Generally speaking, if you spend time with your CRM every day for at least an hour first thing in the morning, you should be able to conquer the more simple aspects of the CRMin a week or two. If you’re going to be building Activity Plans or Workflows, that’s where the real time comes in. That’s the part where you are literally setting up game plans with automatic reminders to track all the various processes you have going on, such as listings and closings. You didn’t build your system for closings on paper in a week. This won’t happen in a week either. If you want the incredible consistency and peace of mind of a system to keep you on track, you have to invest some time. Depending upon how many plans you want to create, it will take a a few weeks to a few months to build them and fine tune them. It depends upon how much time you can put into it every day.
If you’ve had, and actually used, a CRM before, it should take a little less time to learn the new one. Having a head start in understanding the various common features in general can make learning a new a little faster and easier.
If you are comfortable with software in general it will, of course, be easier/faster. If you are not, you want to look at CRMs that are more basic. It doesn’t make any sense to get a CRM that you’ll never understand or use to any significant degree. You won’t find a CRM that is no more than a glorified address book. If that’s all you want, use Google Contacts. But I don’t advise it. you need the tools of your trade and CRMs are maybe the most important tool in the box.
If you are only getting a CRM because you know you need to, but you really don’t want to spend the time, you’re starting at a huge disadvantage. You need to have the right attitude or you’ll likely drag it out forever and eventually give up. If you want to be successful implementing a CRM, you need to be okay with the fact that it’s going to take some time, slow you down, and make your life generally uncomfortable for a little while. You’re going to be changing the way you do things, which makes everyone uncomfortable. You have to be mentally prepared for this. If you are, you’ll be fine. Just keep the end goal in mind and keep pushing that I Believe button!
If you really want an advantage in getting your CRM set up and being used efficiently, contact me and let me show you how I can help!
Article 2 of a series.
Article 1: Why Is It so Difficult to Stay With a CRM?
