Changing CRM’s can feel overwhelming. Moving your database (or as we call it, your dataBANK). And re-creating your action plans. Where do you start?
A couple of years ago, one of our Coaches, Stephanie Brackett led the charge for her team (Anderson Hicks Group) to move from FOUR separate CRMs into one. They merged CINC, Top Producer, Seize The Market & IXACT – into Brivity. It was a HERCULEAN task for a team of 30 people with over 50,000 contacts that were purged to 15,000. Stephanie is known as the “Systems Queen”. So we asked her to break it down into small bites for you.
Here are Stephanie’s 8 TIPS for getting started in Brivity:
Step 1 – Figure out all the Roles you will use.
Make sure that you have clearly defined who owns what on your team. Add the roles to Brivity.
Step 2 – Decide on the dates you will use.
You will need dates for anything you want to fire tasks off of (MLS launch date, close date, inspection contingency date) or dates you want to use in auto emails (inspection date/time, photography appointment, staging appointment). Enter those dates into Brivity.
Step 3 – Determine what tags you will use.
These will be important. You need as few tags as possible, but as many as needed. Tags are used to sort, filter, and label stuff so remember that as you are creating them.
Here are the AHG Brivity Tags.
Step 4 – Determine status definitions for your team.
Statuses are not editable so you have to determine what each status means to you. Ours are as follows:
- New = New lead that came into the system. Nothing has been done with them
- Unqualified = we have attempted contact but have not spoken to them
- Watch = we have made contact with them but were unable to set an appointment
- Hot = was have set an appointment with them (they are only in HOT status from when the appointment is set til they show up for the appointment – if they do not show, it moves back to watch until they reschedule)
- Nurture = we had an appointment with them but they have not yet signed a rep agreement
- Active = we have a rep agreement with them
- Pending = under contract
- Past = Closed a transaction with us
Step 5 – Create email templates.
You should have a ton of email templates. Think of any email you send to prospects or clients and create them as a template. You will use the templates in the people and transaction plans which is why I recommend doing them first. You can add more later if you realize you have forgotten some when you go to build plans.
Step 6 – Create “people” plans.
These will consist of lead follow up plans, post closing plans, 10 days of pain, sphere check in, referrals out, referrals in, (referral plans for people not yet under contract), etc. Create them in excel first and then go build them in Brivity.
Step 7 – Create people plan triggers.
You can create triggers to auto fire plans based on Intent, Status and Tag. For instance, any new lead that comes into our system AUTOMATICALLY gets a 10 days of pain plan launched that has calls, auto texts and auto emails
Step 8 – Create “transaction” plans.
These will consist of any plan that is tied to an address. We have quite a few including:
- Buyer closing
- Seller closing
- Prelisting
- Listing
- Open house
- Price change
- Cancelled listing
- Cancelled contract
- Referral in buyer closing
- Referral in listing closing
Decide if you want to fire each task off of a date (computed time), an event (the dates you created in step 2), or contingent on the completion of another task.
Decide who the task will be assigned to (ROLE), which tasks will be visible to your clients, and add instructions on how to do the tasks as you are building it so that anyone who uses the plan will know how to do the tasks.
I recommend creating all of these in excel FIRST. Once you build it all in excel, then go build it in Brivity.
BEFORE YOU IMPORT – SCRUB YOUR DATABASE:
1. Export all leads from all existing CRMs into a spreadsheet.
2. Scrub the list for duplicates and get them combined/cleaned up.
3. Scrub the list and remove anyone who doesn’t have a phone or email and delete them or move them to a “farming” mailing list (I would not put them in my CRM until I had either a phone or email did them).
4. Scrub the list for any leads that have never reciprocated ANY contact. Remove them from your import list and move them to another list. This list can be given to ISAs and new agents to call through when they need lists of names.
5. Add the appropriate tags to every person on your import list.
6. Make sure each person has the correct status and is assigned to the correct agent.
7. Any important notes about the person should go in the “description” field.
8. Turn off all triggers before you import (so you don’t accidentally launch a bunch of auto plans unintentionally)
9. Import your list to BRIVITY
10. Pay BRIVITY to set up your listing alerts and market reports for people that had them on previous systems.
11. Notify any active users that you switched systems and that they will be receiving listening alerts and market reports from the new system
12. Turn back on your triggers
BONUS Tips and Tricks:
1. Start all tasks with a code for what plan they are firing off of – that way when looking at a list of tasks, you can tell what plan the task is coming from easily (BC=Buyer closing, SC=Seller Closing, PLP=Prelisting plan, etc)
2. Add “NEEDS EDIT” or “NEEDS EDIT AND ATTACHMENT” to the title of any email templates that need an edit or attachment added before they can be sent.
3. When creating tasks in a plan, DO NOT click outside the task box at any time. The box will disappear and you will lose whatever work you have done on that task (I did this approximately 1000 times ??) .
4. Think about sending auto texts to others on your team not just to clients. For instance an auto text to an agent notifying them when an inspection deadline is or an auto text to the ISA that set the appointment letting them know that something they set up went under contract.
5. Use Brivity plans for onboarding and recruiting – not just sales, transactions and lead gen.
Now you’re ready to MIGRATE TO BRIVITY LIKE A BOSS!