Managing Customer Relationships to Earn More Sales

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Selling More Homes Media speaks with Erik Cofield, VP, Buildtopia

Remember the Rolodex?  I used to spend hours and hours each week watching those hand-written cards tumble by as I turned through them looking for who to call next – the ‘hot’ leads.  For years, the Rolodex file was a salesperson’s most precious possession.

Today, we can carry the names and contact information of thousands of people around with us in our cell phones, and find any one of them with a couple of key strokes.  Like the Rolodex, we have the information and can access it, but using it to build relationships that lead to sales is a different story.

Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is a term given to software systems that not only store customer information, they help us compile it and use it in ways that allow us better align ourselves with our customers, fluidly move with them through the buying cycle, anticipate and avoid or overcome obstacles, make the sale, and continue to keep in touch to earn referral sales.

Buildtopia is a web-based total construction management system which includes a very robust CRM component.  We spoke with Buildtopia VP, Erik Cofield, to learn more about how CRM systems work, why every salesperson should use one, and how to get started… even if you’re still flipping cards a your rotary file.

Why use a CRM system?
“CRM systems help builders manage their relationships with every type of customer – leads, prospects, homebuyers, home owners, etc.,” says Cofield.  “If you have customers, leads or prospects, you can benefit from such a system because it’s going to do work for you.  It’s going to allow you to do a better job of managing  every stage of the relationship.”

One huge benefit is the ability set up your CRM system to automate essential tasks so that they’re performed even “while your sleeping.  Let’s say you’ve got hundreds of emails going out every day.  Certainly you don’t want to spend the time to do those individually.  You can use a system to push out targeted messages to specific types of contacts automatically.  That’s a big benefit in terms of time management.

CRM allow salespeople to:

• Make a lot more contact points, and to do that easily and whenever you work best;
• Keep track of items with extraordinary functionality;
• Communicate effectively through targeted messages – to push the right content to the right contacts at the right time.

“This is going to help them make more money,” says Cofield.  “There’s no doubt about it:  The salespeople that are doing extraordinarily well are leveraging some sort of CRM system.”

Another benefit is that an enterprise-wide CRM allows management to see the entire sales landscape – how many leads are coming in, where they’re coming from, what their interested in, and even how they’re being worked by salespeople.  You can track what marketing and which campaigns generated sales, and which advertising returns the best ROI.  Without a CRM program, many companies have a difficult time knowing what leads really exist… and establishing ownership of those leads.

The Ultimate Sales Tool?
A good CRM system will not only do menial things so you don’t have to, it can help you use your best sales tool – your brain – better and more efficiently.  Setting up information templates within your software – information that you must obtain from your prospects to help you meet their needs – is both a training mechanism and a safety net.  You begin to think in terms of getting information, not just closing presenting it.  And this really help build relationships.

“When you’re engaging with your customer and you’re taking notes, you are gathering all this intellectual capital that should go into your system.  For example, if I’m at a home show and someone says they really want a gated neighborhood, I’m going to jot that down.  Then later, when I’m entering them into the system, I’m going to put down that they were interested in a gated neighborhood.

If you learn to data-mine and leverage that information, you can totally out-position your competition.  If six months from now you start building in a gated community, you can go into your CRM system, pull a report of everyone who every said they were interested in owning in a gated neighborhood, and start a whole new marketing campaign to just those prospects on just the exact thing that they said they wanted.”

And, as mentioned above, management can use this same information to better understand where they should be concentrating future efforts.  If enough people are looking for a gated neighborhood, and you don’t have one, this tells you what to do to meet market demand.

Choosing a CRM program.
“CRM systems run the gambit from free… to way too expensive,” says Cofield.  Still, one of the big hurdles in choosing the program is not being fully aware of what an effective CRM program can – and should – do to save you time and promote sales.  “They either don’t know that there’s a whole world [of products] with more sophistication that ultimately is tied to their profitability, or they think it’s too hard or too expensive.  It’s really a misconception.

For a CRM system to be worth the money, there has to be a return on investment.  And, when you evaluate that system, it has to make sense to you.  Nearly all the CRM systems out there are pretty intuitive for salespeople.  For anyone who’s used to to using the internet, the learning curve isn’t that tough.

So, builders should look for a system that they can connect with, that they see that they are going to be able to use and benefit from.  And then it has to priced at a point where the return on investment is obvious.  I mean, if it’s free and nobody uses it, what good is it?  If it costs very little and you can sell one more house per year, then why are you not making that decision?  If you have a CRM system that allows you to stay in touch over the long haul without you doing anything, then what’s the decision?”

It’s all about the Relationship.
Staying in touch over the long haul – sending a message after 365 or 720 days if they haven’t yet engaged with you that you’re still here, you’re a viable solution, and it’s a great time to buy.  “Why would you stop marketing to them if you had a CRM system that pushed out valid content automatically?  You have to just stay engaged for the long haul, because we all know that most salespeople and most builders won’t be there in three months still marketing to them like they should be.  So, you immediately out-position your competition just because you’re still staying in contact with them.

You never know when their circumstances might change or something you put out there just  presses their button on they start engaging with you.  That’s the key; that is the customer management that you’re looking for to build the relationship.”

In the end, a CRM system will not make sales for you.  It will never take the place of a salesperson, it will simply help you streamline sales-related tasks, automating simple tasks to free up your time for the one on one contact.  “Good salespeople will never be outsourced to technology, they will be leveraged to work with the technology.  The technology only exists to help the salesperson and the builder develop that relationship further.”

Remember the Rolodex?  Well, you can still buy a brand new one (online at www.Rolodex.com.)  However, it might keep your contact names in a neat, functional order, but as a progressive sales tool it has been replaced by CRM systems that have the power to work to build and maintain customer relationships.   Those builders and salespeople that go the furthest to keep in touch with prospects and customers are the ones that realize outstanding results.  “And,” Cofield sums up, “every salesperson has a choice as to whether they want to be an extraordinary salesperson, or merely average.”

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Contact Erik Cofield or learn more about Buildtopia at www.Buildtopia.com

More questions? Download the white paper CRM Systems:  Real World Questions and Answers, by Erik Cofield.  Click here for free download.

Next Online Coaching Session:

Wednesday, November 18 at 2:00pm EST
Follow Up for More Sales:  10 Tips for Getting Amazing Results
with special guest, Melinda Brody

Drawing lessons from some of the most effective sales campaigns in history,
Melinda looks at one common denominator:  Following up.  In this information-
packed hour, she will share -
•    Ten tips for amazing follow up
•    How to be memorable and stand out when you follow up
•    How one realtor kept in touch with me for over 10 years!!
•    How you can avoid common mistakes our shoppers uncover

Registration:  $37 for the live session + downloadable video recording.

Register here.