CRM Software for the Land Business

I wonder how do you manage your land deals. Do you have a software for that?

@landinggrp

We ran a survey in our Facebook community on this a while back and here is a screenshot of our top results:

Personally, I really like Pebble but I find myself always coming back to using a spreadsheet.

It’s simple, free and though my notes can get messy… it gets the job done!

@jarenb Hi! I hear a lot of people using spreadsheets and I’m doing it too so far. Mine is taken by the list “cleaned” before is sent to the mailing service and slightly adapted by adding email, phone number, deal status, follow up date etc. What about yours?

I just made a separate post on trello… I started to use it now and to me it seems pretty good to monitor the deals situation…

@jarenb Thank you for the info. I am using Investment Dominator but wonder about less expensive or free alternatives.

Hey @arturo,

I think as I continue to scale my business, there is a high chance I’ll get away from spreadsheets and get more and more integrated into Pebble.

I found out I can sync Pebble with something called FollowUpBoss which will do everything I want in regards to automatic follow up.

I think I just default back to spreadsheets because it’s what I’m used to and comfortable with.

I’m also having issues with FreedomVoice and Pebble playing nicely together - when my voicemails come in via email, they provide the recording as an attachment and Pebble doesn’t pick it up on their system.

This makes it so I end up processing leads through my email inbox instead of Pebble, so that’s probably contributing to me defaulting to spreadsheets as well. I’m planning on switching phone service providers soon because of this.

To answer your question though, my spreadsheet system works based on two documents:

1. Something I call a “Property Sheet”
2. The spreadsheet I pulled (and scrubbed) from DataTree for my latest direct mail campaign

I use the “Property Sheet” To track all the leads I’m working on, the response metrics of my direct mail campaign, my current inventory, and sold data.

If you’d find it helpful, here is an example version of it with mock data: DOWNLOAD HERE

When motivated seller leads call in, my voicemail recording asks them to recite a reference number I place at the top of the letter they receive.

This is a merge field I add to the spreadsheet I pull from DataTree prior to sending out the mail.

My naming convention format for reference numbers is:

STATE ABBREVIATION - MONTH ABBREVIATION - YEAR ABBREVIATION - UNIQUE NUMERIC ID (specific to each line item)

So, an example would be “FL-APR-21-001”

If a lead left this reference number in their voicemail, I would pull up my April direct mail spreadsheet, press “cmd+F” on my keyboard (or “ctrl+F” if using a window’s computer) and when the search box opens up, I would type in: “21-001” and it would locate the line item related to this specific lead:

I would then add this information to the first tab on my Property Sheet along with the phone number from the FreedomVoice email and process the lead from there.

Some other thoughts on reference numbers:

More often than not, once you establish the first reference at the top of your spreadsheet, you can simply double click on this blue box and it will automatically add the next unique numeric ID in sequential order:

Sometimes it gives me trouble though, and I end up having to click on the first reference number, hold my mouse down, and drag the blue box down through the entire document.

Either way, this reference number is super helpful because if a lead from a specific direct mail campaign reaches out to me, even months into the future, I’ll know exactly where to find the owner and property information and what campaign they’re coming from.

This system is definitely messy and takes a lot of manual updating and tracking… but it works!

@jarenb wonderful, thanks! Yes the ref number methodology is the same i use (you explain it in the Masterclass course) and makes extremely easy to find the line in the spreadsheet. Also, in my spreadsheet the properties are ordered A to Z
on the offer price column, then i assign a progressing ref number. As my voice message requires the sellers to provide few relevant data included the ref nunber, as i hear that number i already have a ballpark idea of the offer i may have made on the property.
Where i find some more challenges is in keeping track of who called, what is the next step with each caller, set notifications on the calendar, possibly attach files…I’m trying to implement these functionalities through trello and even if I still need to optimize the process, i think that could work pretty well for the level i’m at the moment. Far from being an automated CRM but still allows to monitor the progress of each lead falling into the funnel in a personalized way (see attached). And is free, which is not such a bad thing too

First off, don’t go with off-the-shelf software, rather build a custom application to leverage your land business with trendy features.

Second, if you are using Excel Spreadsheets, convert it into software application. It will 99% automate you task.

Third, if you are overwhelmed with ideas, connect to expert and let them guide you.

@codzgarage said in CRM Software for the Land Business:

First off, don’t go with off-the-shelf software, rather build a custom application to leverage your land business with trendy features.

Second, if you are using Excel Spreadsheets, convert it into software application. It will 99% automate you task.

Third, if you are overwhelmed with ideas, connect to expert and let them guide you.

I have to say I disagree with most of what you state here.

I’ve been on both ends, trying to build something for myself and then building a product like Pebble.

You never want to be put in a position where you’re spending most of your day troubleshooting and allocating resources (time and money) to ‘custom’ build something - unless you truly enjoy that.

The goal here is to build a business, not a custom application.

Big no.

Though I do agree wiht point number 3 Do get in touch with someone who eats, breathes, and sleeps building an application specifically for land investors and who has entrenched the team in the space!