Brivity Success Stories | Robert Cruz
How a top Silicon Valley team grew in a down market with Brivity
After 20-plus years of working in leadership roles for other real estate firms, Robert Cruz joined his wife, Carol Cruz, and her partner, Ken Lutz, to become the second Cruz in the Lutz & Cruz Group. Robert immediately went to work applying his vast knowledge of running successful teams and how they could increase efficiencies in their fast-moving market.
COMPANY INFO
- Lutz & Cruz Group
- Keller Williams Realty
- Silicon Valley, CA
- 10 agents, 1 Brivity VA, and 3 partners
PRODUCTS
- Brivity Platform
- Brivity VA
- Brivity Lead Gen
- Finding the right tools for a scaling business
- Lack of automation
- Sourcing qualified, affordable staff
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The best software is the one you use
Armed with years of experience using various real estate software, Robert knows firsthand the three challenges that everyone in the industry encounters.
The first challenge agents face is actually using the software.
“The best CRM is one that you will use,” says Robert. “And once you commit to using it, then the other two challenges are activity and accountability.”
Robert and his team have found the Brivity Platform to be user-friendly and easy to manage at a high level. When the team runs into questions, the support at Brivity is very responsive, which keeps their adoption and engagement rates within the Brivity Platform high.
“Brivity never goes to sleep. It never forgets a date and never forgets a task. And it gives my agents a lot of flexibility when they’re overwhelmed. They can pick the most important tasks for the day and reset the rest for the following day, allowing them time to focus on what’s important,” says Robert.
“Brivity never goes to sleep. It never forgets a date and never forgets a task. And it gives my agents a lot of flexibility when they’re overwhelmed.”
Coaching the gap
With Robert’s background in coaching and running large teams, he understands the importance of keeping his team accountable for their activities.
“If you don’t have a way to account for how many calls are made and various other activities, then you can’t identify and coach to their gap,” says Robert.
The Brivity Business Dashboard offers Robert quick access to view the number of calls, tasks, and activities to preset goals. This information gives him the tools he needs to work closely with his agents to increase productivity.
Strategic lead generation
In the competitive Silicon Valley market, Robert knew they needed to be very strategic in how they approached lead generation. By partnering with the Brivity Lead Gen team, they were able to leverage their market inventory to develop targeted buyer campaigns specific to their needs.
With many buyers getting outbid in their tough market, Robert’s team decided to add additional campaigns targeted at new construction inventory. This new strategy helped create a steady flow of leads that allowed them to work much closer with buyers on what they could afford in their volatile market. Once leads had a better understanding of the current market conditions, it opened up opportunities for the Lutz & Cruz Group agents to discuss other geographic areas that would fit their budget.
“Our lead gen strategy with Brivity has played a big part in our success as it gives us multiple chances to win with each lead.”
Adding leverage with a virtual assistant
Stretched thin from the demands of operating in a high-end market, Robert and his partners turned to Brivity VA to find additional leverage. They found the process of selecting their VA easy and, because their VA already had a solid background in the Brivity Platform, they were able to ramp up quickly.
Their new Brivity VA took over many of their day-to-day administrative tasks, which allowed their Director of Operations more time to focus on income-producing activities. As their VA gained experience with their unique business processes, they transitioned even more responsibilities, including transaction coordination. With transaction coordinator costs running over $700 per filing in their market, the cost savings made a huge impact on their bottom line.
“Training our Brivity VA to work as our Transaction Coordinator has probably been our biggest ROI for the year.”
Increased efficiencies equal results
Despite the Silicon Valley market being down 30% year-over-year in closed sales, the Lutz & Cruz Group is on pace to close the same sales volume as last year. With fewer sales opportunities available and only so many hours in a day, Robert says their remarkable results are directly tied to their increase in activities made possible with Brivity.
“How do you tell someone who worked hard last year that you got to work harder this year?” says Robert. “Brivity offers us a way to work more efficiently without adding extra hours to our agents’ days.”
“Brivity offers us a way to work more efficiently without adding extra hours to our agents’ days.”
The best part? Robert says they are only using 30-40% of Brivity’s features, which means they have even more success to look forward to in the coming year!
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