November 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Pig Seen Flying in the Cloud

Pigs Fly in the Cloud

Top Producer CRM for real estate agents has just released a new version that appears to embrace new web standards and is no longer joined at the hip with Internet Explorer.

TopProducer has long championed the many years-long email “drip” campaign — until a prospect “buys or dies”. In short, they turned legions of agents into the most vial of spammers. So, I was shocked, shocked to read the following in their latest ad:

Drip marketing’s gone the way of the dodo, and your consumers already know all about daylight savings time. To connect with today’s customers, you’ve got to give them something more than Aunt Emma’s “Can’t miss Cobbler”.

I guess pigs can fly. I’d give them an “amen!” but that has been true for many years. And they knew it while all the while they pitched TopProducer as a way for agents to “automate” their marketing. As a productivity coach, I watched them encourage a lot of agents to damage their most important asset — the trust of their sphere of influence — by abusing the implied permission an agent has to communicate with their friends and family. Just so they could ensnare more subscribers. Hell yeah I’m bitter. They’ve disrupted a lot of relationships and real estate careers.A few years ago, I was a beta tester for TopProducer’s previous version of this online system. Even though we were paying handsomely to use the product, hundreds of us testers spent a lot of time making suggestions and doing our best to help the company improve their flagship product. From what I could tell, they ignored all of our contributions, but maybe they are finally making use of our feedback. The biggest usage issue for me was that TopProducer only fully supported IE. While there was some ability to use Safari or Firefox, one couldn’t do things like edit emails, flyers, etc. That’s kind of a big exclusion.

Top Producer’s latest offering claims to embrace HTML5, which should mean that any browser should work and flash and other temperamental plugins are not required. They have images of the site running on iPad, iPhone, and Android devices to support this impression. For years, TopProducer has been an internet-only application, but they are just now calling themselves a “Cloud-based solution”. Buzzwords are free, they may as well use them.

So do I recommend Top Producer?

For most agents, No. Let me be clear that I have not tried this new version, so my opinion has nothing to do with the quality or usefulness of their software. Rather, it is because:

  • It is expensive. $39.95/mo for the base product with many other add-on products available. Discounts for large franchises will knock about $10/mo off the listed price.
  • An annual contract is required. They are ruthless about holding agents to the contract, regardless of reason, after the 30 day trial. So budget the $500 for your first year of basic service, because you will be paying it.
  • It does too much. This criticism may sound ridiculous, but the fact is that there are so many options that it has a steep learning curve. In fact, you will be much better off if you adjust your routines to do things the TopProducer way, as the procedures are quite inflexible. Fortunately, the processes supported by the software are good ones, but they are more rigorous than most agents are willing to perform.
  • They offer no analytics from which an agent can evaluate the success of their campaigns. One of the key ways they were able to continue to sell the idea of drip-marketing campaigns, is they didn’t offer agents any kind of basic metrix like email “open” and “abuse” (marked as spam) rates.

    • On the positive side:

  • Top Producer’s phone support is outstanding. They are easily among the best support operations in any industry. Agents speak in clear language (as clear as Canadians can be, at least) and they will take all the time you need in order to resolve your issues.
  • Their systems work if you don’t try to work around them. The standard version includes a lot of great tools and instruction that an agent can implement right away. Most large real estate franchises (Keller Williams, RE/MAX, Coldwell Banker, etc.) have a customized version to support each particular franchise’s system. Secret sauce aside, all of these systems are very similar.
  • The fact that it is an online (“cloud”) service means that they will manage the technical things that few agents are capable or willing to do — like daily backups of data. Also, especially if you work as a part of a team, a web-based solution is the only type of solution you should consider. Good agents are out meeting people for presentations, coffee, whatever… not hanging around the office.

    • Who should use Top Producer?

  • Agents who can and will completely adapt to the TopProducer way of doing things.
  • Agents who are not inclined to fiddle with processes rather than just doing them.
  • Agents who work as part of a team and/or have an assistant. Most high-producing agents will not have the patience to use this tool, but they will benefit their team/assistants do.

    • Who should NOT use Top Producer?

  • New agents.

    • This tool is too expensive and time consuming for new and developing agents. Let me put it this way: I know a lot of new agents who pay for TopProducer. I know none who use it regularly. Please, use this money to buy coffees for your friends and ask them PERSONALLY if you can do a CMA for their house or keep an eye out for a particular sort of property.

  • Experienced independent agents who have systems that already work. Don’t mess with the methods you have used with success. Top Producer is an entire system, not a tool to augment what you are already doing well.

    • For what it’s worth, I recommend Heap CRM for most agents who don’t prefer working with paper-based systems (which can work very well, by the way). It is easier, only $9/mo, and doesn’t require a contract. I’ll be writing more about Heap soon.

    What are your experiences with Top Producer and other all-in-one CRMs?

    Filed Under: Real Estate Tagged With: , ,
    Avatar of Christopher Price About Christopher Price

    Christopher Price is an innovative IT leader with 17-years experience directing business transformation within complex businesses and growing technology-driven organizations. Christopher is able to envision and articulate IT's role in enabling and driving innovation, competitive differentiation, customer loyalty and efficiency for the company. Currently seeking opportunities to join a highly effective leadership team. More about Christopher | Let's start the conversation...

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