Why Your General CRM Isn't Built for CRE Brokerage

Most CRE brokers understand the need for a CRM; the sheer volume of prospects, clients and deals makes it vital for long-term success. The problem though is that if you’ve ever tried to use a generalist CRM like Salesforce or HubSpot to run your brokerage business, you know the frustration because of how unique CRE brokerage actually is. You're not just dealing with bulky software; you're dealing with systems built for a completely different type of business.

The reason general-purpose CRM’s feel so clunky and unhelpful is that they’re fundamentally built for a different purpose than what CRE brokers need. To use software terminology, there simply isn’t “Product-Market-Fit.”  General CRM’s are typically built for large enterprises, hoping companies will spend a lot of money on customizations to then “land-and-expand” as companies need further refinement.  CRE brokers need faster time-to-value and don’t want to spend excessive amounts of capital on customizations and integrations.  A one-size-fits-all solution doesn’t work for CRE brokers who have unique needs, particularly around data-sensitivity, ease-of-use and particular workflows (i.e. landlord rep versus tenant rep).

Here are four reasons your generic CRM isn't built for CRE deals and what you should look for instead.

1. General CRM’s don’t support end-to-end broker workflows

Most general CRMs are built for a linear sales pipeline, not complex prospecting that often takes years to track and develop in CRE brokerage. CRM’s use terms like "leads," “deals,” and “opportunities” in a way that are often distinctly different than how brokers think of these terms.  As an example, a "deal" in a generic CRM might simply be a “prospect,” whereas a CRE broker might work on numerous “deals” for the same Client.  Examples like these that are layered everywhere in an application create excess complexity for relatively simple concepts.  General CRM’s don’t handle the distinct nuances of CRE brokerage forcing you to adopt incorrect or confusing tags and labels.

Brokers need a CRM that captures the unique workflows across sales prospecting and deal-flow, recognizing that these are often two distinct workflows.  A CRM should be designed for the way you actually run your business, not forcing you to adjust your strategy to accommodate the technology.  For example, in Enaia, a tenant rep can track all of their “Occupier” prospects, then when that prospect is turned into a “Client,” a user can create as many Deals as they want for that specific Client, enabling not just a one-off deal but also supporting “multi-market” transactions.  

2. General CRM’s are just glorified spreadsheets

Most general-use CRMs are glorified spreadsheets - data in equals data out. They're a place for you to manually input data - prospect contacts, deal info, property details - while only returning a view of what you put in. You spend valuable time updating fields and creating custom objects just to make your own information visible. This is why many brokers resort to Excel or rely on their Outlook to manage this complexity.  While Excel is the greatest product to start inputting data, it soon breaks down as you input more and more, eventually just becoming a bunch of dated, stale information that becomes impossible to keep updated.

A purpose-built CRM for CRE should work for you, not the other way around. It should have the ability to enrich the data you populate, pulling in key information, recommending decision makers of prospects, automatically setting reminders, be integrated with your email communication, and consolidating all of your communication, so you can focus on doing actual work, not just retrieving the information you already know. A CRE CRM should turn your raw data into a powerful insights engine and make you better, smarter and faster.

3. General CRM’s aren’t built for broker collaboration

Your success in CRE brokerage is built around a dynamic network of prospects and clients but also the various brokers you transact alongside. General CRM’s are built for data storage, not communication and efficiency. They don’t support the dynamic way in which brokers work - sometimes pursuing business with partners, sometimes pursuing business solo, sometimes working on dynamic teams, etc. Without this type of “controlled collaboration,” the result is data silos, missed opportunities, poor communication and less success.

Your CRM should empower dynamic, controlled collaboration. It should allow you to share information and work with specific partners on a prospect-by-prospect and deal-by-deal basis, mirroring how you actually work in the real world. It should allow you to work on multiple deals, in multiple locations, with different partners, so you can actually run a complex business from a single platform. It needs to be designed for the nuanced way in which you build and manage your relationships.

4. General CRM’s are often built for enterprise reporting, not broker success

Many brokers roll their eyes at the CRM solutions provided by their brokerage. General CRMs are often chosen by brokerage leadership because they provide top-down reporting that, in theory, enhances business intelligence. While business intelligence is an appropriate goal, this goal is rarely achieved.  Why? Because without broker adoption, brokerages are burning the candle on both ends - spending capital on a platform that actually slows brokers down as opposed to helping them succeed.  In my 20 years of having been in CRE brokerage, I have never seen a Salesforce rollout succeed.  At the largest CRE brokerage companies, adoption often sits at 10-20%, hardly providing the business intelligence that was once dreamed of.

The CRM you need as a broker is one that’s built for you, at least as much as it’s built for larger enterprise goals.  CRE brokerage is unique and brokerage leaders are much more comfortable hiring third-party companies like Salesforce or Microsoft to build enterprise systems (“nobody was ever fired for hiring Salesforce”).  Until large CRE enterprises focus on the needs of their key revenue producers (brokers), brokers will always need to lean on third-party CRE CRM’s over generic CRM’s that require excessive customizations and usually overcomplicate things.   

The best technology starts with the end user - in this case, you, the broker. If you're a tenant rep or occupier rep broker who’s fed up with a CRM that doesn't fit your workflow, know that you’re not alone. The CRE industry is full of brokers using workaround solutions because the available technology was never built for them in the first place.

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The good news is that technology has finally caught up to the nuanced deal-flows of the broker. The broker, as the core stakeholder in the CRE industry, finally has a choice of a CRM that accelerates their workflow, not impedes it. If you’re ready to experience a CRM that understands you—and your deals, now is the time to try Enaia. 

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