Set up a real estate team

This guide is for agents, teams and small brokerages. You end with your buyers and sellers in Fifi, each transaction on a pipeline with its closing date, a booking page for showings and consultations, a lead form for your website, and a monthly newsletter. Your workspace uses the standard words Contacts and Deals: a contact is a buyer or seller, and a deal is a transaction. This guide doesn't cover listings, MLS data or commissions, which Fifi doesn't handle.

Is this the right guide?

• Business type: Real estate.
• At the end you'll have: buyers and sellers imported, every live transaction on the board, showing and consultation booking types, a website lead form, and reminders before important dates.
• Time: about 25 minutes, not counting your list.
• Plan: Pro covers everything here. During the beta every workspace has every module. See Modules, business types and plans.
• No sample for this type. The IT consultant sample at /try/consulting shows the same pipeline, and the dog grooming sample at /try/grooming shows booking pages.

New to Fifi? Do Your first hour with Fifi first.

Create the workspace

1. On Create your workspace, type your team's name and click Continue.
2. Under What kind of business is this?, choose Real estate.
3. Pick a color scheme and click Create workspace.

What you'll see: Contacts, Companies, Deals and Calendar in the menu. Real estate starts with Deals, Email, Campaigns, Reports, Online booking and Forms and automations on.

Turn on what you need

Open Settings → Modules. Who can do it: owners and admins.

Business details

1. Open Settings → Workspace.
2. Click Upload logo.
3. Under Business address, type your brokerage's address and click Save address. Newsletters need it in the footer.
4. Pick Colors and click Save colors. Your booking pages use them.

See Set up your logo, colors and business details.

Your team and hours

1. Open Settings → Members. Under Invite a teammate, type each agent's Email, choose a Role and click Invite. Agents can be Members. A team lead is usually an Admin.
2. Each agent opens Settings → Booking → Your hours, chooses Your time zone, sets Weekly hours (up to 6 ranges a day), adds Days off and clicks Save hours.

A showing can only be booked while an agent is free. See Set up your team.

Buyers, sellers and transactions

Contacts and deals

1. Click Contacts, then New contact. Fill in First name, Last name, Email, Phone and Source. Click Create contact.
2. Click Deals, then New deal.
3. Type a Deal name such as "Okafor: 42 Elm St, buyer".
4. Set Value (USD), Stage and Expected close. Use the sale price if you want to see volume, or your expected commission if you want to see income. Pick one and keep it.
5. Choose a Company (every deal needs one, so make one called "Buyers and sellers" if you don't want one for each) and attach the people under Contacts.
6. Click Create deal.

What you'll see: the deal on the board. Drag it across as the transaction moves. See Deals and the pipeline.

Showing and consultation booking types

1. Open Settings → Booking and, under Booking types, click New booking type.
2. Type a Name ("Showing"), Description and Page address.
3. Set Length to 30 minutes and Free time after to 15 minutes for travel.
4. Under Who takes it, tick the agents.
5. Under Questions, set Phone number to required and click Add a question: "Which property?"
6. Tick Taking bookings and click Create.

Do the same for "Buyer consultation" and "Listing appointment". The Where field is one address, sent with the confirmation, so use the "Which property?" question for showings, or make a booking type for each listing. Pro allows 5 booking types and Business 20. Each booking adds the person as a contact and puts the meeting on your calendar. See Online booking.

Pipeline and naming

The four stages never change. Here is one way to use them for a transaction:

Close a deal as Won when it closes, or Lost with a reason: Price, Timing, Competitor, No decision or Other. Name each deal "Client: address, buyer or seller".

Custom fields worth adding

Open Settings → Custom fields, choose a tab and click Add field.

See Custom fields and reminders.

Tags to start with

In Settings → Tags, click New tag.

• Buyer
• Seller
• Past client
• Investor
• Referral partner
• Newsletter

Forms and automations to start with

A lead form

1. Open Settings → Forms and click New form.
2. Type a Name ("What's my home worth?") and a Page address.
3. Set Phone to optional and Message to optional. Click Add a field for "Are you buying or selling?" (Choice) and "Address or area".
4. Choose a tag to add, write a Thank-you message, tick Taking submissions and save.

Automations

In Settings → Automations, click New automation.

Automations create tasks. They never email clients. See Forms and Automations.

Bring in your customers

1. Export your database as a CSV file. Fifi understands First name, Last name, Email, Phone, Address, Job title, Lead status, Source and your custom fields.
2. Open Contacts and click Import.
3. Choose the file and click Continue. Match the columns, choose Skip it (keep what's in Fifi) for duplicates, click Preview import and import.

Imports don't start automations, and a CSV can't import deals, so add live transactions by hand. See Import, export and Trash and Bring in your existing customers.

Email and texting

1. Open Settings → Email and click Connect Gmail on the Gmail card. Outlook shows Coming soon until Fifi's Microsoft connection is set up.
2. Wait for Up to date. Email with your contacts appears on their pages and your Inbox.

Texting isn't on for real estate. You can turn it on in Settings → Modules on the Business plan, where it shows Coming soon until Fifi's texting service is set up. See Connecting your email.

Invoicing for this business

Invoicing is off. Agents are usually paid at closing, outside Fifi. If you charge fees you bill yourself, such as consulting or property management, turn on Invoicing in Settings → Modules and see Choose how you'll invoice.

Your first campaign

Send a monthly market update to past clients and leads.

1. Open Marketing and click New campaign.
2. Choose contacts with the Newsletter tag.
3. Write three or four sentences and one link, and send a test.
4. Send.

You need your business address saved and a mailbox connected. See Campaigns and Send your first campaign.

Reports and the dashboard

Pin these three from Reports:

• Pipeline by stage: transactions in progress.
• Won deals by month: closings.
• Win rate by owner: which agent converts.

Ask Fifi's first questions, if it's on, are "Which open deals close this quarter?" and "How many deals did we win this month, and what were they worth?" See Know your numbers.

Your first week

• To do: Your buyers and sellers are imported.
• To do: Every live transaction is a deal with a stage and an expected close.
• To do: Contingency and closing dates have reminders.
• To do: Every agent has saved their hours.
• To do: A showing booking type is live and linked from your listings.
• To do: The lead form is on your website and tested.
• To do: Your mailbox is connected.
• To do: You sent one newsletter to a small list.
• To do: Three reports are pinned.

What Fifi doesn't do for this business yet

• MLS or listing sync. Fifi doesn't pull listings or show them on a page.
• Commission tracking. Fifi has no commission splits or payouts.
• Transaction documents and e-signature. Fifi doesn't keep documents on a deal or sign them.
• Your own stage names. The four stages are fixed.
• Importing deals. A CSV imports contacts and companies, not deals.

Troubleshooting and related

Still stuck?

Contact Fifi support with your workspace name, what you clicked and the exact message you saw. The troubleshooting guide covers the common ones.

Related: Deals and the pipeline, Online booking, Forms, Campaigns.

Next: Send your first campaign, then Know your numbers.