Is anyone using contact management software such ACT! to manage their REI buyers and sellers information. I was wondering if I should go with ACT! for real estate or the standard version. Any input is appreciated.
JP
Far and away the best tool I’ve found for managing contacts in my real estate business is Highrise. I even built a system myself and since moved to Highrise.
I use Salesforce.com and love it. I used it at my old work so I know it up and down. I see that people use infusion, sugar and there are plenty of others. You must define your criteria, research your options then choose to become a master at whatever CMS you select. I love the forms that I put on my website that auto populate my CMS and they get an auto response email. Then I can easily export the email addresses into my newsletter software. I love it. You can also check out stuff like AWeber and other lead capture software.
We recently started using Karma CRM to keep track of everything - similar to Highrise, but more customizable.
I recently wrote a blog post about it
Enjoy!
We actually use Highrisehq as well.
What I like about using Highrisehq
[list]
- It is extremely easy to import contacts.
[li]We can search buyers background info (when collected) for when we have a property under contract.
[li]Their basic plan for $24 bucks a month or 5,000 contacts, is really affordable.
One main reason we use Highrise is for when we have a property under contract and a buyer interested in this property.
Once we have a property under contract, we have this property case opened, see pic below:
http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac152/edgarquickturnproperties/Screenshot2011-04-17at92535AM.png
In case you can’t understand my brushing skills using Seashore, Macs photoshop software. At the top it says “This is a property case.” At the bottom “Buyers who were involved.”
Any buyers who was involved and is part of our Highrise contact, is put in the “who’s involved” section.
Overall, I think having a contact management software is a nice essential to our real estate toolbox.
If you are just started out like I was a year ago, I was using the binder contact system. I was basically putting buyers, wholesalers, people offering me their services into a binder. I made a custom template to store most of the information they gave me. I though this method was perfect! Except for when I wanted to remember what the heck I spoke to them about, or when I wanted to look for rehabber, landlord, etc. The other bad thing about this system was for when I had to input over 20 pages of front and back information into Highrise, yikes!