If you’re new to Salesforce and CRMs, think of objects as digital filing cabinets or separate tabs in a spreadsheet that segment and store different types of information about your business.
Types of Salesforce Objects
Standard Objects. Pre-built objects that come with Salesforce. These include:
Leads. Potential customers who have shown interest in your service. Once leads are qualified by your definition of the term, they are converted into opportunities and associated with a new or pre-existing account.
Accounts. Buyers, sellers, other investors, vendors and other companies you do business with.
Contacts. Individuals associated with an account.
Opportunities. Potential sales or deals in progress. Multiple opportunities may be associated with a single account.
Custom Objects. Created by customers to store unique data specific to their needs. For example, a dog rescue organization might create an "Adoption Applications" object. A number of custom objects created by Left Main already exist in your Salesforce org. Standard Salesforce objects in your org also already have custom fields and page layouts specific to the real estate industry.
External Objects. Used to connect Salesforce to data stored outside the platform, such as in another database.
How Do Objects Work?
Each object is made up of records, similar to rows in a spreadsheet.
Records contain fields, which hold specific details (like names, dates, amounts, etc.).
Objects are related to each other, meaning data can be linked across different objects for a complete picture of business operations.
Primary Objects Used by Left Main REI Customers
Cadences
Cadences are follow-up sequences that have 4 potential components:
Text messages
Tasks for team members
Emails
Direct Mail
A Cadence can be manually created or automatically triggered. Manually, it can be added one-by-one or in bulk. See the Cadences Desk Reference for details.
Contacts
This object or “tab” is where the buyers list is located. It holds the buyer’s contact information, buying history, interested buyer history, and buying criteria. It also holds all communication history that anyone from the team has exchanged with the buyer.
Interested Buyers
This object lives inside of the Transaction object. This is where the disposition team will log buyer’s interest in marketed properties (MLS or Buyers List) and their offers. If a buyer requests information or expresses any level of interest it is recommended to record that. This list becomes your “hot list” of people to follow up with regarding this property and encourage buyers to make offers. Buyers' historic interest in properties will also be logged on their Contact record! This will allow a disposition team member to search and see how effective the buyer is, what they have offered in the past, and can help predict what the buyer may be interested in in the future.
Leads
This object or “tab” is where the acquisitions/sales team will spend most of their time. This is where new leads will populate and where deal analysis, deal negotiations, and hot follow ups will take place.
Opportunities and Accounts
This object or “tab” tracks your sales and pending deals. Leads are converted to Accounts and Opportunities (or just an Account if necessary), and a single Account can have multiple Opportunities.
Tasks
Tasks are your to-do items that you can create for yourself, others can create for you, or can be automatically created for you via Cadences. Tasks can be viewed in several different places. You can view past due tasks and tasks for others also by toggling which list view you would like to see or clicking the drop down menu.
Transactions
This object or “tab” is where the transaction coordination and dispositions team will spend most of their time. New Transactions will populate when a company lead is marked as contract signed. It is required that an offer is logged before a transaction is able to be populated. The last offer made will serve as the Contract Purchase Price.