Follow Up Boss built properly for real estate investors — pipelines, routing, action plans and every integration tested before it goes live.
What Follow Up Boss Is
A CRM built for real estate rather than adapted to it. Leads arrive from every source into one inbox, get routed by rules, and sit in pipeline stages with automations chasing them. Calling and texting happen inside the platform so the whole history stays on the contact record.
For investors the draw is lead routing and speed to lead. Sellers contact several buyers; whoever responds first usually wins the conversation. Follow Up Boss is what makes a five-minute response the default rather than something you manage by willpower.
What I Build
Pipeline stages that match how you actually buy, from new lead through to closed
Lead routing rules, round-robin and ponds so every lead has an owner within seconds
Up to 15 smart lists so the daily dashboard tells your team who to call today
Action plans and nurture sequences, including long-term follow-up for sellers who are not ready yet
Automated tasks and stop rules so sequences end when a human replies
Custom fields, segmentation and original source tracking kept intact
Full database cleanup and de-duplication before anything goes live
Deal, GCI and source-to-revenue tracking so you can see which marketing paid
Email and texting configured and tested, then a complete walkthrough with your team
Follow Up Boss Integrations I Set Up
The integrations are where most setups fall down — leads arrive but land in the wrong place, or arrive twice, or silently stop. These are the connections I build and monitor:
Smarter Contact and Launch Control — SMS leads and replies into the CRM automatically
Slybroadcast — ringless voicemail drops logged against the contact
Gravity Forms, Google Forms and website forms — straight in, source tagged
Calendly — booked calls appear as appointments, not as something to copy over
Mailchimp and Constant Contact — email engagement visible on the record
Google Contacts — two-way sync so the phone matches the CRM
Dialers and call tracking, so recordings and outcomes log themselves
Zapier and webhooks for anything without a native connector
Action Plans, Smart Lists and the Parts People Never Finish
Most accounts I inherit have Follow Up Boss installed and barely configured. Leads land, nothing happens, and the owner concludes the CRM does not work.
Action plans — what actually happens when a lead arrives at 11pm and nobody is awake
Smart lists — the daily working view: new leads, overdue follow-ups, going cold, under contract
Automations — task creation, stage movement and notifications that do not depend on anyone remembering
Reporting — which source produced contracts, not just which produced conversations
Training — the system only works if the team uses it the way it was built
Already Using Follow Up Boss?
If the account is in reasonable shape, skip setup and go straight to management at $200 a month. If it is not, I quote only the missing work rather than charging for a rebuild you do not need. Either way nothing is deleted or disconnected without your approval, you keep ownership of the account, and I work inside it as a user.
The Pipeline I Build
Default Follow Up Boss stages are written for agents chasing listings. Investors buy differently, so the stages get rebuilt around how a deal actually moves:
New Lead — arrived, not yet contacted
Contacted — conversation started, not yet qualified
Qualified — motivation, timeline and condition established
Appointment / Offer Made — a number is on the table
Under Contract — signed, in diligence
Closed or Dead — with a reason recorded, because dead leads are a recycle list
Stages are deliberately few. Every extra stage is another thing a team forgets to update, and a pipeline nobody maintains tells you nothing.
What a Rebuild Typically Fixes
Most accounts I inherit have the same handful of problems. If several of these sound familiar, the CRM is not your problem — the configuration is:
Leads arriving with no source, making marketing spend unmeasurable
Duplicate contacts, so one seller appears three times and gets messaged three times
Action plans that never stop, still sending after someone replied
Integrations that broke months ago and nobody noticed
Fifteen pipeline stages nobody updates, or three that do not match how you buy
Smart lists that return everything, so the team ignores them
Follow Up Boss charges per user per month, billed directly by them, and the tier depends on team size and which integrations you need rather than on lead volume. My fees are separate: $500 one-time for a solo setup, $900 for a team build, and $200 a month for ongoing management. I earn nothing from your subscription.
Is Follow Up Boss worth it for a real estate investor?
If leads arrive from more than one source and you cannot currently say which produced your last contract, yes. If you are doing a couple of deals a year and nothing slips, the subscription is hard to justify. The value is in routing and speed to lead, not in storing contacts.
How long does a Follow Up Boss setup take?
Three to five business days for a complete build: pipeline stages, routing rules, smart lists, action plans, custom fields, integrations and a full database cleanup. Everything is tested before automations go live, so no half-configured sequence starts messaging your database.
Can you connect Follow Up Boss to Smarter Contact?
Yes, and it is the most common integration I build. New SMS leads create contacts automatically, status updates sync, and callbacks schedule themselves. Where a native integration does not exist I build it with Zapier or webhooks instead.
Do you provide ongoing management or just the setup?
Both, and they are priced separately. Setup is one-time. Management at $200 a month covers duplicate merges, smart list upkeep, up to four new or edited workflows, broken integrations fixed within one business day, and a monthly pipeline report and strategy call.
Who owns the Follow Up Boss account?
You do. It is billed to you, I work inside it as a user rather than as the owner, and nothing is deleted or disconnected without your approval. If we stop working together, nothing moves and nothing is lost.
Want Your CRM Built Properly?
Book a free call and I will tell you whether your account needs a rebuild or just the missing pieces.