Somebody wants $1,200 to fix a system that has never bought anything

Two things a spreadsheet does badly and a CRM does by default.

A next action with a date, attached to a record, that surfaces itself on the day. Your "call me next year" guy is a task dated next January. In a spreadsheet you have to remember to sort by a column. In a CRM the thing appears in front of you.

Activity history as separate timestamped entries instead of one notes cell. Every call becomes its own line with a date. That's what fixes your 300 word paragraph, and honestly it's the entire feature you're asking about.

The stage question matters more than the tool. What are your stages? For land I'd want something like identified, owner contacted, interested, offer out, under contract. If you can't name your stages, no consultant can build you a pipeline, he'll just build his default and you'll fight it.

What's your annual purchase target? At one parcel every two years the answer here is different than at six a year.

sextant, one to two parcels total over the next three years, held long. That's the honest number and I suspect it undercuts the whole case for spending $1,200.

The stages question is useful though. I don't have stages. I have a list and a feeling. Writing down identified, contacted, interested, offer out is something I could do this afternoon for free, and the two owners with dates are two calendar entries.

What I notice is that both of the things you named are things I could do badly in a spreadsheet and would rather do well somewhere else. Whether that's worth $1,200 at my volume I still don't know.

At one to two parcels in three years, a calendar and a folder per parcel gets you there. I'd skip the $1,200.

The part that would nag me is the owner conversations. Eight now, and if you keep calling it'll be 30 over three years, and that's where a real record earns its keep. Not because of the software. Because writing down what a man told you in March and reading it back before you call him in October is what makes the second call good.

I've held land for 19 years and my system is a manila folder per parcel with the plat, the tax card, and a sheet of dated lines for every conversation. It has never failed me. When a parcel goes under contract the folder goes in the closing drawer.

What I'll grant is that my system doesn't remind me of anything. I lost a 60 acre piece because I meant to follow up in the spring and did it in August, after somebody else. If the $1,200 buys you a thing that pokes you on the right day, that was worth more than $1,200 to me once.

orchard's story is the argument. anchor, you've got two owners who told you when to call. Missing one of those costs more than the entire quote.

But $1,200 for 40 records and eight conversations is a lot of money for setup. I'd ask him what the $1,200 is. If it's four hours of building and two hours of teaching you, that's $200 an hour and you should know that's what you're paying. Ask him to price two hours of sitting with you while you build it yourself. You'll learn the tool and you won't be stuck when you want to change a field.

The thing you flagged in your post is the one I'd take seriously. You said you might buy a parcel in four months and never open the tool again. That's true if you think of this as deal finding. It's also how people end up with no record of the 32 parcels they didn't buy, which is the list they wish they had three years later when one of those owners dies and the family sells.

So the question is whether you're building a searchable memory of a county or a pipeline to close a purchase. Those want different setups. Memory is cheap and can live anywhere as long as it's consistent. A pipeline is only worth building if there's flow through it, and at one to two parcels you don't have flow.

I'm building a list too, 180 records, and I moved off a spreadsheet last month after doing exactly what you did to a notes column. Free tier, no consultant, about six hours of my own time including two hours I wasted on an automation I later deleted.

What I'd say to quarry's point about the $200 an hour: it's not crazy if the guy knows land specifically. Most CRM setups are built around a buyer or a seller lead who transacts in 60 days. A parcel you might buy in 2028 breaks that model, and the fields you want are things like whether it's owned free and clear and how long they've held it, which no default template has. If he's built that before, some of the $1,200 is knowing what to put on the record. If he hasn't, you're paying him to learn on your county.