With a roster of high net worth clients, Chris scaled Black Crow Inc, to an in-house firm of attorneys, property managers, real estate agents and contractors with 1000+ satisfied clients, $10 million in recovered costs for clients and in excess of $20 billion dollars in closed transactions with franchises in California, Texas and Oklahoma.
We sat down with Chris to learn how his custom real estate app builds client trust, how he integrated + automated to save massive follow up time and what every agent should be doing to build a strong brand.
“I came to HomeStack for a set of reasons that became even more important as we began to understand what our custom real estate app could do. It gave our brokerage one singular point of contact to best work with clients. We were getting very fragmented…and having alerts and interactions all managed in our App ecosystem, is a massive timesaver.”
A-ha Moment: We need to Be on Peoples Mobile Devices
“During a company meeting I looked up and every person was looking at their phone! I did my research and an overwhelming majority of people search for homes on their mobile device. Owning that piece of "digital real estate" on their phone, having your icon there, gives you a leg up on the competition because now you're the App on their phone they go to for their real estate needs - they now think of you that way.”
Creating an App Builds Client Trust
“A website only gives one click or it doesn't work on a phone. Having a mobile App and offering a high level personal touch, means knowing - Chris is my realtor, I’m going to work with him and I’m not worried about getting lead calls later on. It builds a rapport and gives them a comfort level that we really couldn’t get anywhere else."
“I tell my clients, don’t even send me links, just go in my real estate App, favorite listings you like and I’ll know. I go in my insights and see exactly what they like and share them similar properties right in the App."
"In order to scale a company you need to leverage tech to save time and be productive."
Integrate and Automate for Valuable Follow Up
"One of the initial conversations with HomeStack was about having the ability to integrate our App with our other platforms through the Zapier. It is a wonderful tool that many realtors are intimidated by, but if you can say “if this then that” then you can use Zapier! It simply says if you get a lead in your App then put it in your CRM.”
“One of our issues is time management, so we automate our entire process via Zapier, because of HomeStack. For our App, a lead comes in, it goes into our CRM then goes straight to the agent that is responsible for them. The client also gets a welcome text from the real estate agent automatically saying “Hey happy you downloaded the app can we help you with anything…” and we customize the response to fit each agent. It all automated with Zapier which saves a ton of time.”
What Every Agent Should be Doing to Build a Strong Brand
“One of my cheat codes, that every real estate agent should follow - buying a real estate agent app is not enough. You need to co-brand yourself or your brokerage with the technology. The real estate app is just one extra quiver in your set of tools that you can use to market yourself as different from the next real estate agent.
If you go to our Black Crown Inc website our real estate app is referenced on every single page. Go to our social media, you will see constant reminders to download our App, we’ve even created videos around it.
Social media is your living business card, you’ve got to advertise who you are and if you are a HomeStack client and you have a branded real estate app, your Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn should match your App - it’s super critical.”
Use Custom Push Notifications to Target Market
“The beauty of our App is that it continues to evolve and grow. For example, we can now send Custom Push Notifications to clients. I’ll send one if we are in the news, or do something awesome, if we bring on someone new in an area. They are great, because you see an automatic response. You're now getting notifications from the App about things that may be relevant to you specifically. It just gives you that “real estate” that is so vital on a phone.”
For more tips follow Chris @chrisnaghibi and listen to his podcast The Higher Standard everywhere podcasts are streaming.
Ready to learn more about building a white label app for your team or brokerage? You can find more info HERE.
