With the late May purchase of one of the real estate industry's most popular client management software systems, Homestore became the "Top Producer" for agents. Not only did Homestore instantly acquire an agent customer base of over 100,000, many of whom are already customers of other Homestore/Realtor.com products, but the company is planning integration between Top Producer technologies and those of other Homestore units.

So why not just do an affinity agreement? "Homestore wants to be a technology company, and one of the fastest ways to go is to acquire it," explains Randy Purcell, president of Top Producer. "There is a shortage of good tech people, and we already have great relationships, a strong customer base, and a great application-building team."

Top Producer, which is the name of both the company and its flagship productivity product, has been in business since 1985, and marketing commercially since 1988. The software specializes in client, business and marketing tools management. Purcell says that Top Producer is no longer just a client/business management software. "It used to be a real estate sales and marketing software, but now it is a full spectrum productivity application, the closest thing to a standard in the industry," says Purcell.

About to be released is Top Producer 6I, a full-productivity Internet connectivity tool with database functionality and a wide array of features including email integrated into the database, flyers, CMAs, and listings management. The product also synchronizes with hand-held devices such as the PalmPilot to keep track of appointments. It will also have complete desktop publishing, mailers, buyer/seller matching, referral management, and strong tie-ins to the eRealtor transaction management platform. "Agents will experience convenience and improved efficiencies through connectivity to the eRealtor platform," explains Purcell. "The ability to communicate determines the money an agent can make."

In addition to contact, listing, prospecting, time and transaction management, marketing materials and desktop publishing, Top Producer 6I will specialize in email marketing, including a built-in email broadcast station. "You take your whole database. If a split level just sold, you could walk to your database and pull up all the owners in the neighborhood and send them an email," points out Purcell.

Among Top Producer's most loyal customers are the Cendant brands, including Century21 and Coldwell Banker, for which Top Producer has been private-labeled.

In a Realty Times exclusive, Purcell says that Homestore and Cendant are co-piloting a new landmark project, code-named "First Flight." First Flight is a back-office management software program that integrates with franchise transaction reporting systems over the Internet, illustrating how Homestore units are planned to integrate with one another.

"This (First Flight) is also a component of eRealtor.com," reveals Purcell. "From our perspective, it starts with the consumer and the agent who gets a clue that someone wants to buy or sell. The idea is to eliminate redundancies. You send data to your broker, and you can go straight to the platform without every entering anything twice."

First Flight is still being built and the delivery model has yet to be decided, but it is scheduled for roll-out during the late winter 2001 franchise convention season. The product has already been purchased by Cendant to roll out free of charge to each of its franchisees. "Cendant is trying to simplify the reporting process and add value to its franchise package," Purcell says.

Homestore is recognizing that in order to stay ahead, agents knowing how to use email isn't going to be enough. "Realtor.com has done a great job of posting inventory, and now we are going to build a robust system. We need to get into more hardcore software development," says Purcell. "The Web is like the Model T, and we have a long way to go. We have to build a robust suite of applications that take all the things a Realtor knows how to do and bring the consumer into the loop."

Top Producer may be bringing more to the party than great software, a lesson in reality marketing. With approximately 140,000 new agents coming into the field every year, the attrition rate in the real estate industry is staggering, and service providers can't count on their agent customers being there next year when it's time for renewals or upgrades. As an incumbent software designer, the company has a following it has built the hard way - agent by agent. Unlike many other companies which create and sell online lead generation and productivity tools for agents, Top Producer has included what few others have - a training component. It seems simple on the surface, but if an agent doesn't understand something, s/he won't use it, recommend it, re-order it, or buy upgrades to it, a lesson some dotcoms are learning too late. The company has a 14,000 sq.ft. call center staffed by 100 people on 800 lines and is looking into Web-based training. Realtor.com is following suit with a new support facility, too.

"We have 100 field instructors certified by Top Producer," says Purcell. "We have a huge number involved in sales, and if each trained a little a week, we have a great force for training.

"We are certainly not blind to the fact that the typical user of our products is not a computer geek, so we try to make the application as friendly as possible.

"In about a year, you are going to see we have ways to work between the real estate community and consumers that others can't compete with, using Wyldfyre and Top Producer," he promises.