one or two eCards each year to friends, family, and past clients. For special occasions like birthdays and home anniversaries, consider combining phone calls and texts with eCards, alternating each year. For bulk eCards, you might send them on different holidays each year. For example, if you sent an eCard for Easter and Halloween this year, try sending one for New Year’s and Thanksgiving next year. By keeping things fresh, you reduce the risk of email fatigue, which occurs when you send too many emails too quickly, prompting recipients to complain or opt out to stop the flood of messages. Sending eCards also helps you keep your database accurate. About 22 percent of email addresses become invalid each year as people switch providers[37]. Your real estate CRM tracks these issues by marking invalid emails as HardBounces and flagging contacts who have not opened multiple messages. This information is ideal for identifying people you should contact by an alternative means, such as a phone call. This is a good opportunity to reach out and check in on how things are going. One notable reason someone might change their email address is that they have moved. ## Mailing Labels and Postcards In an era of overflowing inboxes and spam filters, physical mail remains one of the most reliable ways to reach your clients. A tangible item they can hold is more memorable and impactful than a fleeting email. Your real estate CRM can handle your physical mailings in three main ways. First, you can export a CSV file of the mailing list for use with a mailing house such as ReaMark, ProspectsPlus, or SendSations. This works well for bulk postcards[38]. Second, you can **print a batch of labels or envelopes** directly from your CRM, perfect for Christmas mailings or bulk letters you want to send by hand. Finally, you can print individual labels or envelopes from a queue of letters within your CRM. This last option is ideal for personalized, time-release drip letters or postcards, which you can schedule using a time-release drip sequence[39]. —«◊»— ### Pete Doty In an age where inboxes are crowded and attention spans are short, Pete Doty, a top-producing agent in Littleton, Colorado, cuts through the noise with old-fashioned postal mail. After more than 30 years in real estate, Pete knows that a personal touch with a bit of humor never goes out of style. “I keep in touch through a series of personal notes, postcards, and form letters,” Pete says. “Each one is designed with a humorous touch, but lets them know I’m serious.” Every morning at 6 a.m., Pete spends one to two hours working his system. He pulls letters from his CRM’s drip sequences, edits them, and prints them for mailing. It’s a daily ritual that keeps his pipeline full and his name top of mind. “It’s a numbers game, but I don’t waste money or effort,” he explains. Instead of blanketing neighborhoods with generic Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM), Pete hand-selects about 300 contacts to nurture personally. At least every three months, he will send witty, heartfelt messages to each one. “A stranger isn’t likely to make a connection with me through these letters,” he says. “But they’ll remember me if I’m consistent enough, and they’ll reach out when they need me.” He attributes one postcard to a $1 million increase in gross sales. It was called “Are you sick of my face yet? Let’s fix this.” Pete is always on someone’s mind by using a bit of humor, old-school charm, and the efficiency of a modern CRM. —«◊»— Postcards offer significant advantages over printed letters. They achieve higher response rates because their message is easily accessible. Even if someone plans to toss a postcard in the trash, they can’t help but quickly scan the front and back. Sending postcards is also more affordable than mailing a regular first-class letter, thanks to lower material, handling, and postage costs. For these reasons, postcards are an excellent tool for geographic farming. I recommend sending “just listed” and “just sold” postcards to the neighborhood of each of your listings, once when you get the listing and again when the listing closes. You should also send postcards to your geographic farm in the fall and spring, with updates on the latest sales and listings in the area. For large mailings, your best option is an online postcard service. These services print and mail your postcards; all you need to do is **export a mailing list as a CSV file**. Using these services can help reduce postage costs by taking advantage of bulk mail presorted rates. If your goal is to send a postcard to everyone in a neighborhood, you can use the postal service’s Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) service. This program allows you to mail postcards to every address on a specific mail carrier’s route without needing individual names or addresses, which can significantly lower your postage and list-purchasing costs. > **The Primary Post Principle:** Mail postcards for vacation properties to the owner’s primary home address, not the address of the vacation property. Your marketing gets read instead of rotting in an empty, “ghost” mailbox for months. While postcards are useful for general marketing, printed letters offer the privacy needed for more sensitive prospecting, such as probate or pre-foreclosure leads. Your real estate CRM can **print mail-merged letters**, along with printed envelopes or mailing labels. With your handwritten signature, printed letters add a level of professionalism ideal for situations where you’re offering professional services and positioning yourself as a trusted advisor. For targeted mailings of individual letters or postcards, you can use your real estate CRM’s **label-printing** feature to handle the process in-house. A popular, affordable option is to print on standard 8.5” x 11” Avery sticker label sheets using your printer. Simply load the labels instead of plain paper, and your CRM can format and print them accurately. If you print many labels, it’s worth investing in a dedicated label printer, such as a Dymo LabelWriter, which is faster and more convenient. For a professional appearance, you can also have your CRM print addresses directly on your envelopes. This requires a printer that supports envelope feeding, eliminating the need for stickers. Another related service you can consider is a specialized direct-mail service, such as YellowLetterHQ.com or YellowLetterShop.com, which prepares and sends handwritten-looking letters on yellow, pink, or white lined paper. This unique, eye-catching format is more likely to be opened and read, making it highly effective for expired listings, FSBOs, and estate sales. Your CRM can help you organize and export a CSV file compatible with these services. Direct mail has a distinct advantage: it has a greater impact than email, helping you stand out amid digital clutter. Taking the time to send a stamped letter sets you apart from other agents who send emails without much thought. For FSBOs, expired listings, and probate leads, mailing a physical letter may be the only way to reach these contacts. A print strategy is a vital tool for prospecting and maintaining relationships within your farm area and sphere of influence. ## Text Messaging Text messaging has several advantages over other forms of communication. Unlike a phone call, a text message does not require someone to answer the phone to receive it. That means that even if they are at work, your prospect will still be able to read and respond to your text message. The open rate for text messages is far higher than for email, and text messages are often read within minutes, whereas email is typically read within a day or two of being sent. Your real estate CRM can help you send text messages through a feature called **text message chat**. It works just like sending a text on your smartphone, but it offers several advantages over using your mobile phone. Because you’re using the CRM on your computer, you can use your keyboard and mouse, making messages faster to compose and send than from your smartphone. You can also copy and paste template text and adjust it as needed, producing higher-quality work with fewer typos. Because text message chat is integrated into your CRM, you can see the full chat transcript along with all your notes and contact information for contacts and transactions. You can also include links to service reports and other resources, such as photos, to communicate about your listings. You can register a dedicated phone number for use with your CRM. This number lets you send and receive texts, set up text message alerts, and use your CRM's call capture feature. When you send a test message from your CRM, it comes from that dedicated number. When someone replies to one of your texts, the reply is sent back to your CRM, and a copy is forwarded to your mobile phone as a text message. You would typically choose a phone number with your local area code. You can even pick a toll-free number if you prefer. Just like with emails, there are federal rules and regulations you must follow when sending business text messages. These rules are nuanced and carry greater liability than sending an email without permission. Enforcement is also much stricter due to the high level of traceability for text messages and the limited number of US carriers (T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon). The main rule concerns permission. If someone has given you permission to send them text messages, you’re okay. However, unsolicited commercial text messages are not allowed. Sometimes, permission must be in writing; other times, consent can be implied. It depends on the type of message you’re sending and how you're sending it. The one area you should be cautious about is sending a solicitation text message to someone you do not know and who is not expecting to hear from you. For example, if you used a lead service to obtain FSBOs and expired listings, those people did not ask to be contacted by a real estate agent, so no permission, written or implied, was given. In that case, your best approach is to call them, drive by, knock on the door, or send a printed letter. A text message from a complete stranger is unlikely to receive a positive response and violates federal consent rules. Another thing to consider is whether your communications are personal with someone you know. If that is the case, it is assumed you have implied permission, and it is acceptable since the communication is personal. For example, let’s say you wanted to send a quick text message to a past client wishing them a happy birthday, that would be perfectly acceptable. Another example is sending an informational message, such as confirming an appointment date and time, to someone with whom you have an ongoing business relationship. This is another example of implied permission, and that would be considered OK. The rules distinguish between business solicitation messages and other types of texts. Business solicitations require the highest level of permission: written consent. By contrast, personal messages require the lowest level of permission, namely implied consent. Prior written consent can be obtained in several ways. If someone texts your call-capture phone number, you have implied written consent because they initiated contact and you are replying to their inquiry. When someone fills out the contact form on your website, you can obtain prior written consent through the “terms of service” page. The communication consent section of your “terms of service” clearly states that by submitting their information, the user grants you and your agents permission to contact them by phone, email, and text message. By completing the contact form and clicking submit, the user also provides prior written consent to receive recurring marketing and informational messages via text. The user can revoke this consent at any time by replying “STOP” to any text message or by using the unsubscribe link in emails. In addition, you must include a statement to this effect on the contact form page, with a consent checkbox linking to the terms of service. The same rule applies to the open-house form in your CRM, where a prospective buyer provides their phone number. For web leads from third-party sites like Zillow, their terms of service will include similar language. You should check with your lead service about their specific terms and allowed messaging. They will be able to clarify exactly what is permissible based on the method by which the lead was obtained. The compliance requirements are much stricter for automated text messages, including time-release drip sequences and bulk campaigns. The key difference is that permission to reply to an inquiry is not considered the same as written permission to send an automated time-release sequence of text messages. A simple checkbox on your website would not be sufficient to enroll someone in an automated text-messaging drip sequence. Due to an increase in lawsuits over unsolicited texts and the high liability of fines (up to $1,500 per message), most CRM vendors have eliminated automated texting features. This change was necessary because agents often lacked the required written consent for high-volume, automated outreach, creating significant legal risks for both agents and software providers. Another rule you must follow is to include in your initial text message an explanation of how someone can opt out of receiving text messages from you. This is usually done by including a note in the first text message that explains they can reply with “STOP” to stop receiving messages. Your CRM automatically adds this phrase at the beginning of any text message thread to ensure compliance with this rule. Several industry practices are in place to align with the spirit of the regulations. The primary goal is to reduce or eliminate unwanted text messages. To send text messages in the United States, you must register with the A2P 10DLC (Application-to-Person 10-Digit Long Code) system, managed by a third party called The Campaign Registry (TCR). This is an industry-wide requirement enforced by mobile carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to combat spam and verify business communications. Your CRM vendor can assist with the registration process. It involves verifying that you are a legitimate business with a physical mailing address and, ideally, a website with clear terms of service that permit sending text messages. They will also ask for samples of the messages you intend to send. The registration process can take a few weeks, and it is important that you provide as much complete information as possible. The purpose of the application is to identify fraudulent or fake companies that send malicious text message solicitations. I have found that using a toll-free phone number requires slightly fewer documentation requirements, as it is assumed that businesses that take the effort to obtain one are less likely to be deceptive. Failure to register will result in your messages being blocked or filtered by carriers. Because there are very few carriers and the registration process is very strict, I have found that without registration, almost all the text messages you send will be blocked and never received. Canada has rules similar to those in the US, but they are slightly stricter regarding implied consent. They also set a time limit on consent—usually 6 months—that doesn’t exist in the US. Commercial messages must also include your full contact information, typically via a link to your website at the end of the message. Instructions for unsubscribing should be included in every commercial text or via the link.  Like email, people can mark your text messages as spam. Mobile carriers use automated systems to track these complaints and review your full message history to determine whether your phone number should be temporarily blacklisted. In serious cases, the company that sends your messages, such as Twilio, might block your number while a review is in progress. Because there are few carriers, they have significant influence and can unilaterally block any phone number based on even a single complaint. For these reasons, text messages are useful when responding to an inquiry from a prospect or client, following up with a past client, or reaching out to someone in your sphere. However, they are not appropriate for soliciting strangers to whom you have no permission to text. ## In-Person Face-to-face interaction remains the gold standard for communication. It lets you present yourself in the best possible light and better interpret your prospect’s feedback. Academic studies show that 50% to 90% of communication is nonverbal. When you meet someone in person, you can observe body language cues, which makes you more convincing and authoritative than you could be over the phone. Some meetings, such as those at a coffee shop or a grocery store, happen by chance. When meeting someone unexpectedly, the goal is to strengthen the relationship. You can do this by gathering contact information and sharing your business card. Unlike a phone call or an email, where communication is ongoing, an in-person meeting does not automatically provide an opportunity to follow up. Another common form of direct contact is door-knocking, where you walk through a neighborhood and introduce yourself. A good time to do this is when you get a new listing in the area, before an open house, or after a closing. You can mention the new listing and invite neighbors to view the home. You can even ask if they know anyone who might be interested in buying. There are other situations where you know someone's address but have not yet met them in person. This might be the case for an expired listing or a For Sale By Owner (FSBO) listing. In those cases, knocking on the door empty-handed might result in a slammed door. Instead, consider bringing a valuable item, such as a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) or a presentation packet you are delivering by hand. Offer something before asking for something. Other face-to-face meetings are carefully scheduled appointments, such as a listing presentation, an offer presentation, or a meeting to prepare an offer. In each case, you should prepare in advance. By using cloud file storage integrated with your CRM, you can always have your contracts ready for signature. You also need to anticipate common questions and objections. Additionally, have a clear goal for these meetings. What exactly do you want to accomplish before the meeting ends? While new agents spend much of their time trying to get in front of prospects, experienced agents can face the opposite problem. It is easy to become overwhelmed with meetings. You can only meet so many people in person while maintaining the high level of professionalism you pride yourself on. To address this dilemma, several strategies are available. Listing appointments are typically held at the listed home. However, other appointments, such as offer presentations, can be conducted in your office. This approach can allow you to schedule multiple appointments back-to-back and reduce your commute time. You can use your real estate CRM’s calendar to keep track of your commitments and their locations. Additionally, your smartphone can account for travel time between appointments and remind you when to leave one place to arrive at the next. While traditional face-to-face meetings are a hallmark of the real estate industry, you can leverage technology to expand your business beyond the limits of physical presence. This includes virtual consultations and tours. Successful growth also often involves delegation and team building. You can hire administrative staff to handle paperwork and transaction coordinators to manage deal flow. You can also utilize buyer’s agents to conduct in-person showings. Maintaining a balanced approach that includes in-person meetings lets you maximize the advantages of direct contact while reducing the inefficiencies that can come with relying solely on face-to-face interactions. ## Special Occasions > “Choose a reasonable number of people to actually speak with by phone > or in person daily from your database. Five or fewer is recommended, > though you’ll need to dial a larger number to make those five real > contacts.” —Tim & Julie Harris, *Harris Rules* A surprising statistic is that only 9% of realtors consistently stay in touch with clients after closing[40]. Your past clients are your best opportunities for referrals and repeat business. The longer you are in the industry, the more you can draw on the extensive goodwill you have built with your satisfied past clients. Many agents are unsure how to transition from a strictly professional relationship to a trusted friend and advisor after closing. This chapter shows how to turn everyday moments into opportunities to stay in touch and build friendships. First, you’ll learn how regular contact fosters loyalty and encourages repeat business. Next, you’ll discover how personal events and holidays help you stay connected with current and former clients. Finally, you’ll see how to use your CRM to plan and follow through consistently. By following these steps, you’ll create a steady flow of communication that keeps you top of mind. When your friends need good real estate advice, you’ll always be there for them. And remember—you are never too busy for their referrals! ## Christmas Cards Sending Christmas cards through the postal mail is one of the most effective ways to connect with people in your sphere of influence. Christmas cards make a meaningful impact for a small investment. The value of these cards goes beyond politeness; they leverage a powerful psychological principle. In 1974, sociologist Phillip Kunz sent about 600 Christmas cards to strangers, and nearly 200 people responded, many with personal notes and family photos. Some continued sending cards for over 15 years. This reaction was due to what social scientists call the norm of reciprocity. When someone does something for us, we feel compelled to return the favor. Dr. Robert Cialdini later identified reciprocity as one of the six universal principles of influence in his seminal book *Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion*. For real estate professionals, the message is clear: Christmas cards are special. They help build lasting relationships, strengthen trust, and keep you top of mind with clients and your network over the long term. The best way to start is to create a “Christmas” category in your contacts list and add everyone you’d like to send a Christmas card to. The annual review of your Christmas list is a great opportunity to tidy up your database. If you’re hesitant to send a card to someone, they probably don’t belong in your database. Your CRM can filter your contact database to show contacts without a mailing address. That way, you can call these people and gather their mailing addresses. This is a great reason to make a quick call to check in. You never know, they might just need your services or know someone who needs a trusted agent. It’s the ideal time of year to reconnect with old friends, distant family, and past clients. While I use the term Christmas, you can send winter holiday cards if you prefer to keep your holiday greetings neutral. Suppose a large part of your database is non-Christian. In that case, you might also create a second category, “WinterHoliday,” and send one card to the “Christmas” group and a different one to your “WinterHoliday” group. There’s something special about Christmas cards[41]. People love receiving them and display them prominently where guests are likely to see them. Go all out with glitter and bling. No other medium lets you send a piece of mail that recipients proudly display for others to see. Do it tastefully, and your card becomes free advertising that can inspire a referral. For this to work, commit fully to the season. The more beautiful and festive the card, the better. Avoid turning it into a marketing piece with your face on the cover. This isn’t a Bud Light ad. It’s your heartfelt wish for the recipient to enjoy a wonderful holiday. In many ways, your role as a real estate agent is to help people find their perfect home. ‘Home’ is created when people make space for each other in their hearts. It’s about being with loved ones who matter most and feeling accepted. For many, Christmas is the one time of year when scattered family and friends come together intentionally. A house is more than just an address — it’s the foundation of tradition, a refuge for comfort, and the main stage where shared moments become lasting legacies. Your CRM can help you organize and print mailing labels when it’s time to send cards. Use the “Christmas” category you created. You can even print directly on the envelopes if you prefer. Don’t diminish the experience with generic salutations like “Current Resident” or “To Whom It May Concern.” That language disrespects the holiday and the sentiment. Address your card to the household, not just an individual. When you add the spouse field to each contact record, your real estate CRM can address envelopes like this: “Jack and Cindy Smith.” A generic CRM will not get this right. It may produce something like “Jack Smith, Engineer, Apple Computer,” which looks too businesslike. A generic tool may even send a separate Christmas card to each family member, undermining the idea of a family. A real estate specific CRM will excel here. > **The Postal Prowess Secret:** Use your annual Christmas card mailing to update your address book. Use your CRM to print “Address Service Requested” on your envelopes. That way, if a past client has moved, the post office will forward you the card and send you their new address. This helps you discover when a client has moved. When sending your card, use First-Class stamps and include your return address. The postal service allows you to add an endorsement, or directive, to your envelope. If you add a note, “Return Service Requested,” to your card, it will not be forwarded if someone moves; instead, it will be returned to you with the new address. This is useful because the default for First-Class is to forward for a period of time, typically six months. The endorsement “Address Service Requested” works a bit differently. It allows you to forward email while still receiving notifications. Choose the option that best matches your goal: either to force returns or to enable forwarding with updates. Removing invalid addresses is an effective way to update your contact list and clean your database. If someone moved without your help, consider removing them from your database. Some people will also send you cards. Check the return addresses on the cards you receive to see if anyone has moved, especially out of state or out of the city where you operate. That is an excellent second way to update physical mailing addresses each year around the holidays. A second effective strategy is to send “thank you” cards by postal mail. Order several hundred thank-you cards with envelopes from a print shop. You can add personal notes and send them as a “thank you” whenever you connect with someone. This is an excellent way to show you care and are willing to put in a little extra effort to recognize others. The impact of handwritten notes sent by postal mail should not be underestimated. They offer an old-world charm that email cannot replicate. Greeting cards build goodwill and make recipients happy when they receive one. It is also another way to maintain the accuracy of your address book. Some third-party services send physical greeting cards on your behalf. Well-known options include SendOutCards and Sendsations. If you choose one of these platforms, use your real estate CRM’s export features to generate a mailing list of names, addresses, and birthdays, ready to upload to these greeting card services. Then you can automatically arrange for birthday cards to be sent on the correct date. ## Birthdays While Christmas cards are the most common greeting cards, you should also consider sending birthday cards. Who doesn’t like getting a greeting card in the mail that wishes them a happy birthday? This is another perfect opportunity to say “hi” to someone you know. Your real estate CRM can print mailing labels for birthday cards and track who you’ve sent them to. Birthday cards are also yet another opportunity to find out if someone has moved. > **The Birthday Bank Secret:** A birthday call is a great reason to reconnect with past clients. Eventually, when the time is right, they’ll contact you for business because showed that you care. You are their friend who also happens to be a real estate agent. Remembering a client’s birthday is a good reason to call. The main goal isn’t just to send a greeting; it’s to use the occasion as a sincere reason for a friendly chat. These conversations show you care and may also reveal important life events. For example, if a client mentions they’re turning 65, it may subtly suggest they’re thinking about retirement and moving to a warmer place. Such talks may also uncover other life events, such as a promotion, a new baby, or a desire to downsize — all of which could require your services. —«◊»— ### Lance Lubin In St. Petersburg, Florida, Lance Lubin, co-owner of Team Realty, has built a business on a tradition everyone celebrates annually. For more than two decades, Lance and his wife, MJ, have sent birthday cards and personally called each client to sing “Happy Birthday.” Lance is a barbershop quartet singer, so it came naturally to use his voice as a gift. The client’s birthday songs began as a thoughtful gesture and quickly became their signature touch. “It’s sad but amazing how many people tell us we’re the only ones who called them that day—even before their own kids,” Lance says. Using their CRM, the team tracks every client’s birthday. Their assistant handles scheduling, but Lance and MJ always make the calls themselves, which gives them a good pretext to strike up a conversation after their song. Lance says he draws on Dale Carnegie’s FORD method—Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams—during these conversations. Over the years, clients have come to eagerly anticipate their serenade; one even answers the phone with, “Start singing!” By using his talent and the consistency of his CRM to track birthdays, Lance and his wife can call every client every year. —«◊»— There are many ways to reach out. A handwritten card is a charming, tangible gesture people appreciate. A text message is effective because of its high open rate, but it requires careful handling. Sending a simple “Happy Birthday!” text is a missed opportunity. To make it more meaningful, consider adding an open-ended question that invites a reply, such as “How have you been?” This transforms a basic greeting into the start of a conversation. You can also send birthday wishes through social media platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn. This method offers many of the same conversational benefits as a text message and is another excellent way to stay connected. You can buy birthday cards in bulk at your local dollar store. The cost of sending birthday cards to friends, relatives, and past clients is low and helps build goodwill with those you know, increasing the likelihood of referrals and repeat business. You can expect to receive at least one listing each year from this effort, which provides a great return on investment. Some real estate CRMs include an eCard library with birthday eCards you can send via email. These are a convenient option for contacts without physical addresses. They’re quick to send and cost nothing extra. While eCards are helpful, I still feel that a physical greeting card sent by mail makes a more lasting impression. A phone call remains the best way to wish someone a happy birthday because it allows for real interaction. It’s the only method that enables a spontaneous, back-and-forth conversation where you can truly listen and connect. Even if your call goes to voicemail, the effort to reach out personally means a lot. For your most important past clients and referrers, consider pairing a personal phone call with a handwritten card for maximum impact. If there’s one day of the year to call someone, it’s definitely to wish them a happy birthday. Ultimately, whichever method you choose, the key principles for your birthday outreach are consistency, timeliness, and a personal touch. Your CRM helps ensure you stay on schedule and consistent, but it is your genuine effort to connect as a friend that builds trust and leads to future business. ## Closing Anniversaries The purchase of a home is a major milestone for your client. For a real estate agent, the anniversary of that purchase is a great opportunity to reconnect with past buyers and see how they are doing. It’s a personal reminder of the important life event you helped facilitate, and it’s a perfect moment to reaffirm your role as their lifelong real estate advisor. Use your CRM to remind you each year of the anniversary of every closing you have participated in. You can also use your CRM to send an anniversary eCard from your CRM’s content library. I have found that the best way to acknowledge this day is with a personal visit. Consider stopping by with a small, thoughtful gift, such as a bottle of wine or tulip bulbs for your buyer’s garden. Spend time with your buyer and let them show you all the improvements they have made over the past year. Letting them showcase their new landscaping or fresh paint keeps you top of mind. This visit is also a great opportunity to add real value, such as bringing an informal CMA to show how their investment has increased in value. If the home has appreciated considerably, it might be enough to eliminate the need to pay Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI), which lenders require for conventional loans when the buyer’s down payment is less than 20 percent of the purchase price. You might also be able to provide contractor recommendations for someone considering a remodeling project. Sharing your industry connections offers long-term value. Finally, remember to “adopt” the buyer from any transaction where you represented the seller. Their agent has likely forgotten them, giving you a perfect opportunity to stay in touch. ## Baby Shower Why would you volunteer to organize and host a baby shower? It’s a nice way to show your friendship to the mom-to-be. You also have the chance to meet the mother’s friends in a social setting. You can use your CRM to collect contact information, since you’ll need to send invitations to everyone. You can print mailing labels, send a bulk email invitation, and follow up with a reminder email right before the event. Offering to organize a baby shower is a valuable opportunity to expand your network. > **Stork Sign Secret:** After the baby is born, offer to put up a celebratory stork sign in your friend’s front yard. This thoughtful, public gesture is a great way to celebrate a milestone and demonstrate to the neighborhood that you are a caring, community-minded agent. The expectant mother might need more space for her family. Is their current place large enough to accommodate the new baby? Additionally, they may be thinking ahead and considering that the school district they live in might not be the best fit. There are many reasons someone expecting a child might consider moving. ## Client Appreciation Events As you become a more established real estate agent, your referral network will grow. Hosting client appreciation events is one of the most popular and effective ways to thank people for referrals and repeat business. A client appreciation event is a gathering, party, or activity you host for your contacts in your sphere of influence (SOI). From the attendees’ perspective, the main goal is to show your continued appreciation for the referrals and repeat business your friends have brought your way over the past year. Client events aren’t just for past clients; you should invite everyone in your SOI. The easiest way to decide who to include is to ask: would they recognize your name and accept a friend request if you sent one on Facebook? If the answer is yes, they are a good candidate for an invitation to your next client appreciation event. Generally, you should be as inclusive as possible to maximize your benefit from these events. These events can take many forms, from simple, low-cost gestures to more elaborate gatherings. Many agents host a “Thanksgiving Pie Giveaway,” where clients stop by the office to pick up a free pie. Family-friendly seasonal events are also popular. You could host a “Pumpkin Patch” in the fall with hay bales and a photographer, or hold “Photos with Santa” right before Christmas. Other popular options include hosting a wine or craft beer tasting, organizing an outdoor picnic or ice cream social, or planning a group outing to a local sports game. You could also run a DIY home improvement workshop or a financial planning seminar to add educational value and position yourself as a local expert. Choose an activity that promotes interaction. An event overly focused on the activity itself, such as a movie or a theater performance, may limit your ability to interact one-on-one with attendees. The possibilities are endless, and once you start using your creativity, you are certain to come up with many ways to show your appreciation. —«◊»— ### Chris Warhurst In the sunny, scenic community of St. George, Utah, Realtor Chris Warhurst has discovered a simple but powerful way to show appreciation: pumpkin pies. Every year, Chris hosts her “Thanksgiving Pie Giveaway”, where she invites past clients to stop by her downtown office before the holiday and pick up a freshly baked pumpkin pie. “It’s a small gesture, but it shows my clients how much I appreciate them,” Chris says. Each year, she gives out more than 100 pies to her clients. This gesture has turned into an annual tradition that all her past clients look forward to. Behind the scenes, Chris uses her CRM to send personalized invitations through bulk email, track RSVPs, and follow up after the event. She says, “It’s important to keep my database organized, so I don’t forget anyone, or else I’ll be stuck eating a lot of pies.” Chris’s dedication to each of her clients extends beyond holiday festivities. She provides each client with a Closing Binder containing contracts, appraisals, utility details, and inspection reports. Additionally, nearly every transaction includes a home warranty, providing clients peace of mind after closing. “I want my clients to feel supported at every step,” she says. “I always want to be giving my clients an experience they want to remember.” In a market as vibrant and competitive as St. George, surrounded by red rock landscapes, Chris stands out through her big and small heartfelt gestures. —«◊»— For your attendees, the main goal of these events is to give you a chance to say thank you. For you, the key benefit is that it solves one of your biggest problems: how to stay in touch with your SOI without feeling like a “salesperson.” Many agents don’t keep in touch with past clients because they don’t want to constantly ask for referrals. The last thing you want is for people to cross the street when they see you, fearing a sales pitch. An event addresses this dilemma by giving you a compelling, non-salesy reason to connect with your SOI. You’re calling to invite someone to a party! This way, you give rather than ask. That is a much more powerful position from a referral standpoint. By giving first, you activate the principle of reciprocity. People in your network are much more likely to recommend your services in return and to express appreciation for your invitation. They don’t even need to attend your event for you to benefit from the rule of reciprocity. Many agents think the main goal of a client appreciation event is the event itself, but that’s not accurate. The primary purpose is to help you connect with everyone in your network. When done well, a single client appreciation event allows you to reach each person multiple times over one or two months. Think of the event as a powerful social tool for staying in touch without feeling awkward. If you had chosen not to host a client appreciation event and instead called everyone in your SOI every 90 days to say “hi,” the conversations might be more awkward, and you’d be less likely to build genuine connections. Your calls could even be seen as self-serving. But with an event, you have a reason to call them, send an email reminder, mail a printed invitation, and maybe even text them. That’s at least four touches per event. This helps you stay top of mind with the people who know you, so if they or someone they know needs a real estate agent during that time, your name is more likely to come to mind. While many agents host just one event in the fall or late winter, you should consider offering three or even four each year. Why? Because the typical lead incubation cycle for referrals lasts about 90 days. So, by the time you’ve followed up on the referrals from one client appreciation event, you’re ready to attend the next. There are many types of appreciation events you can plan, and you should consider a variety throughout the year. This will eliminate any concerns about party fatigue for you or the attendees. Most common events follow a “come-and-go” format. This setup lets attendees arrive and leave at their convenience within a set timeframe, rather than requiring everyone to be present at once. The “Pumpkin Patch,” “Photos with Santa,” and “Thanksgiving Pie Giveaway” are great examples of this relaxed approach. The main benefit is that this style is very low-risk and reduces stress for you as the host. Unlike a formal “sit-down” dinner, which can be costly and risky if attendance is low, a come-and-go event remains successful even with sporadic attendance because guests arrive at different times. This method not only cuts costs and stress but also provides more convenience for your clients, who will appreciate the flexibility. Another option is to support or adopt an existing event rather than create your own. You can sponsor a local sports team, promote a community event like a bake sale at a nearby school, collaborate with a local hospital on a blood drive, or organize a canned food drive. Be sure to contact the organization and obtain permission before promoting the event on its behalf. For example, if you are known as an agent who cares about pets, you could sponsor a pet adoption day where the local animal shelter brings in adoptable animals. You could promote this event on the back of your real estate flyers and to your sphere of influence. What makes this a particularly compelling cause is that many people looking to adopt a pet are also inclined to appreciate homeownership, where their pet would be most comfortable. So, you are not only doing a good deed and engaging your sphere of influence through communication, but you are also aligning yourself with a pro-home cause. You could also support a local business by offering a promotional coupon or ticket, such as a free ice cream at a nearby shop or a complimentary drink at a local bar during a designated happy hour for your community. These events build community. They also let you align with good causes and are particularly valuable if you are personally aligned with a specific charity or cause. Planning for these events should be done several months in advance. First, you need to decide what you will be doing and when. Some events, such as outdoor picnics, should be held when the weather is suitable. Other events, such as a pie giveaway, are typically held around Christmas and Thanksgiving. Next, identify who will co-sponsor the event with you. Review your closings from the past year to identify which parties were involved in each transaction, including loan officers, home inspectors, insurance agents, title companies, and others. These are the people who also benefit when you close a deal. Use your CRM’s referral-tracking feature to find out who would gain the most from you doing more business. Usually, a single additional closing is enough to justify co-sponsoring an event with you. Contact these individuals and ask for a commitment to help cover the costs. Also ask whether they will assist in promoting the event by reaching out to their sphere of influence. The more attendees, the better, and this is definitely a “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours” situation. You should also consider reaching out to local businesses as sponsors. For example, if you plan to host an event at the local brewery, contact the owner to discuss arrangements. You could cover the cost of the first two drinks by creating a coupon the bartender would accept. You would then pay based on the number of coupons redeemed. Since you are promoting their business, you could request a discount on your fee in exchange for Facebook promotion or a few Google reviews. This is an excellent way to support a local business while also providing a venue for your event. Hiring a professional photographer for your key events is a highly effective strategy that serves two main purposes. First, it provides a steady stream of high-quality, professional content for your social media marketing, showcasing your successful, well-attended events. Second, it offers a valuable, tangible gift to your clients. This approach works especially well for family-friendly events—such as photos with Santa or the Easter Bunny—or for formal galas where clients would appreciate a professional portrait. The “Mastery” strategy involves partnering with the photographer. You can pay a flat fee for the photographer’s time and, in return, offer one or two free digital images to each guest. The photographer can then generate additional revenue by upselling larger photo packages and providing prints directly to your clients, which can often help lower your upfront costs. If you haven’t already, create a category named “AppreciationParty” in your CRM to represent who you will be inviting. It may be best to create multiple categories, with each representing a block of 500 people you plan to invite. For example, the first 500 people would be in the category “AppreciationParty1”, the second in “AppreciationParty2”, and so on. By breaking your invitee list into blocks of 500, you can send bulk emails, print mailing labels, and make follow-up calls more easily. Next, create your party invitation. The easiest and most practical approach is to design a single image that includes all the details of your event. It should include the date, location, your contact information, branding, and the sponsor’s name. A good way to do this is to use Canva and an AI tool like Google’s Gemini. You want something that looks visually appealing and inviting. The image should work well for email, text messages, Facebook posts, and printing as a postcard or envelope insert. This one image will be the centerpiece of your invitation strategy. Once you’ve created invitations for one or two events, you can use them as templates for future invitations. While your first few may take some time to create, they will become much quicker with practice. Next, you should create a task plan in your CRM—a checklist of activities you will carry out to ensure your party runs smoothly. You should allow at least 1 month, and preferably 2 months, of lead time before the party to fully implement your plan. You can use a similar checklist for each of your events, though each will have slight differences, such as confirming the venue and coordinating food and drink logistics. With your party invitation and invitee list ready, send a bulk “save the date” email to everyone through your CRM. This isn’t a formal invitation, just a heads-up about the event so people know something’s coming. It also kicks off your phone campaign. Start calling everyone in your network to inform them about the upcoming event. Pace yourself—aim to make just 5 or 10 calls each day. Use the last contact date in your CRM to track who you’ve reached and who still needs a call. If you’re already calling and visiting people for birthday greetings or home anniversary wishes, you can naturally also mention the event and save time. The best way to handle your contact strategy is to call everyone; if they don’t answer, leave a voicemail. Let them know a party invitation is on its way. They don’t need to attend or RSVP, but if they can, you’d love to see them there. If you leave a voicemail, you can also send a text message with the invitation image. If you reach them by phone, it’s a great opportunity to start a conversation. If they can’t make the party, that’s okay. You still had the chance to talk with them, and they still feel appreciated. You still achieved your main goal: to touch everyone on your SOI every 90 days in a way that isn’t irritating. You may not have mailing addresses for a few people. Take the opportunity to collect that information in your CRM while you are on the phone. You should send a printed invitation by postal mail a few weeks before the event. Many people prefer a physical invitation because it serves as a reminder they can set aside. You can use the envelope printing and mailing-label features in your real estate CRM to organize your mailing. You will also want to send a bulk email invitation to everyone in your real estate CRM. Your social media strategy should include several posts on Facebook and other platforms, such as X and LinkedIn. The first is a save-the-date post, followed by the invitation, which you should post a few times. After the event, share photos to demonstrate its success and that everyone had a great time. You can also use Facebook to communicate with people via Direct Messaging (DM) with whom you do not have another way to connect. If you prefer to use a third-party mailing service to send your email invitations or to print and mail your invitations, you can export your mailing list from your CRM. Many postcard companies can print and mail your invitations at a reasonable cost. There are also third-party services that handle sending party invitations via email, such as Evite, Paperless Post, and Punchbowl. These services offer several advantages over using your CRM, especially if you want to automate sending initial invitations, follow-up reminders, text message reminders, and automatically track RSVPs. At the event, you’ll want a way to track attendees. You can repurpose your CRM’s open house form or call capture feature as a digital sign-in. Some events will naturally require registration, such as a pie giveaway or ticket distribution for drinks. For more free-flowing events, you can run a raffle to boost registration. Choose one or more registered participants to win a prize, such as a gift card to a local restaurant. If your event is time-limited, consider hiring a greeter so you can mingle with guests and build relationships rather than being stuck at the door. These events are also an opportunity to ask attendees for something. For example, you could hire a videographer to record live testimonials from clients about how well you have helped them buy or sell real estate. You could then post those videos on social media. Your post-event strategy is where the most valuable final actions take place. Within 48 hours, send a thank-you email to all attendees, which your CRM can automate using the attendance log you created. More importantly, update the last contact date for everyone who attended and add notes on their attendance and any conversations you had with them, especially regarding potential referrals. You should immediately follow up with calls to anyone who mentioned needing your services or provided a referral at the event. Your final step is to use social media to boost your event’s success. Share an album with photos from the event and tag every attendee. This is a great way to keep your special post visible longer, while everyone you’ve tagged sees it — and so do all their friends — showcasing how you give back and strengthening your role as a connected community leader. This is especially helpful for events with a charity component, as it gives you a positive halo effect from being associated with a good deed. After hosting a few events like this, you can also use advanced strategies to boost the success of your client appreciation events. You might turn a high-end listing’s open house into a family-friendly block party. Bring in a bouncy house, hire a face painter, and bring a Taco Truck to serve free food for visitors. Such an event creates a family-friendly vibe that highlights neighborly connections and could even help sell the house in just one weekend. It’s impactful and unique, helping you stand out from the competition. A client appreciation event is a powerful strategic tool. Its main purpose is to turn your social capital—the trust and relationships you’ve built—into economic capital through referrals. Academic research shows that referred clients are more valuable, with higher profit margins and lower churn rates than clients acquired through other channels. This research also identified a process called “better matching,” which shows that your most profitable referrals come from your most experienced, high-value clients. These “Top100” clients already understand your professional value and are well-suited to your business. They are uniquely positioned to evaluate their social networks and identify prospects who fit financially and personally. That is why you should focus your best efforts on activating these specific, high-value referrers. While most events should be for your entire Sphere of Influence (SOI), you can use your CRM’s categories to organize smaller, more exclusive events for your “Top100” list. This offers a high-value reward for your most important contacts and complements the regular 90-day follow-up calls you already make to this group. Examples include an “adults-only” happy hour, a “Moms and Mimosas” breakfast, or tickets to a ball game. This segmentation is smart because it reduces the risk of planning a “sit-down” event for your entire database. It also conveys a sense of exclusivity to your Top100 list, giving them clear evidence that you especially appreciate all they do. If unfamiliar people, such as neighbors at a community event, show up, see it as an opportunity to meet new people. Your main goal is to connect with others. Introduce yourself, give them your business card, collect their info for the raffle, and treat each new person as an opportunity to find your next client. You might also ask attendees to bring a friend — and, of course, the whole family. The more, the merrier when it comes to client appreciation events. This is especially useful if you are targeting a specific geographic farm neighborhood. You can host events at the local clubhouse or sponsor a community garage sale. This lets you meet the neighbors, add them to your database, and capture their contact information in your CRM. You can also host personalized events where you visit your sphere of influence and deliver something. Halloween marks the end of fall and the start of winter, as well as the beginning of the holiday season. This is an ideal time for a neighborhood door-to-door campaign. Buy a few dozen small pumpkins and grab a small red wagon. Attach your business card to each pumpkin with a ribbon or a toothpick, then walk your geographic farm, handing out pumpkins. Take time to stop and chat with neighbors. This is a great way to connect with your community. If you had a few listings in that neighborhood last season, you can share the news about the new neighbors. You can track the success of your events using your CRM’s referral-tracking features. A good goal is for each event to generate at least one referral or repeat client. Use this data to identify your “most fertile” contacts and update your “Top100” category list each year. You should also use the flurry of communications you have sent to maintain the accuracy of your contacts database. Some postal mail will be returned as people have moved. Call those people and confirm their new address. For email addresses that have bounced, reach out by phone to obtain their latest email address. A change in mailing address, email address, or phone number could indicate that the person has moved, and that is something worth discussing when you speak with them over the phone. If you do not plan to update this information for anyone, add the “Cold” category to them so they can be removed from your Contacts database at the end of the year. Treat an appreciation event as a repeatable system rather than a one-time celebration. This means establishing a clear process, from initial planning and budgeting through event logistics to, most importantly, post-event evaluation. This system lays the groundwork for consistent planning. The real power of this approach is that it helps you stay regularly in touch with your Sphere of Influence (SOI) without coming across as an annoying salesperson.  This event-based system is especially important for agents with a large, established SOI. As your sphere expands, leveraging mass events such as client appreciation gatherings becomes the most efficient way to maintain contact with people. Your CRM enables efficient management of this large-scale, “mass-personal” communication through task plans for promotions, bulk emails for invitations, and segmentation categories. It provides a single, powerful reason to connect systematically with every person in your database, ensuring no one is overlooked. Ultimately, client appreciation events are the most effective and enjoyable way to activate your database. They give back to your community, build strong social proof of your success, and create a low-pressure environment for requesting reviews and referrals. By using your CRM to organize, promote, track, and follow up, you are building a repeatable, predictable system that generates long-term loyalty and referrals, fueling your business for years to come. # From Listing to Loyalty > “Great agents know that their job isn’t over when the transaction > closes. After you’ve achieved the sale, closed the deal, cashed the > commission check, and spent the money, it’s time to start fortifying > your client relationship.” —Dirk Zeller, *Success as a Real Estate Agent For Dummies* Experienced agents know that listings are the foundation of their business. In this chapter, I will show you how to use a single listing as a marketing flywheel to generate more transactions. First, you’ll learn to track listing opportunities with a structured CRM-based process. Next, you’ll discover how to generate leads through yard signs, flyers, and call capture with CRM integrations. Finally, you’ll learn how to prepare for the closing process and what actions to take for your client after closing. By the end of this chapter, you’ll understand how to use your CRM at each stage of the listing journey, from acquisition to post-closing follow-up. ## Getting Listings OK, so through your diligent prospecting, you’ve secured a listing appointment. Now what? A listing appointment gets your foot in the door. However, you’re almost certainly competing with other agents, and the seller may have objections or hesitations. Your goal during the appointment is to help the seller choose you as their listing agent. Your success isn’t guaranteed, but with careful planning, you can significantly increase your odds. The first step is to send a professional pre-listing package to the seller’s home before the appointment. This small gesture demonstrates your commitment and helps you stand out. To make a memorable impression, drive by the home beforehand to take a photo. Using a label printer like a Dymo, print the photo of their home directly onto the label for the front of the package. This detail shows you’re already focused on their specific property. The package should be stored in a high-quality folder, along with a few of your business cards, a branded pen, and a sample listing agreement. > **The Property Picture Secret:** Before delivering your pre-listing package, drive by the seller’s home and take a photo of it. Print the photo on the label for the front of the package. This demonstrates you’ve done your homework and appreciate the uniqueness of the property for sale. Based on your past experience, create a “Listing Acquisition” Task Plan. This is the list of tasks you need to complete to maximize your chances of becoming the listing agent. Once the appointment is scheduled, launch this plan to automate your pre-listing workflow. Tasks should include: “Take Drive-by Photo,” “Print Branded Pre-Listing Folder,” “Run Seller Net Calculation,” and “Pull Comparable Properties.” This ensures every detail is executed consistently, allowing you to focus on building rapport and handling objections during the meeting. The pre-listing package must be carefully curated to generate interest and demonstrate your credentials. Include a personalized cover letter that highlights your competitive advantages. Add your professional biography and details about your brokerage. Showcase your deep understanding of the local market with materials such as walkability scores and school rankings. A key element is a professionally designed marketing brochure. This document justifies your commission by clearly outlining the specific, high-impact activities you will undertake to sell the home. Detail your syndication strategy across major real estate websites, your social media promotion plan, and the benefits of the MLS. Highlight your high-touch services, such as professional photography, drone footage, 3D walkthroughs, and video tours. Consider creating tiered marketing packages. Reserve premium services, such as hiring a contractor to produce professional floor plans, for higher-end listings. This demonstrates a tailored approach and helps clients understand the value you offer. Strategically, omit two items from this package: first, exclude the Comparative Market Analysis (CMA); second, exclude a general market conditions report. The goal of the package is to secure an in-person meeting to discuss pricing and strategy in detail. You can handle the listing appointment using either a one-step or a two-step process. A one-step appointment combines the home viewing and your presentation into a single visit. However, a two-step process is often more effective. The first step is a preliminary visit to tour the home and build essential rapport. Most importantly, use this time to understand the seller’s underlying motivations. Let them be the star of the conversation. Ask why they are selling. Is it a divorce, a job transfer, or an upgrade? Do they have a specific timeline? Will they be living in the home while it is for sale? Understanding whether their priority is the highest possible price or the speed of the sale is crucial for framing your entire strategy. Your CRM is the perfect tool for logging these critical notes during or immediately after this initial conversation. The second step is the formal listing presentation, where you present your data-driven strategy. Instead of a single, detailed presentation, I recommend three separate, easy-to-understand documents. The first is a Market Condition Report that summarizes current market trends for the selling season and can be updated monthly and reused across all listings. The second is a Services Offered document, a brief summary of your services that serves as a handy leave-behind. The third is the CMA, tailored to the seller’s property and generated using fresh data from your MLS. Be prepared with the listing contract ready for signing. Saving this analysis in the client’s record creates a lasting record of your initial pricing advice, serving as a helpful reference for future adjustments as market conditions change. > **The Proper Price Secret:** A CMA is useful, but nothing establishes a realistic price better than seeing the competition firsthand. After showing your seller the data, take them on a tour of the top three competing homes on the market. This gives them a buyer’s-eye view and makes your pricing recommendation seem more aligned with market reality. Your presentation style should be interactive. A brief back-and-forth helps you identify any objections the seller may have. Your ability to identify and address these barriers directly is crucial to securing the listing. During the meeting, walk the seller through the CMA to determine a recommended price range. To make the analysis tangible, identify the top three homes a buyer would likely see besides the seller's own. Before setting a final price, offer to show your seller the Seller Net Sheet from your CRM to provide a clear financial picture of the cash they will receive from the sale of their property. Your listing presentation has one goal: turning a prospect into a client. By using your real estate CRM to track every step, you can deliver a consistent presentation to each client. A systematic approach makes you look professional and organized, leaving nothing to chance when managing your client’s most valuable asset. This methodical execution, powered by your CRM, ultimately boosts your chances of closing the deal and builds a strong foundation for a successful transaction grounded in trust. ## Listing Management Immediately after the contract is signed, you can create a listing record in your CRM, which automatically triggers the task plan for your new listing. This plan manages the transition to active marketing. Tasks would typically include: “Get Key from Seller,” “Make Copy of Key,” “Install Sign and Lockbox,” “Schedule Photos,” “Update MLS,” “Update Zillow,” “Create Flyer Design,” and so on. Using a task plan minimizes the risk of missing a step, accelerates time-to-market, and provides your client with a consistent, professional experience from day one. As a trusted advisor, you need to provide specific, actionable guidance on how best to prepare the property for sale. This includes decluttering, removing personal photos, and increasing light bulb wattage to make rooms feel brighter. Be honest about sensory details, such as odors from smoking or pets, that can kill a deal[42]. Emphasize curb appeal by making sure that the yard is well-maintained. You can advise on furniture placement, drawing on your experience and Feng Shui principles to create a more harmonious flow. Provide clear guidance on any repairs or improvements that would enhance the property’s salability. In most cases, it is wise to repair what is broken and, at most, apply a coat of paint. For older homes, recommend a home warranty to improve the property’s competitiveness. Finally, manage practical details, such as providing booties for visitors and documenting conveyances in your CRM to prevent disputes. A new listing is also a powerful tool for generating new business. Use it as a reason to reconnect with past clients in the area by dropping by with a flyer. At the same time, walk the neighborhood to hand out flyers and send “just listed” postcards to nearby homes. Throughout the process, your communication is key. As real estate author Dirk Zeller states, “The number one complaint sellers have about their agents is a lack of communication.” Proactive, consistent communication is vital for keeping your seller satisfied and engaged. Providing real-time feedback from showings, other agents, and prospective buyers is crucial to managing your listing. This steady flow of information helps justify strategic changes, such as price adjustments, by grounding them in direct market feedback rather than your opinion alone. Open houses are valuable for gathering direct, unbiased feedback from potential buyers. This firsthand insight is a powerful tool for refining your sales approach. They also provide objective data to share with your seller, especially when discussing possible price adjustments. Although some agents question their effectiveness in direct sales, experts like Gary Keller view open houses as a key lead-generation activity. Their purpose is twofold: to find a buyer for the property and to connect with other potential buyers and sellers in the neighborhood. My book, *Real Estate CRM Secrets*, provides an exhaustive, step-by-step system for running an open house to maximize lead capture. > **QR Code Secret:** A great way to strengthen your pre-listing package is to add a QR code that links to a landing page for sellers. This page can provide a brief video introduction, client testimonials, and a gallery of your past work. It’s a modern way to make a strong impression and give sellers a preview of your expertise before you even meet. The transaction management features of your real estate CRM help you manage your listings from a signed listing agreement through closing. The benefit of using a CRM is that it systematizes the process, ensuring you deliver a consistent level of service for each listing. Without the transaction management features in your CRM, there’s a higher risk of missing important details. Your CRM also allows you to scale your efforts to manage multiple listings and closings simultaneously. Finally, by organizing your efforts systematically, you become better at identifying which parts of this process can be delegated to an assistant or partner. Using the multi-user features of your CRM, you can still oversee the entire process. This second level of scaling offers the greatest opportunities to increase your total income, as you can leverage your capabilities far beyond what you might accomplish without a real estate CRM. You should use your CRM’s ability to upload files to securely store all critical listing documents, including the signed listing agreement, all seller disclosures (e.g., lead-based paint, property condition forms), and document any conveyances. Centralizing these files in your CRM makes them easily accessible from anywhere, so you can work from the office, at home, or at an open house. You can also easily send the files to other parties, such as a buyer agent or the closing company. By using the open house form and call-capture features in your CRM, you can create a visitor log that shows who has seen the property and their feedback. You can share this information with your client using the service report feature of your CRM. Over time, this feedback will help you and your client form an opinion about how competitive the property is compared with similar homes for sale in the same neighborhood and at a similar price. Issues can then be addressed based on feedback, enabling you to advise the seller with data rather than just your intuition. You should set up a touch-cycle task with your seller to maintain regular communication. Your client is likely eager for updates, and your ability to keep them informed will go a long way toward reducing the stress they are likely feeling. By sharing a service report link with your seller, you give them a real-time overview of the listing’s status, including completed and planned promotions, showings, and feedback. It also lists offers, completed tasks, and the parties involved in the transaction so far. This link gives your seller a clear view of activity around their home. As photos are taken, the sign is posted, the listing appears on MLS and Zillow, and open houses are scheduled, each event is documented in the report. If you don’t receive an offer within the first few months, you can use the service report as the basis for a conversation about a price adjustment or changes that might make the house more salable. Use your CRM to track the listing’s expiration date. While you might receive an all-cash offer that first weekend, be prepared for the possibility that it does not sell by the listing agreement deadline. Your CRM helps you understand your timeframe, enabling you to prepare your seller for a potential price adjustment and, if necessary, an extension of the listing agreement. The last thing you want is for three months to pass and for you to forget the listing agreement's expiration date! ## Yard Signs Yard signs are among your top marketing tools. They help you establish your presence in a neighborhood, attract leads from people interested in buying a home, and connect you with buyers who might be interested in other homes for sale. There are several ways to enhance your yard signs to maximize their impact. Several days before the open house, add an open house **sign rider** to inform passersby of the date and time. A sign rider is a smaller sign that attaches to the main “For Sale” yard sign to provide additional details. On the day of your open house, add balloons to the sign and post directional signs to guide traffic to the open house. Don’t forget to add a call capture rider if you are using that feature in your CRM. If your seller is offering a home warranty, that’s also a great sign rider opportunity. You can use your CRM to track which sign riders you have installed, so you can maximize their impact. What about a **flyer box**? Once common, its popularity has declined because installing one can decrease your call volume. Someone who picks up a flyer might decide the home isn’t a good fit and never calls, costing you a potential lead. That’s the main argument against placing a flyer outside the home. On the other hand, the argument for flyers is that neighbors and others who may not be personally interested in buying might pick one up and pass it to someone they know who could be interested. Since the flyer is a tangible item, it’s easier to obtain and share than other formats. This is especially helpful during an open house. I recommend a compromise: include an open house flyer in the box a few days before the open house. The flyer invites people to visit the home during the open house. For listings, a practical approach is to leave the price off your printed flyer. That way, a prospect still needs to use your call capture number to find out the price. You should also walk around the neighborhood, knock on neighbors’ doors, and distribute open house invitations. That would go a long way toward building your presence. Again, the goal is to create awareness that you are the expert in that neighborhood. If anyone is looking to buy or sell, they should contact you. You can help find a buyer for that listing. You might also bump into someone in the neighborhood who is interested in selling their home. I recommend mentioning that you can conduct a comparable market analysis—something like, “Home prices have really gone up recently. Have you considered seeing what your home is worth?” That could help you eliminate PMI or get a home equity loan. > **Solar Sign Secret:** To increase your yard sign’s visibility after dark, use a solar-powered or timer-controlled light. This detail is important because serious buyers are likely to drive through neighborhoods after work hours to evaluate the home’s nighttime appearance and curb appeal. The quality and size of your yard sign reflect your professional brand, so consider investing in a sturdy wood post rather than a simple metal frame. To boost nighttime visibility, use a solar-powered or timer-controlled light on your sign. This detail is crucial because serious buyers often drive through neighborhoods after work hours to assess nighttime curb appeal. Additionally, advise your sellers to keep their porch and exterior lights on throughout the evening for the same reason: a well-lit home appears more welcoming and attractive. Consider multiple yard signs if the back and side yards face a street. For example, a corner lot or a lot that abuts a street in the back. Your CRM can remind you when to put up and take down your yard sign, when to change your flyers, and when to put up and take down your sign rider for the open house. —«◊»— ### Glen Hagen In a competitive real estate market like Long Island, New York, Glen Hagen of Realty Connect USA learned how to be relentless. Before his career in real estate, Glen honed his negotiation skills at major media companies, including Paramount, MGM, and Viacom, where he sold TV shows to networks and negotiated multimillion-dollar deals. “I learned from some of the best negotiators in the business,” he says. “Now, I use those same skills to close deals other agents can’t.” While his negotiation skills are sharp, he still needs to identify counterparties. Which is why he says, “It all comes down to looking for people who want to buy or sell real estate - and do it with me,” Glen explains. “I can’t wait for them to call me. I have to find them.” In his client hunt, he began using his CRM systematically, keeping time-stamped notes and caller details, and scheduling follow-up tasks, enabling Glen to turn inquiries into leads. Even if a caller doesn’t commit right away, Glen’s system ensures they’re added to his CRM database, organized by category and follow-up stage. But this level of follow-up can wear on someone. While a “no” could turn to a “yes” tomorrow, it could also just stay a “no”. When Glen thinks of that, he responds with a smile, “Some will, some won’t, so what? You move on.” Glen Hagen’s strongest trait is his persistence in negotiations, and he uses his CRM and his system to provide him with enough people to negotiate with. —«◊»— Call capture offers several advantages over simply listing your mobile number on your yard sign. The key advantage is that prospects are more likely to call or text an automated helpline. Some prospects may hesitate to speak with a pushy agent or feel uncomfortable calling late at night. Automated call capture technology addresses both objections. Because the system operates 24/7, you can gather new leads even while you sleep. It can also collect a phone number and caller ID information without any input from you or the prospect. Even if someone hangs up, you still have their contact details. ## Flyers Flyers have been a staple of real estate marketing since the invention of the printing press. Agents often create a standard 8.5” x 11” flyer for distribution at open houses, placing it on a kitchen counter inside the home or displaying it in a flyer box attached to the yard sign. These materials are inexpensive and easy to produce with a personal printer or at a local print shop. Beyond traditional uses, flyers can serve more targeted, strategic purposes. For example, embedding a flyer image in an email is an effective way to conduct reverse prospecting. This strategy uses your MLS to identify agents with saved searches that match your new listing. You would then email your flyer to these agents and include a note such as, “I believe this house is a perfect match for one of your clients.” This proactive, laser-focused approach can generate immediate interest from agents already working with qualified buyers. A key strategic decision is whether to include pricing on your flyers. Although price is the most requested detail, leaving it off flyers can be a powerful lead-generation tool. Prospects who take a flyer might decide the home isn’t for them and never call back. However, if they need to contact you for pricing, you create an opportunity to connect. By directing them to a call-capture number, you can provide the information they need while collecting their phone number for follow-up. Texting an image of the flyer in response is always a good idea. This approach turns a curious passerby into a captured lead whom you can assist with other properties. An additional benefit is that priceless flyers are evergreen, saving you the cost of reprinting after a price reduction. Of course, the price is less of an issue if you are handing out flyers in person, where including it is perfectly acceptable. > **Flyer Funnel Secret:** Don’t include the price on your flyers. Instead, tell them they can get the current price by texting a three-digit code to your call capture phone number. This way, you avoid the need to update your flyers when the price changes, and you also automatically collect contact information in your CRM from anyone who calls. A well-executed flyer is a strong testament to your abilities as an agent. It is a tangible marketing tool you can give a seller to show your dedication to presenting their home in the best light. These flyers become part of your professional portfolio; you can reference them during listing presentations to demonstrate the quality and consistency of your work. Additionally, each flyer offers an opportunity to strengthen your personal brand. By including your company logo and a professional portrait, you create a cohesive, memorable image that clients associate with quality and expertise. For execution, your real estate CRM is the most efficient tool for creating professional flyers. A good CRM provides a library of pre-designed templates, which is helpful because you can see a sample before you begin. This lets you produce a polished flyer in minutes. This speed is a key advantage, as many agents waste valuable time perfecting custom designs. You don’t want to spend too much time fussing over a flyer. Your time is better spent ensuring the content, such as high-quality photos and engaging descriptions, is excellent. Since this work should already be prepared for the MLS, creating the flyer is simply a matter of filling in the template. Aim for good enough rather than perfection. Your clients and prospects will not notice minor design details. A modern approach is to add a QR code (also known as a Quick Response code) to your printed flyer. This QR code links to the online version’s squeeze page of your flyer. From there, you can gather contact details, offer a virtual tour, and share more photos and a floor plan. Expanding your content beyond print allows you to include more information and collect contact info more easily. Many CRMs provide **flyer templates** with a designated space for QR codes, making setup simple. While useful for printed flyers, QR codes are less effective when emailing a flyer, as a clickable link works better in that case. While the printed flyer remains a useful and effective tool, its role has evolved with the rise of the internet. Agents with their own websites should consider creating a one-page online property listing for each property, serving as an interactive digital flyer.  A more direct evolution of the flyer box is the call capture system, which offers significant strategic advantages over a traditional flyer box. The primary benefit is lead generation. While a paper flyer provides information anonymously, call capture instantly records the potential buyer’s phone number in your CRM, enabling immediate follow-up. Your prospect receives an electronic version of the flyer as an automated response when calling the hotline. This turns a passive sign into an active, 24/7 lead generator that captures contact information from every interested party. It also eliminates the ongoing task of refilling an empty flyer box. Additionally, it reduces printing costs, making it a highly efficient, modern alternative for tech-savvy agents.  ## Service Reports A **service report** is a centralized record of all activities related to a property listing. This includes feedback from showings, marketing efforts, and updates on offers. Monitoring this activity gives the seller a real-time view of progress toward a sale and objective data for making pricing decisions. With a service report, you can update your client on feedback from showings, such as a poorly maintained yard, visible clutter, or a dangerous dog. You should also share the promotional activities you have planned and completed. If the seller lives in the home, they will already need to know when to leave for showings and will naturally be curious about how the showings went. It’s best to provide this feedback regularly and promptly. Many professional CRMs deliver the service report as a live, password-protected web link. This feature gives your client transparent, 24/7 access to real-time information about their listing. They can review showing feedback, view completed promotional tasks, and **document the status of offers**. While this automation provides data, it does not replace your expert interpretation. I still recommend placing your client on a weekly touch cycle. This proactive communication addresses one of the most common friction points sellers report: agent unresponsiveness. It reassures them that you are actively promoting the listing. By maintaining a steady flow of information and analysis, you reduce your client’s anxiety and lay the groundwork for strategic conversations, such as a potential price adjustment if needed. You can integrate your real estate CRM with electronic lockbox systems to document each showing. Systems such as Sentrilock, Supra, and BrokerBay send email notifications when a showing agent visits the property. By directing these emails to a dedicated email address provided by your CRM, the system parses the email and automatically creates a showing entry in the listing record. The captured details include the agent’s name, company, and date of the visit. This process saves time, eliminates manual data entry in your CRM, and alerts you to new showings. Most importantly, it provides your seller with a log of property traffic in the service report.  You can then request feedback from the showing agent by sending them a **showing feedback form**. They simply select answers from drop-down menus to answer simple questions about the buyer’s thoughts. This feedback may be biased; for instance, no buyer will say the home is priced too low. However, it can still help identify issues such as aggressive pets, difficulty accessing the home, a cluttered interior, and the property's competitiveness. The showing agent and the buyer are likely visiting several properties simultaneously. As a result, they will have a clearer sense of the home’s competitiveness than your seller or even you. If you choose to gather feedback, do so within a few minutes or, at the latest, a few hours after the showing. Your CRM can include a photo of the property in the feedback form to help jog the agent’s memory. Buyers and buyer agents see many properties in a row, and after a few hours, everything tends to blend together. It’s unlikely you’ll get accurate feedback even a day later. Your real estate CRM lets you share a link to your service report that updates in real time. When it comes to promotions, it’s smart to document what you’re doing behind the scenes, such as updating Zillow, presenting on Trulia, Homes.com, Facebook advertising, and Craigslist promotions, among others. Naturally, you’ll also create a flyer, install a yard sign and lockbox, and promote open houses, circle prospecting, just-listed postcards, and possibly a broker open house. All these efforts generate buzz and attract traffic. The sooner you attract traffic, the sooner you’ll get feedback, and the sooner the home may receive offers. Make sure the report details what’s planned, what’s completed, and the timeline for each task. > **Perfect Price Secret:** Use your service report to keep your seller informed of you marketing activities, showings, and showing feedback. If a price adjustment becomes necessary, let the feedback in the service report speak for itself. Speaking of offers, the service report tracks offers, counteroffers, and the negotiation process. Many clients don’t fully realize how much work you do, and the service report is a great way to keep them informed. Use the service report during offer strategy calls and bring a printed copy to price-review meetings. After closing, archive the final service report with your transaction file. This documentation also strengthens your legal and tax recordkeeping later. ## Handling Closings On your journey to closing a deal, the first major milestone is securing a ratified contract. A contract is ratified when all parties agree to and sign it, making the agreement legally binding. However, you don’t get paid until the deal closes. The path from a ratified contract to a completed closing is not guaranteed, and many issues can arise along the way. For example, if the buyer’s financing falls through, the deal may be canceled. Most contracts include **contingencies**, conditions that must be resolved before the deal can close. A common contingency is loan approval. This process usually occurs in two steps. First, the buyer must qualify for the loan amount. Typically, the buyer is pre-qualified, which reduces uncertainty about final approval. The second step in loan approval is an appraisal to confirm that the property’s value is at or above the agreed-upon sale price. Another common contingency is a home inspection. This is often used by buyers who lack confidence in the home’s condition. Buyers may also request specialized inspections for wells, septic systems, radon, and structural issues, which can be included as contingencies depending on the property’s features and condition. Given the complexities of contingencies, many opportunities exist for a deal to fall through. The buyer might not qualify for the loan, or the inspection could reveal serious issues with the property. In either case, if these are listed as contingencies in the contract, the buyer can walk away from the deal and get their earnest money back. You should use your CRM to document each contingency, its deadline, and progress toward fulfillment. Any of these contingencies could cause the deal to fail, so tracking each one can be the difference between getting paid and walking away empty-handed. Your job is to help move these contingencies across the finish line one by one. This starts by adding the contact information for the loan officer, inspectors, and any other **parties** required to complete due diligence for each contingency to your CRM. You should also add any scheduled appointments to your CRM’s calendar, such as **inspections** or viewings. Sometimes, you might want to be present to answer questions or provide access. A report, such as an appraisal or inspection report, is usually generated. You would provide that information to your client and address any issues with the other real estate agent. For example, if an inspector identified electrical issues, a common seller response would be to either correct the problem or offer a price reduction to compensate. Since this is a negotiation, it is important to document each stage of the process in your CRM and in an addendum to the contract.  Certain contingencies also require careful timing. For example, a termite inspection required for a loan must be completed within 30 days of closing. If you do it too early and the closing is delayed, you’ll need to arrange a second inspection. Another tricky contingency involves HOA documents, which the buyer must review before closing. You can use your CRM’s task plans to ensure each step is completed. Your real estate CRM keeps you on track by displaying deadlines in your calendar, such as the loan approval deadline, so you don’t miss them. You need to maintain both the buyer’s and the seller's commitment to close the deal, as either party might get cold feet during the process. Using your real estate CRM to track progress lets you brief the other agent and your client each week. You can also provide your client with a service report summarizing all activity related to the deal. This is a great way to keep your client up to date with live information without having to call them constantly. If the deal falls through, review other interested buyers. If you had considered multiple offers, you might have designated one as a **backup offer** and recorded it in the offers section of your CRM’s listing record. Using your real estate CRM to track this helps you quickly identify an alternative buyer and move forward. **Conveyances** are items that stay with the house after it is sold. Common sense holds that anything attached to the house remains unless specifically excluded. For example, a chandelier usually stays with the house, but a bathroom mirror might not. Your CRM can track conveyances. Sometimes, there’s ambiguity, or the buyer or seller wants to make an exception. Your CRM is a useful tool for keeping things clear. For larger items, such as a washer and dryer, the contract should clearly state the disposition of the items. > **The Digital Defense Secret:** Protect yourself from legal liability after closing by documenting important details in your CRM. The easiest way to record every disclosure, client conversation, document, conveyance, and contingency is to log them in your CRM. Throughout this process, you must carefully manage any funds entrusted to you. When you accept an **earnest money deposit**, you assume fiduciary responsibility. Mishandling these funds is a serious offense that could result in the loss of your license. Use your real estate CRM to record when you received the funds, the amount, and how they were handled, whether given to the other agent, deposited into an escrow account, or held for closing. This creates a digital paper trail that demonstrates you have exercised your fiduciary duty responsibly. As the closing approaches, your CRM becomes crucial for **tracking key dates**. Enter the closing date, walkthrough appointment, and possession date and time. While the close and possession dates are usually the same, a delay can occur between them. These dates are so important that you should sync them with your smartphone using Google Sync. That way, they appear on your smartphone calendar as well as in your CRM. You will likely attend both the walkthrough and the closing to avoid last-minute issues. At closing, you will need to bring the key, handle the earnest money check, pick up your commission check, and retrieve your lockbox. Your CRM can help you keep track of each of these tasks. While a standard transaction can be complex, some deals involve unique circumstances, such as dual agency. This occurs when you represent **both sides** of a transaction, for example, when a buyer from your open house purchases the listing. Although you earn a double commission, this situation can create a potential conflict of interest. Although the specific rules for dual agency differ by location, the core requirement is to act as a neutral party who does not favor either side. It is crucial to adhere to the precise ethical and legal requirements, as any misstep could lead to a lawsuit or the loss of your license. You must obtain written permission from both the buyer and the seller, and your CRM can store this documentation for closing and record-keeping. You should also clearly explain the limits of the advice you can offer during negotiations. While you are obligated to transmit required information, such as lead paint disclosures, you cannot provide confidential advice on negotiation strategies that would benefit one party at the expense of the other. Your CRM can help you keep certain information, such as the seller’s promotional activities and listing-showing feedback, private from the buyer. Your CRM provides a **paper trail of the transaction**. This is useful for protecting yourself long after the deal is closed. Most agents won’t face a lawsuit or an IRS audit. However, if you stay in business long enough, the likelihood increases. Real estate is complex, and deals can fall apart in many ways. Your CRM will integrate with cloud providers, such as Google Drive, for **file storage**. This will let you upload documents like contracts, inspection reports, closing documents, approvals, and other transaction-related materials. With this setup, you can access these documents from your smartphone at any time. When clients or cooperating agents need a document, you can quickly retrieve it from anywhere. This organized access prevents delays, avoids version mix-ups, and demonstrates a professional level of control during closing. Imagine a client’s baby suffers from lead poisoning traced back to a home you just sold them. If you properly documented the lead paint disclosure and archived the email conversations in your CRM’s service report, you are protected. The same principle applies to an IRS audit. Your CRM provides an organized record of business expenses. This level of documentation is your best defense, offering peace of mind and legal protection. Your real estate CRM’s ability to assign **multiple transactions** to a single contact record helps you handle complex situations. For example, you can manage a client selling their current home while buying a new one, or oversee an investor’s entire property portfolio. This feature is a hallmark of a **relational database**. It lets you link multiple transaction records to a single contact, making it easier to manage several deals for the same client. This relational structure also applies to all involved parties. You can quickly view all closings with a particular loan officer or track all deals from a major referrer. These advanced tracking features are often missing in generic CRMs, which is a key reason a specialized real estate system is essential for serious professionals. Ultimately, handling a closing tests an agent’s professionalism. The process, from managing contingencies and timelines to coordinating with all parties, is complex. Thankfully, your real estate CRM provides the essential framework for navigating this complexity and ensures every detail is tracked. This thorough documentation offers legal protection and helps build trust with your client. A smoothly executed closing leaves a positive final impression, solidifying your reputation and encouraging post-closing loyalty and referrals. The closing date is not the end of your relationship; it’s the start of the next phase of client nurturing. Immediately after closing, enter the closing date into the client’s contact record as a permanent annual date in your CRM. Some CRMs automatically add this information when you update the closing status to complete. This triggers an annual **closing-anniversary reminder**, allowing you to send a small gift, make a personalized call, or provide a yearly CMA. By treating the closing anniversary as an annual touchpoint, you ensure the client never forgets you, cementing your role as their “Agent for Life” and securing future referral opportunities. ## Post-Closing After helping a buyer find and purchase a home, it’s customary to give them a closing gift. Your gift should be thoughtful yet affordable. The best time to give it is after the buyer has taken possession and moved in. Stop by to deliver the gift. This is a good opportunity to make sure everything is in order. Did the seller take anything they shouldn’t have, like a bathroom mirror? If so, you might need to contact the seller or their agent to resolve any last-minute issues. I recommend waiting until now to pick up your yard sign. Why? This is the perfect time to take media photos of your happy client standing in front of the sold sign at their new home. You can share these on social media to show others that you are an agent who gets results and makes clients happy. > **Signs of Success Secret:** Ask your clients on closing day if you can take and share a celebratory photo of them holding their new keys or standing with your Sold sign. A happy client is the strongest proof that you are an effective agent. Posting these photos on your social media feed is far more convincing to future clients than a stack of written testimonials. If the grass hasn’t been mowed, consider sharing contact information for a trusted lawn service to tidy it up for the first time. The buyer is likely busy with moving, and mowing the lawn is the last thing on their mind. They might be transitioning from an apartment and may not even own a lawnmower, making this gesture even more thoughtful. You can use the vendor list in your CRM to recommend a reliable service you trust, or connect your buyer with a known neighborhood provider (such as a local kid who mows lawns). Offering a few excellent contacts for immediate local needs is a highly effective way to provide quick relief for your client. For a thoughtful, practical **housewarming gift**, consider items that enhance safety or enjoyment. If the house lacks a working smoke or carbon monoxide (CO) detector, purchasing one is a prudent safety measure. Alternatively, a gift card to a popular local restaurant encourages your client to explore their new neighborhood. If your clients are excited about gardening in their new home, tulip bulbs or seed packets make excellent gifts. By selecting a gift that demonstrates your attention to detail and understanding of their new environment, you show you see them as a friend, providing a great way to transition your relationship from real estate agent to friend now that the deal is done. A memorable housewarming gift idea is a custom watercolor portrait of your client’s new home. It’s a personal, high-touch gesture that clients can display for years, serving as a subtle, lasting reminder of your service. Or, how about a custom welcome mat with the buyer’s last name? It’s something the homeowner will see every day, reminding them of you. They will probably need one since they just moved in. Be sure to order it in advance if you’re getting a personalized one. After closing is the ideal time to review who recommended this client to you. If it was an agent, you’ll have the referral fee and their contact information in your CRM. Now is the perfect moment to call them and thank them one last time for their recommendation. You can also share how happy your shared client is with their new home. That media photo you did for your social media posts would be a perfect attachment to an email to them as well. If someone else recommended your client to you, now is a great time to call and thank them for that recommendation. You can share how excited their friend is about the new home they just bought. You might also consider sending a short handwritten note and a small physical gift, like a bottle of Jack Daniel’s or a gift card to the local steakhouse. > **The Basket Bridge Secret:** When giving a gift to new homeowners, consider offering them a basket of items bought at a local farmer’s market, such as bread, honey, cheese, wine, or crafts. You could even use this as a chance to talk with local business owners and let them know you are introducing their products to a new resident, strengthening your relationship with them. Your CRM will remind you to follow up with anyone who recommended you. You can also use your CRM to review lead sources at the end of the year to understand if there were any standout referral sources. You should add any standout sources to your “Top100” category for those contact records. After giving any closing gift, make sure to add a note in your CRM that states something like, “8/23/2025 - Gave watercolor portrait of home at closing.” This simple step is crucial for maintaining long-term relationships. It helps prevent you from giving the same gift to a repeat client years later. It also gives you a personal detail you can reference in future conversations, like during their closing anniversary call, to show your attentiveness. When someone buys a new home and moves in, a thoughtful gesture would be to host a housewarming party and invite the neighbors. This is especially effective if the home is on your geographic farm and you have already done door-knocking in the area. Neighbors are usually curious about a new neighbor and might want to stop by to say hi. So, it’s a great opportunity for your buyer to meet the neighbors and for you to strengthen your relationship with them. The task management features of your CRM will help you manage all tasks that need to be completed after closing. You will need to **update your buyer’s address** to the new home address, set an annual reminder for the **closing anniversary**, pick up your lockbox, and sign. You should also add your client to your “Christmas” category so they receive an annual Christmas card. It is a great idea to place them on a touch cycle as well, so you call or visit them every 90 days just to say “hi”. Once your client has fully moved in, it’s thoughtful to stop by and see how they’re settling in. Many agents miss the shift from client to friend. Take time to build a genuine friendship with your former client. You can offer helpful information about vendors they might need, such as a house painter or an electrician. As a well-connected member of the community, you are the perfect person for them to know as they settle into their new home. If your client has questions about their new home, such as what a mysterious light switch does, offer to ask the seller. Small gestures make all the difference between a satisfied client and a thrilled one. The best time to secure future business is when your client is happy and settled in their new home. You should delay the direct ask for new business until you visit them a few weeks after closing, once they have had a chance to settle in. When you stop by, make a direct, confident ask for referrals and online reviews. Say that the highest compliment they can give is entrusting you with the business of their friends and family. Explain that you keep your business strong through client referrals like theirs. Then send a direct link to your preferred review sites via text or email, and note the request in their CRM contact record. By timing the request for maximum appreciation, you turn a happy client into an immediate, active source of new leads. I do not recommend asking every former client for a review. Not every client will be thrilled with how things went, and you should only ask people to leave a review if you are confident they had a positive experience. # Conclusion As a real estate agent, your database is your most valuable business asset. Your CRM helps you keep an up-to-date, unified address book that syncs with your smartphone. To maintain accuracy, use it regularly. By maintaining a balanced mix of new prospects and past clients, you can maximize your results. For past clients, stay in touch through strategic client appreciation outreach, Christmas greetings, and periodic “just called to say hi” phone calls. New prospects can be automatically added via email feed, valet import, and open-house web forms.  You can automate your follow-up using time-release drip emails, printed letters, postcards, phone calls, and text messages. This can all be coordinated utilizing the touch cycle. CRMs do much more than store your calendar and contacts. Mastering advanced features is what sets successful agents apart. Transactions can be tracked and automated through task plans. As you grow, you can bring on an assistant or partner and stay accountable with a coach and the goals section of your real estate CRM. One thing people sometimes overlook is that your CRM is also a relationship manager. It lets you monitor the personal lives of thousands of people at once. Your aim isn’t just to fill your database with contacts; it’s to use that database to connect with people and get to know them. While a healthy database won’t close deals on its own, it will support you at every stage of the process. If you have any further questions about CRMs or real estate technology, please contact me via my website at: I’ve also included a list of additional resources at the end of this book. Remember, building a successful real estate business is an ongoing journey. Use what you’ve learned here, apply it, and keep moving forward. # Further Reading This book, *Real Estate CRM Mastery*, is designed for the experienced agent who has mastered the essentials and is ready to scale their production. It covers advanced strategies for managing your time, automating your marketing, and leading a team or an assistant. I have also written a companion book, *Real Estate CRM Secrets*, which focuses on the fundamental systems a new agent needs to get organized, develop consistent habits, and build their business. Together, these two books offer a complete, repeatable system for transforming a new agent into a top-producing real estate professional. If you are looking to explore the business concepts discussed in this book further, I recommend the following books. *Harris Rules: A Real Estate Agent’s Guide to Extraordinary Success* by Tim & Julie Harris. Provides real estate-specific context for using your CRM to execute the disciplined, daily actions required to run your career like a professional business. *The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results* by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. This book from a real estate titan provides a robust framework for prioritizing your efforts and focusing your systems on the single most important activities that drive growth. *The Go-Giver* by Bob Burg and John David Mann. Provides the foundational philosophy of generosity that must underpin any authentic effort to connect with clients on special occasions, reinforcing the value of giving without expectation. *Dotcom Secrets* by Russell Brunson. The masterclass on the theory and practice of building online sales funnels provides a high-level strategy for connecting your website, ads, and follow-up systems to convert online leads efficiently. *The High-Performing Real Estate Team* by Brian Icenhower. The essential real estate-specific guide for the experienced agent ready to scale, providing a blueprint for hiring, training, and leading a team that builds directly on the “Assistants” and “Partners” sections. *The Hyperlocal, Hyperfast Real Estate Agent* by Daniel James Lesniak. Provides strategies on hyperlocal marketing for geographic areas. *Endless Referrals* by Bob Burg. This book teaches that becoming a person others like and trust directly leads to more referrals. *Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High* by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. Provides a practical, step-by-step methodology for handling high-stakes interactions where opinions vary and emotions run strong. # About the Author Scott Schmitz is a leading expert in real estate technology, especially real estate CRM systems. He is the creator of the real estate-specific CRM, Realty Juggler. With over 20 years of experience in the real estate technology industry, Scott has worked with more than 150,000 agents to improve their business systems and maximize income through real estate technology. Scott has written two books that provide a comprehensive, repeatable system for agents to maximize their use of a real estate CRM. The first book, Real Estate CRM Secrets, focuses on the fundamental systems a new agent needs to get organized, establish consistent habits, and grow their business. The second book, Real Estate CRM Mastery (the book you are reading now), is for experienced agents who have mastered these essentials and are ready to expand their production by focusing on advanced strategies through automation, teams, and networking. Scott currently lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with his wife Michelle. Scott received an MBA from The George Washington University and a Computer Engineering degree from the University of Michigan. # Endnotes [1] According to Realty Times (citing a National Association of Realtors report), 59% of real estate agents use some form of CRM, while 87% of top-performing (top 10% earnings) agents use a CRM. [2] Technology research firms like Gartner have consistently reported that low user adoption of advanced features is a primary reason why CRM initiatives fail to deliver their full potential ROI. [3] Former Google spokesperson Maile Ohye famously stated a timeframe widely cited by SEO professionals: “In most cases, SEOs need four months to a year to help your business first implement improvements and then see potential benefit.” [4] Lone Wolf Software Privacy Policy. [5] Follow Up Boss CRM, owned by Zillow privacy policies. [6] CINC Privacy Policy. [7] RealGeeks Privacy Policy. [8] Mailchimp reports open rates of 31% for business and finance emails. [9] According to the 2024 Member Profile from the National Association of Realtors, the median tenure with their current firm is 5 years for all members. Among those with 16 years or more of experience (often including broker‑owners), the median tenure is 13 years. [10] Real estate marketing-tech provider SMS Listings reports a 314% increase in responses when a “text or call for info” rider was added to a standard yard sign. Proquest reports an increased response rate of 75%. [11] “Email feed” is commonly implemented by sending form notifications to a parsing address, which creates contacts and triggers follow-up in your CRM. [12] IDX typically involves recurring monthly vendor fees, and some MLSs add pass-through charges—examples: IDX Broker fee explainer; Showcase IDX pass-through fee policy. [13] Squeeze page: a landing page that gates value to collect an email address. [14] A 2018 study in the Journal of Marketing Research examined how referral programs generate economic value. It identified a key mechanism called "Better Matching," where experienced, high-margin clients (referrers) provide higher-margin leads (referrals). The study's practical advice was to concentrate referral recruitment efforts on existing loyal customers who have been with the firm for more than a few months. Van den Bulte, Christophe, Emanuel Bayer, Bernd Skiera, and Philipp Schmitt (2018), "How Customer Referral Programs Turn Social Capital into Economic Capital," Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. LV (February), 132–4 [15] National Association of Realtors, 2024 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. The report shows that only 1% of home buyers found their agent through the agent’s social media page, and less than 1% found their agent by crowdsourcing through social media. [16] The "speed-to-lead" concept was first quantified by a foundational 2007 study from MIT and InsideSales.com (Oldroyd and Elkington), which analyzed the rapid decay of online leads and established the five-minute response as a benchmark. The findings were later confirmed and amplified by a 2011 Harvard Business Review article, which further underscored the high cost of slow response times. [17] The preference for text messaging over voice calls, especially among younger demographics, is well-documented. A Uswitch survey of 2,000 people found that nearly 70% of individuals aged 18 to 34 prefer a text to a phone call. This trend reinforces the strategy of using SMS as a primary and immediate communication channel for new leads, particularly those generated online, to increase contact rates. [18] The Pareto Principle, or 80/20 rule, is a widely cited statistic in the industry. As reported by publications such as Inman News, NAR data shows that approximately 20% of agents handle 80% of the business. [19] Section 1031 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code allows an investor to defer paying capital gains taxes on the sale of an investment property by reinvesting the proceeds into a new, like-kind property within a specified timeframe. [20] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as part of its Healthy Schools initiative, publishes a public fact sheet on this topic. This resource summarizes the research and states that students with engaged parents are more likely to “Earn higher grades and test scores... Attend school regularly... \[and\] Have better social skills, show improved behavior, and adapt well to school.” [21] The American Bar Association notes that a typical, uncontested probate process can take anywhere from 6 to 9 months to resolve, with more complex estates taking longer. [22] According to Pew Research, around half of pet owners consider a pet as much of a family member as a human member. [23] According to National Geographic, studies have shown a connection between the personality of the pet and that of its owner. And the visual appearance of the pet and the owner are also correlated. [24] “.realtor” domains are restricted to NAR and CREA members and affiliated organizations. [25] Google Workspace supports professional email on your own domain. [26] Multiple sources confirm the high engagement of SMS marketing. Forbes aggregates data showing a 98% open rate and a 90-second average response time. Wikipedia’s entry on Mobile Marketing corroborates this, also citing a 98% open rate and noting that messages are typically read within 3 minutes of receipt. [27] The Commitment and Consistency principle, described by Dr. Robert Cialdini, states that a commitment is most potent when it is active, public, and effortful. The act of writing a testimonial satisfies all three criteria, creating internal pressure for the client to remain consistent with their publicly stated positive opinion, thereby strengthening their underlying attitude. Research in consumer psychology provides empirical proof: a study in the Journal of Consumer Research (Kurt, Inman, and Argo 2011) found that the act of positively articulating an experience causes consumers to actively construct a more coherent, positive memory of the event. This writing process essentially helps to "lock in" the positive feelings and, crucially, increases their likelihood of repeat business (loyalty). [28] Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Cialdini popularized the principle of Social Proof, which describes the human tendency to look to others’ actions and behaviors to guide decision-making. In real estate, positive reviews, client success stories, and social media community engagement serve as social proof, reassuring prospects that others have trusted the agent and achieved successful outcomes. [29] Tom Ferry (via AgentLocator), “4 Keys to Effective Follow Up”, notes that by the 6th phone call, “your odds increase to 90%,” indicating the value of persistent follow-up in converting leads. [30] According to Invesp research (as cited in HubSpot), nearly 48% of salespeople never make a follow-up attempt after their initial contact, and 44% give up after just one follow-up call. [31] EDDM is a bulk mailing option from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) that allows you to send marketing materials to every address on a chosen mail carrier route, rather than to specific named individuals. This simplifies the mailing process and reduces postage costs, making it ideal for geographic farming. [32] According to the National Association of Realtors 2025 Member Profile, agents with 16 or more years of experience reported that 40% of their business came from repeat clients and 28% from referrals, totaling about 68%. This confirms that the majority of business for experienced agents comes from repeat and referral sources. [33] Robert B. Cialdini’s seminal book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (2006) describes the principle of reciprocity, in which people feel obligated to return favors, making referrals a robust, self-sustaining business strategy. [34] According to a Statista projection, spam emails accounted for approximately 48% of global email traffic in 2024, a notable decline from the 80% levels observed about a decade earlier. Still, that means nearly one in two emails remains junk. [35] According to MailChimp, a reasonable spam complaint rate is below 1 complaint per 1,000 emails. A rate higher than this can damage your sender reputation and cause deliverability problems, increasing the chance that your emails will go to spam folders. [36] A widely cited 2018 report by ATTOM Data Solutions found that homeowners near a Trader Joe’s saw an average 5-year home price appreciation of 67%, and those near a Whole Foods saw a 52% appreciation. [37] The marketing research firm MarketingSherpa reports that contact data decays at a rate of 2.1% per month, which compounds to 22.5% annually. This phenomenon is often called “list decay.” [38] Direct mail industry analysis consistently shows that oversized formats —such as oversized envelopes or postcards —achieve higher response rates because the message is instantly scannable and requires no “opening.” For example, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) reports response rates of approximately 5.7% for postcards and 4.3% for letter-sized envelopes. At the same time, some sources indicate that oversized envelopes can achieve response rates of 5–5.0%, outperforming standard letter formats. [39] This principle was scientifically analyzed by the influential German researcher Siegfried Voegele. His pioneering eye-tracking studies in the 1980s revealed that readers do not scan a letter linearly from top to bottom. Instead, their eyes jump to specific “hot spots,” with the postscript (P.S.) among the most consistently viewed elements, along with the headline and signature. [40] The “9%” figure is widely cited in real estate industry blogs and coaching materials. This figure should be understood as an industry-accepted approximation rather than a rigorously documented statistic. [41] In the experiment, Dr. Kunz and his family sent Christmas cards to 578 strangers. They received about 117 cards in return, many with personal notes and photos, showing a strong, automatic human tendency to return favors, even to strangers. Kunz, P. R., & Woolcott, M. (1976). Season’s Greetings: From My Status to Yours. Social Science Research, 5(3), 269–278. [42] Research in sensory marketing shows that engaging multiple senses, particularly smell, strengthens emotional connection and recall. Martin Lindstrom’s book Brand Sense draws on an extensive global study conducted by Millward Brown that illustrates how brands can use all five senses—including scent—to create a greater impact. Other academic work confirms that odors influence behavior, cognition, and emotion by activating brain pathways that enhance memory. For example, studies have shown that people remember scented products, such as pencils, far better than unscented ones even weeks later.