CRM: Leads/Contacts, Properties and Opportunities - Your Setup

[Zach Robbins]

I've tried doing a lot of searching around for an answer to this question, both on BP and just Google searching in general. There's so many questions regarding what CRM that I feel like my question gets drowned in the search results.

I'm trying to setup and start using a CRM. My goal as an investor is to find deals and either rent or flip (no intention of wholesaling unless I come across a deal that for some reason does not interest me). I've looked at and spent many hours playing with both Zoho and Podio. Not trying to start a Zoho vs Podio war but I tend to like the way Zoho displays information better and I think it does an excellent job of maintaining and organizing lead communication history (the most important feature in my opinion).

With the introduction out of the way my main question(s) could actually probably relate to both systems. How does everyone prefer to setup their CRM's? How do Leads tend to flow throw your CRM? Where I get kind of hung up us, most CRM's start with leads and as you work the deal and close they are converted to contacts. What I don't like about this is, who's to say that person doesn't come up as a potential lead again? Do you maintain mailing lists that are generated from both your leads and contacts (I doubt it)? 

I have some thoughts that say keep it simple and some that say take the time to set this up the way I think it should be the first time. 

Simple Example: Create a new lead for every new deal opportunity. Downfalls with this is if you're ever dealing with someone who has multiple properties you now have multiple lead records for them and communication is scattered across many records. 

Detailed Example: Have modules for contacts, properties and deal opportunities. No such thing as leads that get converted to something else. Contacts that are leads are simply marked as "sellers". Properties module contains property information. Inside the property module would be a related field to associate a contact as the owner.  What (I think) is nice about having the first two modules is you could come across one or the other first and start history on them. So say you are driving for dollars, you can add a property instantly as you're parked along the road and when you get back home run a report for all properties that have no owners associated with them yet to complete the record and begin marketing to them. Having these first two modules allows you to maintain history forever on both contacts and properties instead of leads that get through the funnel and just die away. 

The last module would be deals (or call it leads, opportunities, whatever you prefer). Any time a contact and/or property has a deal opportunity a new record would be created here. So if a probate opportunity comes up you would create a new record associating the property record and the contact record as well as marking the deal type which in this case would be probate. Having a centralized deal area with deal type identification allows you to continue to market towards that one specific deal until you either get it or mark it closed (dead). All that information is stored back to the property and contact records because of the association. If the same opportunity comes up for that property or contact again you'll easily be able to see that history which could give you a head start the next time around. Also, if you maintain a property module you can identify which properties you own and use your CRM to help keep tasks, reminders and history on items for that property (new hot water heater installed on this date, etc).

The purpose of this post is to jump start a conversation on how you USE your CRM and how you decided to set yours up.