Technology For Agents

Recently, I had the opportunity to use Simplifi, a really unique online real estate contact management software made by Topaz Software. There are quite a few contact management technology providers for real estate agents out there, and Simplifi looks to be a promising start.

Upon login, you immediately notice one major thing. Topaz Software believes that agent productivity is driven by “knowing the numbers”. They feel that when an agent knows how many leads he/she needs to accumate this month, what their conversion ratios area, and their current status toward accomplishing their goals, that agent is usually more productive. I would have to agree with them.

The story is in the numbers, many will tell you. Being a real estate agent is just like running a business; in fact, it IS a business. You must be able to track your numbers such as conversion ratios, expenses, and the bottom line in order for you to know what it takes for you to be productive in your lead generation model. It’s also very important for you to have this analytics system in place to determine if you are actually improving from year to year. In my opinion, being able to track improvement and use it as a benchmark for future goals is a vital asset to any real estate business.

Topaz Software’s Simplifi brings this major feature up-front. From the looks of it, it seems to be the major concentration of their efforts. After playing with a few “john does’” and moving them along the process, I see their efforts were not in vain. Simplifi visually tracks your goals daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, and easily displays where you are in track for your goals.

So you’ve generated four leads today; great! Now looking at your model, you need about fourteen more this week to hit your “numbers”. This is the jist of Simplifi, and I must say I like it. It “simplifies” your goal tracking.

The Cons

It seems that you can easily deduce where most of their programming efforts and features were focused. Inside of the contact manager, I found the overall managment of my contacts to a be a bit clumsy. Sure, the manager “looked” pretty, but in my eyes it should be function first - then appearance. Their implementation of follow-up programs, and contact history tracking was a bit too complex, and I feel that the average user coming from Act, or Top Producer, may feel it’s just a bit too much.

Price is also an issue. At $49.95 a month (for a month to month subscription), Simplifi just seems a tad bit too expensive for the same function that an excel spreadsheet could accomplish. The contact manger lacks features that many other programs have, such as a mail merge system, or flyer creation feature. This would prove to be detrimental to some agents, as they rely on their contact manangers to do these tasks for them.

Conclusion

Know thy numbers. Simplifi does a great job of easily displaying the numbers for your goals, and helps you stay on track for the week, month or year.

Where Simplifi exels in showing you your “numbers”, it lacks a bit in the contact manager. I feel that I’d like to take another look (my free trial expired) and possibly get with a sales rep to really discover what Topaz Software has to offer. My first impressions weren’t jaw-dropping, but Simplifi is definately on the right track. Invest some of those dollars in easing the use of their contact manager and I feel you may have a winner.

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