December 15, 2025
Case Study: How Thomas Davis Transformed His Brokerage and Increased Lead Response by 2,281%
The Stakes: A $500/Month CRM That Nobody Used
Thomas Davis built Abode Real Estate from scratch. After spending seven years at Kiawah Island Real Estate learning the luxury market and building relationships with Fortune 500 CEOs and world-renowned actors, he launched his own brokerage in 2019 with a clear mission: nothing would ever get in the way of what's best for the client.
He had two offices in Charleston. He had a team of six agents. And he had Follow Up Boss, which he'd been paying for since 2020.
The problem? Nobody was really using it.
Thomas had tried multiple times to build out the system himself. He'd watch YouTube videos, attempt to create action plans, set up some drip campaigns using lightly edited templates. Then he'd get overwhelmed and give up. The brokerage was essentially paying $500 a month for a glorified contact list.
His agents felt it too. Some made calls. Some sent texts. Most did nothing systematic. Leads would come in hot, sit in the database, and go ice cold while everyone assumed someone else was handling it.
The breaking point came during a routine check-in with one of his top producers. She'd lost track of a motivated buyer who reached out weeks earlier. By the time she remembered to follow up, they'd signed with another agent.
"When you've got 4,000 or 5,000 people in your database, you start to lose track of some folks," Thomas said. "You just can't keep up with them."
The Turning Point: Finding the Right Fit
Thomas had always been a figure-it-out-yourself kind of leader. He'd built his brokerage from nothing. Surely he could handle a CRM.
After another frustrating attempt at building action plans his team would probably ignore, Thomas came across Kee Technology Solutions through a referral.
What caught his attention was a single detail: the email content was built around the principles from "Exactly What to Say for Real Estate Agents."
"I read the book, I love it," Thomas said. "When I saw that's how they're building out their drip campaigns and templates, I was sold. Because honestly, that's the way I was trying to do it. And I'm sitting there by myself thinking I've got 250 different emails to write in this tone and this format. It was well worth it to call them."
He'd heard about CRM experts before. Most just taught you how to use the buttons and left. He needed someone who understood real estate and could build something his agents would actually use.
The Transformation: Structure That Actually Works
Implementation began August 2024. Within two weeks, Kee Technology Solutions had restructured Abode's entire Follow Up Boss account with simplified stages that made sense for their market, ten prioritized smart lists so agents knew exactly who to call each day, over 35 action plans with reply-based email content, automated lead flows that put every new lead on the right track instantly, and clear SOPs for the first time in the brokerage's history.
Thomas made it non-negotiable. Every agent got trained. The message was clear: this is how we do business now.
Some of his agents were technology-adverse. Getting them to use something other than paper and pen had been an ongoing challenge. But when Thomas could show them the before and after numbers, everything changed.
"The response rates have been through the roof since we joined on with them," Thomas said. "Even the negative stuff, when they say they're not interested, that's still good. That's one less person I have to think about or pull through my call list. It saves me 30 seconds. Add that up over a hundred people and the time starts adding up. That's time being given back to me and my life."
The Results: Numbers That Speak for Themselves
September 2024 - December 2024 compared to May 2024 - August 2024:
📞 Calls: Up 587%
📅 Appointments Set: Up 350%
📧 Lead Response Rate: Up 2,281%
✉️ Email Response Rate: Up 93%
💬 Text Response Rate: Up 170%
January 2025 - April 2025 compared to September 2024 - December 2024:
📅 Appointments: Up 22%
📧 Email Response Rate: Up 36%
📞 Phone Response Rate: Up 105%
Action Plan Engagement Rates:
Back to Website: 87%
Branded Website: 75%
Nurture Buyer: 66%
Stale Leads: 17%
Real Lead, Real Result
One of Thomas's agents had a lead sitting cold in the database for months. The agent had given up on them entirely.
Then the Stale Lead action plan kicked in. An automated email went out asking a simple question: are you open-minded to the possibility of buying or selling in the near future?
The lead responded immediately: "Yes, I'm open to buying in South Carolina."
The agent jumped on it. She gathered more information, started sending properties through Real Scout, had multiple conversations over the following weeks. By the time January rolled around, they'd scheduled a video walkthrough. By January 27, 2025, the client was under contract.
That deal would have been lost forever. The system caught them at exactly the right moment.
Looking at that transaction in total: 40 manual emails exchanged, 91 text messages, 36 phone calls. Only 16 of those emails were automated. The system started the conversation. The agent built the relationship. That's exactly how it's supposed to work.
What Actually Changed
The culture shifted.
Before the setup, Thomas was managing chaos. Agents were stressed, reactive, constantly playing catch-up. Now his team opens their CRM each morning and knows exactly what to do. The smart lists tell them who's hot. The action plans handle the nurture. The agents focus on what they do best.
"You can't just show that you care," Thomas said. "You've got to actually care. Your level of communication, in that case it looks almost overly communicative, but you've got to be that if they're going to really trust you. And then of course, all that flows into the next thing, which is they're going to refer you. That's where the real money in this business comes from."
New agents onboard in days instead of weeks. Everyone follows the same system. Consistency across the entire brokerage.
Thomas noticed something unexpected: his agents started wanting to log their activity. When you see results, you don't need to be reminded to use the system. You just do it.
The Foundation, Not the Flower Boxes
Thomas has a philosophy he shares with new agents. Think of your career as a house. Most people getting into the business worry about their flower boxes immediately. They want everything to look pretty.
Thomas worries about the foundation.
"I can tell you this," he said. "I tried them all. I went through every CRM, spent thousands and thousands of dollars trying them out. You've got to buy them, get into them, really feel them out and spend six months to a year working with them until you learn it's either for me or not. Follow Up Boss does everything I want and more."
The difference now is that the foundation is solid. His brokerage has a real system. Real structure. And real results to show for it.
"It was well worth it to call them," Thomas said.
Want Results Like Thomas's?
If you're a broker, team leader, or agent tired of paying for a CRM you're not really using, it's time to make a change.