From a Custom CRM Software to AscendixRE: a CRM Story of Visintainer Group

We had a chance to talk with Brett Visintainer, Commercial Real Estate Advisor and owner of Visintainer Group. It took Brett over six years to get the CRM software and tools they actually needed. In this post, he’ll explain why building a custom CRM software was a mistake for the company and how eventually they solved their challenges with AscendixRE CRM.

Meet Brett Visintainer

Brett founded Visintainer Group to help sellers of investment properties market their properties with a sophisticated marketing approach.

The company focuses solely on investment real estate and offers investors specialized advice on real estate decisions during the acquisition, hold or disposition of an asset.

Visintainer Group maintains a detailed proprietary database of available properties, buyers, sellers, and opportunities and heavily invests in optimizing and improvement of their data.

Ascendix: Can you tell us a little bit about Visintainer Group?

Brett: We are a real estate investment firm that specializes in the sale of commercial, multi-family, and agriculture properties. Our focus is on properties located in Central California.

 

A homepage of Visintainer Group

Challenges

Ascendix: What challenges did you face regarding getting your data and information set up?

Brett: I could go on about this for a long time due to the roads I have taken trying to get things right. I started off looking for a software that would fit my vision about six years ago and didn’t feel anything worked, so I hired programmers to build my own.

Though it was working well, it started to get very expensive due to all the changes, having to build it from scratch, and hours needed.

I quickly realized going that direction with multiple divisions in my company was a mistake and I needed to give my agents something more reliable, and from a business standpoint – much cheaper.

I looked at my options and was impressed by the selling points of Apto only to find out they could not do what I needed.

I was being forced into a box, though I knew I needed something more customized. That is what I found Ascendix – they were willing to put the time into customizing, finding a solution, and not just telling me I had to work in their box since so many others do.

Solution

Ascendix: How were those challenges met by Ascendix?

Brett: Ascendix took the time to understand what I needed, created a solution, and worked with me on making sure it was done right. It is the first time in six years I can access my data the way I envisioned.

I was impressed with the communication, results, and timely responses to issues we ran into trying to get it right. I felt they were part of my team working with me to make sure my data was correct – and they wouldn’t stop until it was done right. I was impressed with their ability to take something that was not normal and get it done.

The Payoff

Ascendix: How do believe the use of Ascendix Search has helped your team?

Brett: Tremendously. It is what we work off every single day. It allows us to keep our data from being static and now utilized the way I always envisioned. The mapping system, tracking, and simplicity of how to use it makes our jobs much easier.

Ascendix: What are some of the other Ascendix features, in product or service, have led your team to success?

Brett: For retail, it was the ability to create searches for data that I felt was important to know how to look certain properties up, the roll up ability to combine square footage in a center, and of course – the mapping to search in areas of properties we are working. For multi-family and Ag, the mapping system is huge due to the economy of scale owners try to keep in those sectors.

Ascendix: What’s next for Visintainer Group?

Brett: Market domination! I look forward to now focus on real estate and put the database issues behind me. It has been a long time coming, but now we are ready to grow our business and let investors know about our company as I know we have so much to offer.

 

Key Takeaway

As you learnt from the story of Visintainer Group, it is not always a good idea to invest in building custom CRM for your business.

Instead, it might be faster and more cost-effective to customize existing market leaders: Salesforce (the Visintainer’s case) or Dynamics 365. As a result, you’ll get updates and new features in addition to your customizations without extra investment in development.

Do you want to create your CRM from scratch? Then look for a development partner with CRM expertise to avoid reinventing the wheel. Since 1996, we’ve been offering CRM consulting and development help for small and enterprise firms and will be happy to help you get the CRM software you envision.