Golden Rules in CRM Databases for Commercial Real Estate

Like it or not, the database process in your commercial real estate career will make a significant difference to your listings and your commissions.  On that basis the top agents develop a significant database of leads and opportunities as early as possible in the career.  They work the database and every person in it.   Here are some tips for commercial real estate agents from our Newsletter.

The management and growth of the database produces opportunity.  That being said, the growth process always comes back to the diligence and focus of the individual in growing the database.  At the end of each day, any leads and opportunities should be entered into the database so that future action can be taken at the right time.

So, here are some golden rules that should apply to the database system within your real estate office and perhaps even in your personal business management processes.

1. Split the categories of prospects you are working into different groups such as buyers, tenants, landlords, property investors, business leaders, and professionals.
2. Given the previous point, it is necessary to note the types of property and the factors of property that apply to each particular person and or company.  They will have limitations as to price, rental, timing, property improvements, location, and property usage.  Somehow this information has to be merged into your software program.
3. Tracking of all meetings and contacts made will always be important when it comes to your prospects and clients.  Many software programs can capture the comments regards each and every meeting, document, proposal, and submission.
4. It is wise to choose the right computer with the appropriate software configuration and storage to safely run the database program.  You will need to keep multiple backups of your CRM program so that your hard work does not get lost or damaged.
5. Split all of your prospects into frequencies of ongoing contact.  The ongoing contact should occur based on the opportunity that the prospect provides in sales, leasing, or property management.  Every prospect and client in your database should be contacted at least once every 90 days.  More frequent contact should occur where a business opportunity has been identified.
6. Most customer relationship programs should or will integrate with the e-mail client program within your computer.  This should allow mass broadcast of common messages and the tracking of individual emails to particular people.
7. Lastly, it should be said that the convenience of data import and export is really important with the CRM program that you have chosen to manage your customer relationships.  Some database programs make it reasonably difficult to merge your export information to and from other software programs (they do not want to make it easy for you to move your business elsewhere).  At some stage in the future it is likely that you will want to export and use your data in a particular way.  Make the right choices with regards to the CRM program so this doesn’t develop into a major problem.

When you make the right choices regards the CRM program, you can collect and collate many types of opportunity within commercial real estate.  From that point onwards, the work really starts and your diligence in maintaining the accuracy of the program will become a personal process of daily discipline.

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