Apto Commercial Real Estate Blog

Whether it’s keeping track of contacts or using the latest sales tools to win more deals, there’s no question a strong CRM platform benefits every broker. It’s the tech foundation of your business and the first item to check off your CRE tech shopping list.

But once you have an effective CRM in place, what then?

The world of CRE tech is expanding every day, and from marketing tools to virtual reality, it’s easy to feel lost in the mix. To help guide your technology investments, we looked through the key contenders to separate the essential from the optional.

From critical technologies that help you make the most of your data to nice but currently optional technologies like virtual reality, here’s what you need to know to make the most of your technology budget.

If you’ve been in the commercial real estate business for a while, chances are good that you’ve got a large network of repeat clients and referrals keeping you busy. So busy, perhaps, that you may not even remember the last time you actively had to prospect for new deals. You’ve put in years of hard work, and all of it is finally paying off.

But even though you may not need to drum up new business the way you used to when you were starting out, you still need to stay connected to your network on a consistent basis. Are you prospecting? Maybe not with the same hunger as in your early years. But are you talking to more people than ever? Definitely.

As your network has grown, you may have realized that you’re spending even more time on the phone than before. There are simply more people to get back to, more referrals to follow up on, and more longtime clients to stay in touch with.

Join us for a live webinar on Wednesday, Nov. 7 at 1 p.m. CT to see how Apto is driving deal flow more efficiently and effectively for nearly 10,000 commercial real estate brokers.

We’ll show you our latest and greatest features, including: mapping functionality, an interactive deals board, intelligent call lists, integrated CRE news, and enhanced tenant rep functionality.

Here’s a little bit more of a preview about what you’ll see.

Success in commercial real estate is built on great relationships. Some of the best brokers in the field are out there making phone calls, booking lunch dates, meeting new contacts, connecting with old clients, and networking with just about everyone. But behind every warm handshake, cold call, and hot lead is something that often gets overlooked: great data.

It may not be glamorous, but data is what makes things happen. CRE is full of data sets like property specs, financial stats, ownership history, and the number of cold calls you make each day. If you’re doing data right, you see a world of connections, trends, and insights that are invisible to everyone else. If you’re doing it wrong, all you see is a bunch of numbers.

Your data can be extremely powerful if you use it right. But if you’re making any of these 5 common data mistakes, you may actually be doing more harm than good. Here’s what you should know:

Excel spreadsheets. A precise email folder structure in your Outlook. Color-coded post-it notes. Salesforce. A CRE-dedicated technology that stores your data.

Whether you think of it as a CRM or not, every commercial real estate broker has a way to track and manage their prospect and client relationships. That’s what CRM is after all―customer relationship management. It refers to technology that helps you track, manage, and analyze interactions with contacts, whether they're prospective or current clients. It is generally a catchall term for the technology that enables these processes, but you could consider the more basic systems above as CRM (if you’re feeling generous).

5 warning signs that you might need a new system

If you’re comfortable with your income, you feel like you have plenty of time to get your work done, and have never missed a deadline or let a key detail slip, then you probably don’t need to upgrade whatever system you have in place.

But if not, it’s worth exploring if you need a new CRM.

You know that data drives commercial real estate. Contacts, properties, square footage, NOI, comps, listings...the list goes on. Even though relationships are the foundation of your business, data is the at the heart of every new connection, deal, and transaction. If you use it right, you have access to a world of insights and opportunities—and can provide thoughtful guidance to clients at a moments’ notice. If you use it wrong (or not at all) you’re adrift in a sea of numbers.

This month, we asked two top brokers how they make the most of their data. Here’s what we learned:

Finding and building relationships with tenants can take a lot of time, and with periods where you feel like you haven’t accomplished anything. Brokers from all generations know the importance of making a good impression on the first call and then keeping momentum through every subsequent interaction.

In talking to brokers, we’ve seen the many ways in which they piece together the contact, company, and lease information needed to make a good connection when they get on the phone. It usually involves 5-15 tabs on one computer screen and a good amount of prep time before the call.

If this sounds familiar, then you’re going to like what we say next: You don’t need to work this way anymore.

Who doesn’t wish they had a few more hours in their day? Commercial real estate brokers in particular are always on the move and multitasking between a number of urgent tasks.

What better way to be more productive than to look to the technology we already use a hundred times a day—our cellphones! Here are seven apps brokers can download right now to gain more hours in their day.

SRS National Net Lease Group in Newport Beach recently jumped on with Apto, and already it's resulted in more calls, more deals, and more efficiency overall. 

Watch the video or go ahead and start a conversation about how Apto can help your business

When you structure your day right, everything seems to flow more easily—from the hours to the deals. But get cluttered up with pointless emails, meetings, and other time sucks, and suddenly the day has gone by and you’ve got nothing to show for it.

Being in this business means figuring out how to structure your day for the most productivity—from how you schedule meetings to how you handle emails. Here's how 5 high-performing brokers do it.