Since the financial crisis, and the subsequent lack of lending in the USA, experienced the largest foreclosure rates in history and many predict the end is far from here with US housing prices expected to continue to fall as there are an estimated 2 million homes still pending foreclosure. In an effort to stem the tide of foreclosures during this time, the laws were changed to allow distressed homeowners more time to arrange financing from alternative lenders, only to find that it didn’t matter who was willing to lend them money, it was not worth it as the value of their home was less than what was owed on the property. In a matter of months, the largest nestegg for most Americans turned into their largest liability, and with the economy tanking, measures were taken. The result was that the time it took to process a foreclosure went from a month or two, to a year to a year and a half. Time has run out and approximately 2 million US homeowners are still facing foreclosure. Some experts predict US housing prices to drop an additional 25% in the next few years.

 Glossary of CRM terms for the Real Estate industry

 Foreclosure – the legal process a lender undertakes in order to obtain possession of the home, if the terms of the mortgage are not met

Mortgage – the legal document allowing the lender to take back the property if payment terms  are not met on the note (ie the loan on the property).

REO – Real Estate Owned, meaning the bank has already forclosed on and repossessed the property and such that the property is now owned by the bank and is for sale so that the bank can recoup some of its lost money on the property loan that went bad.

Lender – usually a bank; some party that loans money to the property owner, charges interest for this service, and takes back the home if the loan is not paid off per the terms of the agreement  and the homeowner loses ownership of the home to the lender. As with all industries, the Web proposes significant new business models and rules and has spawned radical change and forces all Lenders to become good managers of innovation. Lenders’ customers are ‘Customers’ in the holistic sense – ie they deal with thousands of lawyers, Title Companies, Banks and other Lenders, Consultants, Property owners, etc. The transactions are long, complicate, require much due diligence and recording of each step in the process for regulatory compliance. Document management is a huge part of their workflow.

Lender Processing Services – Any service and/or technology that helps Lenders do their job better, more efficiently, with more accuracy and reliability, as well as to comply with strict regulations in an atmosphere of constant legal change that directly affects the ability of the Lender to do business, as well as creates Opportunity for those that are nimble enough to transition.

Default Title and Closing services vendors – Their customers are Lenders and they manage on behalf of their customers many Title companies and other vendors of Closing services.They offer services and technology around helping Lenders manage multiple Title companies and get the best results. Common is Default Title Services to make sure the Title is clean on the property, and Closing Management Services to help Lenders close on a property.

Few sales representatives pay enough attention to the psychology, manners and customs of their clients. A sales person should always bear in mind the culture difference between himself and the customer. Be wary not to develop a gap in communication which could result in an instant failure of the deal without having a clue about what went wrong.

You must build up your trust zone, in order to close the deal. This happens through showing respect and appreciation at all times during the sales process. Never mention or even imply the prospect’s lack of understanding even if this is what you truly think.

The process of befriending a customer starts way before you start interacting with one. This pre-interacting period is a very significant stage in the sales process.

The first step in this process is to collect enough knowledge about the customer. The following is a list of some of the information you should be collecting about your prospects before you even initiate contact with them:

   1-General business background such as;    company size, assets, business field, etc…

   2-General contact(s) background such as;    role/position in the company, influence on the    purchase department, etc…

   3- Last but not least is to acquire enough knowledge about your contact’s major interests so that you can have the ability to open up a side conversation while discussing your business deal, such as the latest football match of his favorite team or the upcoming county festival, etc…

Showing Customer Respect
The next step is to conjure up all your moral efforts in order to respect your customer. We shall highlight some points that are easy, simple and would definitely help in showing customer respect.

In order to respect the customer, one must think of a customer as of a role model. Think of it this way; a customer is the one who pays your bills and makes tomorrow possible for you and those who you support, so is he worthy of your respect? Indeed and here are some of the simplest ways to do it:

1- Always be on time for your appointments.

2- If you cannot make it on time you must inform your customer at least 12-48 hours in advance.

3- Do not waste your customer’s time; if you have a meeting scheduled for 30 minutes then stick to it, unless the prospect demands more time.

4- Never schedule successive appointments with less than 30-minute breaks. Use these breaks to review the next customer’s information, background and needs.

5- Professionalism is best manifested in customer respect side by side with some other essential ethics such as your dress code, knowing all about your business, handling your customer’s needs and demands delicately and with much care as possible, having a great deal of anger appeasement, etc…

Next issue includes:
In the next issue of our newsletter we would be pleased to offer you more tips and advices on sales techniques along with the rest of the tips on how to complete your sales properly and also how to keep the loyalty of your customers and make them life time purchasers.

Next issue includes:
1- Line Up Your Troops
2- SELL
3- Follow Up On Your Sale
4- Keep Your Customer’s Loyalty
5- CRM Shows Customer Respect

Rally Your Troops:

The first step is that you need to convince them to abandon their old methods and persuade them into using the new CRM. The second and most significant step is to get your employees to use the CRM religiously. The third and last step is to follow up on their work, evaluate it and show appreciation and gratitude to those who have shown excellence in CRM usage.

Here are some tips to get you on track with your CRM Software deployment:

   1- Give them the perfect outfit; you need to customize your CRM interface in a way that it appeals to your employees. Make a survey between them in which you ask them about what do they need in such a software. Work with your CRM provider before you introduce to them the solution. Implement the most common needs of your employees. Make sure you are giving them the choice of personalized customizations in regards with the views and appearances.

   2- Make sure they master it; provide your staff with extensive training. Give them all the help they need with any aspect in the CRM software. During the training, provide them with periodical tests in which you reward the top 5 or 10 generously.

   3- They like the money; show them the benefits of using the CRM and how their sales could go up and their commissions too. Get them to use the reporting feature in order to calculate and evaluate potential clients and divide their time according to the hot/cold opportunities.

 4- You must embrace it too; as management, you must use the CRM solution yourself. Build reports to calculate your profits, best sales representative and top employees. Reward them accordingly and promise better rewards to those who break their records.

By following these steps and making sure that you have your carrot and stick policy well covered, I can guarantee you that your employees would make the most out of your Cloud CRM solution. The company?s sales would rise and you will worry no more about client follow up or angry customers. Choose the suitable, most customizable and efficient Cloud CRM for a superior performance. Choose Salesboom.

Next issue includes:
In the next issue of our newsletter we would be pleased to offer you more tips and advices on sales techniques along with the rest of the tips on how to complete your sales properly and also how to keep the loyalty of your customers and make them life time purchasers.

Next issues include:

1- Follow Up On Your Sale
2- Keep Your Customer’s Loyalty
3- CRM Shows Customer Respect

To be a successful sales representative,you should generally be competitive, hard working and most importantly dedicated to your career. If you are a sales person who is content with his current sales, then you are not the one meant to be reading this; although it will definitely help you increase your sales as well. Now I am sure that the question: (HOW Do I put the Boom in My Sales?!) just popped into the mind of those who sincerely have the will and ability to make it to the top. This is dedicated to you; the ‘Chosen ones’.
As we all know from business schools, seminars and even YouTube videos, the sales process generally goes as follows:

1. 1.    New Opportunity
2. 2.    Initial Communication
3. 3.    Fact Finding
4. 4.    Develop Solution
5. 5.    Propose Solution
6. 6.    Solution Evaluation
7. 7.    Negotiation
8. 8.    Sales Order
9. 9.    Account Maintenance

These steps are all valid, but in today?s world, with a simple Google search, your prospect is considering many solutions and vendors. So often the question should be ?How do I top my competitors? or ‘What more can I do to differentiate and close the sale?’

The answer is well planned and finely managed follow up. Following up with a prospect is never easy because every prospect is different. Yet there is one thing all prospects have in common – they are in need of your product/service; or else they wouldn?t have contacted you in the first place. Your job is to be a good listener. Identify pain points or business challenges the prospect is facing, and present them with solutions to their specific problems. Write every need, concern and question down. To close the sale, it is not enough just to listen ? you also need to come up with specific solutions to each and every one of their concerns. Presenting complete and timely solutions, in each and every follow up, is the secret to success.

Do you need permission to follow up?

   The follow up process should begin right after initial contact, and with every new lead. Before hanging up the phone or shaking his hand goodbye on the first contact, you must get permission to follow up with the prospect. You do so by asking politely to follow up and ask for a date and time that would be convenient. Make them recognize how beneficial it is for them to have you there following up with them, keeping them informed on the updates and efforts you are planning to do on their behalf.

Here is a sample of what you can say when getting a permission to follow up:

• ?It is very important to let you know that your needs are on my top priority list. What would be a good time to follow up with you so that I may go over the answers to each of your questions in detail?

Always book the next follow up, before ending the current follow up call. This is extremely significant for your sales process. The prospect is not only granting you permission to follow up with them, but in fact they are indicating their level of interest in your products or services. Their response tells you a lot about how far along you are in winning their confidence, and gives you a chance to dive deeper into what it will get that next follow up appointment. �It also puts the ball in their court and gives them a clear deadline, compelling the prospect to go back to the decision makers and decision influencers before the scheduled follow up call, or they will be the ones holding up the process.

With the next follow up appointment booked, you now must make the most of what you accomplished. Start off with an e-mail concluding your last meeting or call and explaining what your product/service can offer for them in more detail. Also include the time and deliverables for your next booked follow up appointment, so the prospect has a clear list of what is expected from both sides.

Never lean back and wait!

Do not hesitate to make a phone call in few days letting your prospect know any updates from your side and ask about any new requirements that they might have thought of since your last conversation. This way you will be the one having productive face time with your prospect ? keeping you one step ahead of your competition, and giving you knowledge about the prospect?s expectations and demands. By being the one who is always there for them, you are proving that you are always there for your customers. This instills the trust that you can fulfill their specific needs, in a timely and efficient manner.

Last but not least, sales people must always respect and fulfill their promises post sale. Be honest and straight to the point when you are following up and closing the sale, but be the same after the deal is closed. Be more than willing to help in any further assistance even if the prospect has already purchased and moved on to customer support. It is very important to follow up with your existing customers to keep that trust alive. It is much easier to sell to your own customers with whom you have gained this trust than to close a sale on a new prospect. Building the trust that you can be counted on is the foundation for increased cross-sells, up-sells and referrals and can reap you great rewards.

How can CRM streamline your follow up process?

Having many prospects and customers in the sales pipeline? You find it impossible for you to manage your follow ups coherently? When having multiple deals with a variety of closing dates and follow up tasks, then what you need is automated assistance that keeps your follow up process in shape and on time. CRM software proves to be the best way to manage such headaches. Use the CRM workflow engine in order to keep things moving and in order.

The workflow engine side by side with the time-based workflow feature is the best way to set up your sales process. You can easily assign reminders, tasks and appointments which would help you organize your day according to your preset plan. Another very important feature in the time based workflow is the periodical automated emailing. This feature allows you to have preset e-mail templates that are being sent to prospects/customers on dates of your choice. For instance; you set the time-based workflow engine to send a welcome email once the lead is created in the software, then another email after 3 days explaining the offers available and a reminder email 3 days before the closing date. Time-based workflow guarantees a clean and smooth sales process with no glitches. It also guarantees continuous contact with prospects that shows interest and care.

Next issues include:
In the next issue of our newsletter we would be pleased to offer you more tips and advices on sales techniques along with the rest of the tips on how to complete your sales properly and also how to keep the loyalty of your customers and make them life time purchasers.

Many have tried, and many have succeeded, in building a great sales career. The reason behind this success is the fact that they are persistent, passionate and persevering. Successful Sales people also know when they make a mistake, learn from it, and avoid repeating it in the next sale. Here are the top 5 sales mistakes to avoid:

1- Overselling:

Numerous sales representatives commit this terrible mistake of nagging and bragging about their product or service. Bear in mind that the customer actually wants to hear that you understand their needs and how good your product will be in satisfying those needs, not about how many products you have or how many customers you serve and/or support. Always remember that you are constantly selling to different people, who have different needs. By giving you their time, the prospect expects something in return, so give them what they need, not a long list of what you can offer.

2- Underselling:

Underselling is the exact opposite of the previous blunder. It is the common mistake that many sales representatives fall for when selling to customers. The path to sales success lies in the confidence of a sales representative, and this confidence is derived from his/her full knowledge of their own product or service as well as knowing what the competition has to offer. Whether you have done your homework or not, it is a must that you sound confident and sure of what you say and offer. Always remember that you are selling them your personality first and your product second. If you are not appealing, your product won’t be either. Ask the right questions and deliver on your promises, then watch your sales grow.

3- Not listening:

Not listening to your prospects/leads in the kickoff call can cost you the sale and many sales to follow. You have to listen carefully to what your leads expect and what their business needs are. Many sales people do their background search and investigation and think they know the exact needs of a lead/prospect, ignoring the fact that this new buyer can be looking for something else because the business is growing or the market is expanding. Do not think that you know it all; you must listen, listen and listen again.

4- Too intimidated, busy or even too lazy to follow up:

Many sales people are too busy, intimidated or even too lazy to follow up with their leads. This is a huge mistake that will surely lead to losing the sale. When you have so many leads in your pipeline and you think it is alright not to follow up with the smaller ones, then you are making a big mistake. Those smaller leads are the ones keeping the cash flow coming into the bank account. Without maintaining the pipeline overflow, speed and richness, you are risking your product/service reputation and decreasing the total sales quota without realizing why and how it happened.

Another mistake with following up is when sales representatives are too intimidated to follow up. This mostly happens with inexperienced sales reps that are new to the corporate world. They are afraid to tackle and deal with their prospects in the decision making stage, thinking that it might cost them the sale; when it is the other way around. Not following up shows that you are unsure of your product/service or that you are not interested in getting their business.

As for being too lazy to follow up, I cannot think of a good reason that would make an active and successful sales representative too lazy to follow up with a prospect. If any successful sales rep has lost the spark, it is time to retrieve his/her passion. Why waste your time and risk employer’s money while you can be on top?

5- Not asking for the Sale:

Last but not least, the issue of asking for the sale, which might seem rude to some if not stated in the right way, is crucial to sales success. Again, do your work, but then ask for the sale – and do it politely. Let them know when you think they are ready to buy and offer to send them a contract. Or, ask confidently about when they expect to move forward with your offering. If you don’t ask for the sale’s closure, many will assume you are not interested in their business. Remember, ask for the sale. Happy Selling!

Next issues include:
In the next issues of our newsletter we will be bringing you more advices and tips on sales techniques, and how to close the sale. Upcoming newsletters will also feature articles on how to keep the loyalty of your customers and turn them into life-time buyers.

Next issues include:

1- Build Stronger Relationships with Existing Customers
2- Keep Your Customer’s Loyalty
3- CRM Shows Customer Respect

1) Cloud CRM Vendors allow you to manage leads, close sales, support cusotmers, bill them, and build new applications integrated with the CRM with no code to write, and integrate with third party or legacy applications via standards-based Web Services APIs over a SOA

Leading Cloud CRM Vendors: Salesforce.com, NetSuite.com, RightNow.com, Salesboom.com, SugarCRM.com, Microsoft CRM, SAP CRM, Siebel (Oracle) CRM

2) Build your website – every business needs a website, but remember content and SEO are more important that which tool you use, but in the name of serious shoestring budget, I am assuming free and do-it-yourself Web authoring here…

Free Cloud-Based Websites with Cloud Based Web Builders and adding Widgets and Cloud Apps: Webs.com (formerly freewebs.com), Yola.com, Yahoo SiteBuilder, Google Sites

3) Email: Gmail.com, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail.com, AOL Mail

4) Cloud-based meeting software: gotomeeting.com, webex.com

5) Free or low cost Cloud Faxing: eFax.com, jFax.com

6) Instant messaging: MSN.com (Microsoft), Yahoo Messenger, AOL messenger, ICQ, Salesboom.com instant messenger

Cloud CRM is a technology term that refers to the Network Engineer or CIO who, when planning out a network, would draw the network as a sketch of a Cloud shape that represented the network in question, either a VPN or a WAN, or a LAN, what have you.

Software as a Service CRM (or SaaS CRM) is a term used synonymously with Cloud CRM when describing CRM vendors, but SaaS CRM is a business model where Cloud CRM vendors sell their CRM services not as products with a perpetual license model like traditional, installed CRM system, but rather the SaaS CRM vendor rents or leases the hardware, software, support, training, education, etc as a bundled per month fee – much like a mobile phone contract.

So when you hear SaaS CRM or Cloud CRM, you can be assured you are talking about the same thing, except beware of posers. There are very strict definitions of what it takes to qualify as a Cloud CRM vendor and that is why the term needed more clarity.

Pure-play Cloud CRM vendors older than 5 years: Salesforce.com, NetSuite.com, Salesboom.com,Entellium.com,Salesnet.com,RightNow.com

In tough economic times, as well as in good, it is paramount that we intimately understand the current needs of our customers and our capacity to deliver a product that will immediately result in new customers for life. Delivering the solution to the problem is rarely as difficult as discerning what our customers want from us today versus 6 months ago. The skills we focus on are the ability to be close enough to our customers as to understand their current needs, and the ability to quickly change course to meet that need. To achieve this goal, we make decisions based on real-time data created by customers and our customer-facing employees. With today’s boom-bust market cycle, customer needs change so quickly and dramatically, that it is a real challenge to be sure we are not making current decisions based on old data, and to ensure our business is nimble enough to immediately switch to delivering what our customers need today.

The Cloud in Cloud CRM comes from the tradition of drawing any network like a VPN or an office network as a Cloud shape, thus applications that are hosted on the Internet are referred to as Cloud Apps. The CRM part is an ancronym and stands for Customer Relationship Managment. Customer relationship management is a discipline in which constant focus on what the customer wants results in a Closed Loop Marketing effect where Marketing, Sales and Customer Support Teams share information in real time in order to drive the front office of the business based on customer needs.

The Founders of Cloud CRM or On Demand CRM have shrunk over the years due to consolidation, Shake-ups and Shakedowns: Salesnet was purchased by Rightnow.com, Siebel was purchased by Oracle, Entellium CEO was Convicted of Wire Fraud by the FBI and its assets Sold to Intuit, and SugarCRM’s founder and CEO was ousted from the company by the board. Those that are left standing and thriving are the same three that have been around the longest, Salesforce.com, Salesboom.com, Rightnow.com and on the outside NetSuite.com. Call them the four horsemen of Cloud CRM.