AI CRM for Real Estate Agents: The 7 Workflows I Run on Claude

Getting more leads is not what gets you more closings. Converting the ones already sitting in your CRM is, because you already paid for those. Open houses, door knocking, cold calling, Meta ads: however you generated them, that money is spent. Any lead in there you have not followed up with is money sitting on the table.

That is the whole argument for pointing AI at your CRM before you point it anywhere else. I am William Zhang, a full time agent in Austin, and this is the system I actually run on my own database. Below are the seven workflows in the order I built them, with the prompt for each one, so you can copy them into your own CRM today.

A note on scope, because it matters. This is written to work on any real estate CRM. Follow Up Boss and Real Geeks are just the stack I happen to run. Every workflow here is stated as the job first and the tool second, so it transfers.

First, check whether your CRM can connect at all

Do this before you plan anything, because the answer changes what the rest of this looks like.

Install the Claude desktop app, get on at least the 20 dollar per month plan, then go to Customize and then Connectors. Connectors are how Claude reaches other platforms.

Claude’s connector directory already lists several CRMs agents use: HubSpot, Monday.com, Zoho, Attio, Close and Salesforce. If yours is in there, you are close to a one click setup.

Follow Up Boss was not, so I built a custom connector against its API and wrote a custom CRM skill on top. That route is real work. It needs an API key, and on most platforms an API key means a paid plan and admin rights on the account, which is a wall if you are on a brokerage-owned CRM seat. Find out which route you are on before you build a plan around the second one.

The two rules that make this safe

Every prompt below ends in some version of show me first. That is not politeness, it is the setting that makes it safe to point at a live database.

1. Never invent a transaction fact. Prices, dates, addresses, square footage, loan terms and deadlines come from a record it pulled or from me. If it is not there, it asks.
2. Read anything. Write nothing without showing me. Reading is free. Sending, editing, deleting and changing a stage all wait for approval.

Set write permissions to needs approval, not blocked. Blocked stops it drafting at all, and drafting is most of the value.

Way 1: Update the CRM without logging into it

The job: get what was said into the record before you forget it.

I hop off a call with a lead and go straight into the next appointment, and by the end of the day I have genuinely forgotten what the first conversation was about. The administrative side of this business is not something I enjoy, so historically it did not get done.

Now I talk to Claude instead of opening the CRM. “Update this lead, they want a five bedroom four bathroom around 800,000 in Austin.” It goes into the CRM and writes it.

The same thing works from a screenshot, which is how I handle the messy ones, the text conversations and the open house sign-in sheets:

This is a screenshot of a conversation with a new lead.

Pull out everything actually in it: name, phone, email, buying or selling, timeline,
price range, area, financing, and anything they said about their situation.

Then:
1. Search my CRM for this person first. If they already exist, tell me and stop.
2. If they are new, create the contact using my existing stages, tags and sources.
3. Write a note summarizing the conversation in three sentences or less.
4. Set a follow-up task with a real date and time.

Do not guess at anything not in the image. List what is missing at the end.
Show me the record before you create it.

What I actually type once the instructions are set up: add this lead

Way 2: Ask who you need to call today

The job: rank the whole database on what people actually did, not on what stage someone put them in eight months ago.

Go through my entire CRM and tell me who to call today.

Rank people on what they have actually done in the last 21 days, not on their stage:
- properties viewed, and whether they viewed the same one more than once
- saved searches created or changed
- home valuation checks
- inquiries, tour requests, form submissions
- replies to me

Give me the top 10 as a table: name, phone, the single strongest signal, when it
happened, and one sentence on what I should say.

Two rules for this list:
- Repeat views of the SAME property outrank a lot of views across many properties.
- Anyone who replied to a human message outranks anyone who only clicked.

At the bottom, list anyone whose behavior contradicts the note on their record.
Do not change any record. This is read only.

What I actually type: who do I call today

The honest part: this list is only as good as your data. If your contacts are not on your website getting alerts, there is no behavior to rank and this returns very little. That is what Way 6 fixes.

Way 3: Write a follow-up sequence per lead source

This one is my favorite, and it is where the generic CRM sequence loses badly.

A referral should never get the same emails as a cold Facebook lead. Someone your past client sent you is ready. Someone who tapped an ad on Instagram was curious for four seconds. The problem is that writing a separate sequence for every source is miserable, so almost nobody does it.

So I paste the actual ad in and let it write to the person who clicked that ad.

Below is the ad that generated this group of leads.

Read it and tell me, in one sentence, what the person who clicked it actually wants.
Then write me a 5-email follow-up sequence for exactly that person.

Rules:
- Day 0, day 2, day 5, day 12, day 30.
- Each email under 90 words. Written like a text from a person.
- Do not restate the ad. They already clicked it.
- Every email ends with one question answerable in under ten words.
- Email 4 gives something useful with no ask attached.
- Never state a price, rate, market statistic or timeline unless I gave it to you.

Then tell me what this sequence assumes about the person, so I can correct you.
Show me the drafts. Do not load anything into the CRM yet.

[PASTE THE AD HERE]

What I actually type: write the sequence for this ad

I ran this on a real downsizing ad here in Austin for single story homes under 350,000 dollars. What came back opened on low maintenance living, no stairs, quiet neighborhoods and builder discounts you will not find online. That is copy written for a specific person, and it reads nothing like “just checking in.”

Run it twice, once on a downsizing ad and once on a relocation lead magnet, and put the two day-zero emails side by side. If they sound the same, your prompt is not doing its job.

Way 4: Track the deal and its deadlines

The job: never miss a contract date again.

Claude is connected to my email, my CRM and my calendar. When an offer gets accepted on one of my listings, it reads the contract and works out the dates itself.

Here in Texas that means the option period, when buyers can walk without penalty, plus the financing deadline and the closing date. Getting one of those wrong is a real problem, which is exactly why the prompt makes it show its work.

Find the executed contract for [ADDRESS] in my email. Read the whole document.

From the contract itself, work out every date that matters:
- effective date, and how it is defined in this contract
- option period end, including the exact day and time it expires
- earnest money and option fee delivery deadlines
- third party financing deadline
- closing date

For each one, show me the date, the clause you took it from, and how you counted it.
I want to check your math before anything goes on a calendar.

Then draft the calendar entries. Do not create them until I say go.
If a date is ambiguous or a document is missing, say so instead of picking one.

The “show me the clause and how you counted it” line is the whole reason this is usable on a live deal.

Way 5: Reactivate the database you already own

This is the highest ROI thing on the list, and it is different from Way 2. Way 2 looks at the last 21 days. This one looks at years.

Past clients. Leads who went quiet. People who ghosted you. Every one of them was a lead for a reason and every one of them cost money to acquire. Working through that list by hand is awful, which is the only reason it never gets done.

Pull everyone in my CRM I have not spoken to in 90 days or more.

Do not write anything yet. First, group them by WHY they went quiet, based on the
notes and history on each record. Expect groups like:
- never qualified, we never actually talked
- were looking, then stopped, and I do not know why
- lost out on a property and went dark
- bought with someone else
- past clients I simply have not called

Show me the groups and the counts. Tell me which group is worth my time first, and why.

Then write ONE re-open message for each group:
- under 60 words
- reference something specific that is actually on their record
- no "just checking in", no "circling back", no apology for the gap
- one question, answerable in under ten words
- no market claim or price unless it is on the record

Show me the drafts. Nothing sends without my approval.

What I actually type: who has gone quiet, group them, write the re-open

While you are in there, this is the cleanup pass that makes everything else work better:

Give me a hygiene list before I send anything:
- open tasks more than 30 days overdue
- contacts with no phone and no email
- likely duplicates, matched on phone or email
- contacts with no source
- anyone tagged as a past client with no closing date on file

Just the list and the counts. Do not fix anything.

Way 6: Sync the CRM to your IDX site

This is the least glamorous one and structurally the most important, because it is what makes Way 2 work at all.

Follow Up Boss has no IDX of its own, so I run Real Geeks for the website. When a new lead lands in the CRM it gets pushed to the site, and from that point their activity comes back to me as signal: homes viewed, searches saved, valuations checked. No sync means no site behavior, and no behavior means the daily call list has nothing to rank.

Take [NAME] from my CRM and register them on my IDX site so they start receiving alerts.

1. Pull the full record from the CRM.
2. Map the fields the site needs: first name, last name, email, phone, source, date created.
3. Confirm there is an email on the record. If there is not, stop and tell me.
4. Push the contact to the site.
5. Confirm it went through, and tell me exactly what I still have to do by hand.

What I actually type: push [name] to my website

Three limits worth knowing before you build on this, because they cost me time:

• It goes one direction only. CRM to site. Nothing reads back.
• The saved search is still manual. You set the criteria by hand in the site admin. The sync creates the contact, not their search.
• No email on the record, no sync. This is a live problem for me, since a good number of my leads reach me on WeChat and never give an email address.

Way 7: Put the whole thing on a schedule

Everything above still needs you to start it. This is the step where it runs without you.

These are scheduled tasks rather than chat prompts. Same text, set to fire on their own.

Every weekday, 7:00 AM

Run my morning CRM sweep. Rank the database on the last 21 days of behavior and give
me the top 10 with the strongest signal on each and what to say. Include anyone with
a task due today. Send it to me as one message. Do not contact anyone.

Every Friday, 4:00 PM

Give me this week's pipeline report:
- every deal under contract, with the next deadline and how many days out it is
- anything that has not moved a stage in 14 days
- new leads this week by source
- how many people I actually spoke to, not how many got an automated email

Flag anything that looks stuck and say why. Keep it under one screen.

What I actually type: run this every weekday at 7

What this does not do

It does not price a home. It does not read the room on a call. It does not negotiate, and it does not decide who is worth your time, it only tells you who has been acting like they are.

It is also confidently incorrect sometimes. A well formatted wrong closing date is worse than no closing date, because you will believe it. That is the entire reason every prompt above ends in show me first.

Where this fits

The CRM assistant is one piece of a larger system. I run the same setup across my email and calendar, my listing work and my content, and the CRM is where it pays off, because that is where the money already is.

If you want the rest of it, the executive assistant build is the right place to start, since email and calendar are far easier than a CRM connector. If you happen to run Follow Up Boss specifically, I wrote up that exact build with the four use cases I started with.

Copy the prompts above and run them on your own database this week. Start with Way 2, because it takes about five minutes and it will tell you immediately whether your data is good enough to build on.