Choosing the right CRM application for your commercial real estate business is a little bit like buying a house, in the sense that there are a lot of moving parts; some aspects are legal, financial and even structural. It can quickly get confusing as which is the best route to go. This post aims to demystify the world of Salesforce and how it is sold and bundled in various ways in the marketplace.
Salesforce is an industry-leading CRM provider for the last 20 years so no surprises that many top real estate companies use Salesforce as their CRM.
NAI Global, Berkadia, Avison Young, Cushman & Wakefield are all Salesforce users.
If you decided to use Salesforce for your real estate practice, you have three options:
Options to Get a Salesforce License
Option #1 You can buy a Salesforce license directly from Salesforce
Option #2 You can select a Salesforce Partner who extended Salesforce functionality with custom features.
In this case, the pricing of their product will include a Salesforce license. Our AscendixRE CRM is a good example. Go to the AppExchange (the marketplace by Salesforce) to search for other available solutions.
? Check our guide on how to select AppExchange apps
Option #3 You can buy a Salesforce license from Salesforce and an AppExchange app from a selected partner.
So what option is the best?
In this post, I’ll explain pros and cons of every option using our AscendixRE CRM as an example. Note, that these pricing models work pretty the same for other Salesforce partners as well.
Let’s dive right in!
Buying From Salesforce Directly
What you get
Depending on the kind of Salesforce plan you purchase (Professional, Enterprise, Group or Unlimited), what you generally get is a CRM system that lets you track Accounts, Contacts, Leads and Opportunities.
It is industry-agnostic, meaning that it will not be tailored to your specialty.
It will require that you basically build it from the ground up to capture your business processes and the data modeling you wish to set up.
Example: You would need to build a Property object if you’re in Real Estate or a Loans object if you’re in Finance.
This can be a time-consuming process and most businesses don’t have a dedicated resource to accomplish this.
Ascendix Technologies can serve as your Salesforce consulting partner by providing best practices, counsel and implement your business requirements in a way that makes your Salesforce investment a long-term valuable asset.
Depending on the kind of Salesforce plan you purchase (Professional, Enterprise, Group or Unlimited), what you generally get is a CRM system that lets you track Accounts, Contacts, Leads and Opportunities.
What you pay
When you purchase a license from Salesforce directly, it can run you up to $300/user/month. You can find the detailed Salesforce pricing here. Ascendix Technologies can provide you with competitive hourly rates for consults.
Salesforce Sales Cloud Pricing (1/16/2020)
Buying From Ascendix Directly
What you get
Ascendix Technologies is a Salesforce partner.
Beyond actually providing the consulting services mentioned above, we have also partnered with Salesforce to provide a blended ‘off the shelf’ product for Commercial Real Estate firms.
This means that Salesforce has allowed us to use their core Account and Contact object to track relationships, and Ascendix has come in and already created Property, Lease, Sale and Listings objects. It takes so much of the guesswork out since it’s already “pre-plumbed.”
There are limitations here because you’re buying a bundled Salesforce & Ascendix product in one, you cannot use the Leads, Opportunities, or Campaigns object designed by Salesforce.
You also cannot create any new objects. While this may seem like a true limitation, you will find that for CRE firms, AscendixRE does the job…and then some!
What you pay:
This is the best part, you get Salesforce and a tailor solution for your CRE firm for as low as $49/user/month.
Even the highest tier of product (based on features), runs at $79/user/month.
Still a great bargain for all you are getting.
Check out our pricing page for a full set of features.
If the off the shelf product meets all your needs, you may not need any consulting services.
However, if you would like to further tailor the platform for your business, such as needing assistance with changing forms and layouts, importing data, setting up dashboards and setting up workflows for reminders of key dates, then engaging Ascendix Technologies for some consulting hours may not be a bad idea.
Buying from BOTH Salesforce & Ascendix Directly
What you get
This is exactly what it sounds like.
You buy Salesforce licenses directly to take advantage of the full flexibility the platform has to offer.
In addition, AscendixRE can be purchased as a module that you overlay on top of a full Salesforce license giving you the flexibility of the Salesforce platform with the pre-configured commercial real estate functionality.
This is a unique approach as it implies a business wants a solid starting off point using the data modeling that exists, but foresees the need to expand itself in ways that might leverage marketing integrations such as Marketing Cloud or Pardot.
What you pay
When you purchase a license from Salesforce directly, it can run you up to $150/user/month.
When you buy Ascendix as an “add-on” you get a discounted rate of $45/user/month for the full-featured product (that would normally cost $79/user/month).
The premium on the price is because of the freedom to use the platform with very minimal limits.
Still not sure what road to choose? Engage one of our people in a conversation and we can help you decide what makes most sense.
Authored by
Chris Petersen
Senior CRM Consultant
Connect with Chris on LinkedIn
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