Using a CRM to Get Purposeful and Get Ahead

When he first started out in real estate, Mike Hogan had yet to master the art and science of lead management. He had no process for handling leads; he simply called the person back and if they didn’t answer, he did little to follow up. Because he was only receiving a handful of contacts at that time, managing and tracking those leads was an easy task.

After he joined Zillow and started to see a notable increase in his leads, however, Hogan realized that his manual, one-man approach to managing them — while simultaneously running a business — had turned him into a bottleneck, and he couldn’t efficiently distribute or nurture his leads. His spreadsheet-and-email tracking system didn’t work, so inquiries sat unanswered in his inbox or voicemail.

Hogan understood that he was limiting his success. He knew he needed to “get purposeful” if he was going to get anywhere in his real estate career, so he started testing customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Hogan found that automating many of his lead management and follow-up tasks freed him to do “ten times more” than what he could do without the system. Read more to find out how a CRM helped Mike nearly double his sales each year.