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Put Your Business On Autopilot With These Real Estate Systems

Written by Than Merrill

Key Takeaways

  • The importance of real estate systems is expressed through a business owner’s ability to save time and pursue activities that support the growth of their business.
  • Learn how to create real estate systems and processes by following ten accessible steps.
  • Common real estate systems implemented by business owners include lead generation, follow-up, marketing and bookkeeping systems.

If you are a real estate business owner, it is likely that you are already using a real estate system, or several, without even realizing it. Read on to discover just how important a real estate system can be for boosting your business’s bottom line, and just how to go about designing a system that works.

The Importance Of Real Estate Systems

A business system is a mechanism for solving or executing issues or tasks that come up repeatedly, and in a streamlined, effortless manner. Business systems can help solve inefficiencies for business owners in any industry, and real estate systems are no exception. Some qualities that a business system will typically possess include:

  • Ability to address a specific problem or issue
  • Automate business processes
  • Solve inefficiencies
  • Executes a process or routine
  • Does not require intensive thought or effort once implemented

The advent of technology, including dynamic software and cloud-based solutions, has made it relatively easy for business owners to implement business systems and processes. However, it is possible to do so without truly understanding the positive impact it can have on a business’s bottom line. The following outlines several benefits of taking the time to implement real estate systems that work:

  • Save time
  • Reduce overhead costs
  • Minimize errors
  • Improve productivity
  • Deliver consistent results
  • Boost your bottom line
  • Grow your business

First and foremost, real estate systems and processes can help business owners save time, so that they can serve more clients and increase profits in less time. By implementing automated systems, manual labor hours can be cut down significantly. This directly translates to cutting down on the cost of labor, such as outsourced work or office assistants. The process of cutting down human labor hours, through the integration of technology and taking away as many manual steps as possible, helps to minimize human error as well. This prevents small issues from turning into bigger ones over time. Business owners can use this newfound free time to their greatest possible advantage.

A second area that cannot be ignored is the ability to deliver consistent results through the use of technology and automation tools. By designing and implementing effective real estate systems, business owners can ensure the delivery of effective, efficient and repeatable results. These systems that produce reliable results ensure that professionals can meet the needs and expectations of clients in a consistent manner. This, in turn, will improve your brand and increase the proportion of repeated business. After all, repeat business can be a lucrative source of income for a real estate professional. Finally, business owners can devote their renewed availability of time and energy to activities that will help grow their business.


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Real estate systems and processes

How To Create Real Estate Systems And Processes

According to Gartner, global spending on information technology (IT) and services has been projected to increase by 11.1 percent this year, reaching $3.7 trillion. In the United States alone, businesses will spend $381 billion to acquire software systems. These figures alone should help demonstrate the scale at which enterprises across the nation, and the world, are implementing business systems and processes. The potential application of real estate systems is numerous, and can range anywhere from customer relationship management (CRM) and lead generation, marketing or bookkeeping, to name a few. The implementation of some of these real estate industry-specific systems will be discussed in later sections, but first it is important to grasp how to design and implement real estate system and processes in general. The following includes a step-by-step overview of how to create real estate systems that work.

  1. Keep track and make a list of each of your business activities.
  2. Pick out tasks that are repetitive or take up a lot of your time.
  3. Observe and document each step required to complete each of these tasks identified in the step above.
  4. Identify components of each process that could be better streamlined or automated.
  5. Spend time researching tools and software that can assist with streamlining and automation of processes.
  6. Once purchased, spend time configuring and integrating tools to your selected processes.
  7. Upon successful implementation, be sure to create thorough process manuals for each new system created, such as how-to’s, templates or workflow charts.
  8. Of these new processes, identify what can be delegated to a team member or a virtual assistant, to help save even more time.
  9. After processes have been implemented and delegated, be sure to leave room for error. Stay upon to suggestions on how to increase efficiency even further, or address any issues that come up.
  10. Finally, make sure to capitalize on renewed time and energy and pursue business-growing opportunities!

Lead generation systems

Real Estate Lead Generation Systems

A real estate lead generation system is one that can help produce real estate leads while you focus on other activities. Real estate lead generation systems can execute tasks such as automating your campaign mailings, managing the information of your leads in one place (customer relationship management), and receiving voicemail messages. There are specific software tools available that double as a CRM system and a campaign mailing system at the same time. The system will store all of the contact information of potential leads, as well as previous clients, in one place, and doubles with the function of sending out mailing campaigns to segments of contact lists. These types of systems often allow users to create, design and store various mailing templates.

Real Estate Follow-Up Systems

As any real estate investor should now, following up with valuable real estate leads is one of the keys to acquiring new business. Just as it sounds, a real estate follow-up system assists with this follow-up process. It is helpful to establish a system that allows the user to assign tags and categories to particular real estate leads. This way, you can mark when you last contacted a lead, whether or not there was a response, and what the response was. This type of tool is especially valuable in the sense that it can help prevent you from contacting a particular lead one too many times, or too frequently, thus turning them off. It can also help ensure that you maintain a healthy amount of follow-up with leads throughout the year, so that no one is forgotten.

Real Estate Marketing Systems

An effective real estate marketing system should acquire leads while you sleep. A marketing system can be made up of many parts, including a website and a proper lead funnel system. A professional real estate website should have a pleasing visual aesthetic and offer site visitors with valuable information. An effective website should implement lead capture forms, where site visitors will enter their personal contact information in exchange for something of value. This can come in the form of an informational blog or free downloadable guides, both of which can help establish your expertise in a certain niche or local area.

These leads that have been captured can be automatically stored in a CRM system, which can often double as a marketing tool. By setting up a personal marketing funnel through such a system, and scheduling out automated drip campaigns, business owners can save an enormous amount of time.

Real Estate Bookkeeping Systems

Regardless of the industry, many business owners want to tear out their hair when it comes to finances, especially during tax season. Luckily, user-friendly technology has made this aspect of business much more bearable. In bookkeeping, it is critical to keep an impeccable record of all transactions, either incoming or outgoing, related to your business. Transaction records typically come in the form of purchase receipts, bank and credit card statements and invoices. Many enterprises today offer consumers with the option to email a copy of their purchase receipt, thus reducing the need to digitize paper receipts. When this option is not available, there are a variety of scanning applications available, such as that buyers can digitize receipts promptly. Many popular bookkeeping software systems, such as QuickBooks Pro, allow business owners to store and manage transaction records, so that tax season can be a relatively painless moment in time.

The process of designing and implementing effective real estate systems boils down to acute awareness and mindfulness of the business activities that are necessary, but drain your energy and time. As a business owner, pursuing opportunities that will grow your business and thus boost your bottom line, should always be made a priority. Luckily, today’s market offers dynamic, user-friendly software systems that make it easy for business owners to automate, streamline and delegate their processes, so that they may focus on what matters.

As a business owner, what processes would you prioritize for automation and delegation? Feel free to share below: