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Part 1 of a 3-Part Series

Years ago, I walked into Nordstrom to buy a bra. That’s where I met Wendy, the Nordstrom Lingerie Specialist.

After introducing herself with her name and asking me for mine, she started with, “Tell me what hasn’t been working.”

She listened. She adjusted. She disappeared and returned with options I would not have chosen for myself.

As we strolled to the dressing room, she informed me that she was a Certified Bra Fitting Specialist. Yes, that is a real job. She measured, she lifted, she separated, she all but gave me a mammogram, and before I knew it, I was wearing the best-fitting bra of all time. Wendy asked me to fill out a registration card so she could stay in touch. A week went by. I opened my mailbox to retrieve the mail, and there was a handwritten note from Wendy with her business card. Wow!

A few more weeks went by. I opened the mailbox, sorted through the junk mail, and found another handwritten note from Wendy. More weeks went by, and Wendy continued to stay in touch. Triple wow! She treated something ordinary like it mattered. That’s nurturing.

And here’s the part most people miss. Behind that associate was a system, inventory tracking, and purchase history. Brand knowledge. Training. Infrastructure. She wasn’t winging it. She was supported.

Now let’s talk about AI.

When I say AI is your MVP, I don’t mean it lives in a separate browser tab where your sales team occasionally asks it to write a clever email. I mean, it plays on your field. For most builders, that field is the CRM.

If AI lives outside your CRM, it’s a helper. If it lives inside your CRM, it becomes infrastructure.

That distinction matters more than most people realize. The Nordstrom associate didn’t feel robotic. She felt attentive. Because the systems were invisible.

That’s the goal.

CRM + AI Is Not “Fancy Autocomplete”

When generative AI is embedded into a CRM, it does far more than finish your sentences.

Imagine a New Home Sales Counselor finishing an appointment. Instead of manually typing scattered notes into the CRM, AI summarizes the conversation into clean, structured entries, highlighting budget sensitivity, preferred elevation, school concerns, timeline pressure, and unstated hesitations. The counselor reviews, adjusts tone, and saves.

Or picture this: a lead has stalled in the “Second Visit” stage for 21 days. AI scans past communication and suggests a re-engagement message that references the exact floor plan they loved and the community amenity their child was excited about.

That’s not a gimmick. That’s contextual intelligence. Across major platforms, this is already happening:

• With HubSpot, teams can ask natural-language questions like, “Which buyers in this pipeline mentioned needing a home office?” and receive CRM-driven answers.
• With Salesforce, AI can summarize calls and generate insights from patterns across records.
• With Microsoft Dynamics 365, built-in Copilot tools draft emails and generate conversation summaries directly in the workflow.
• Zoho CRM uses its AI assistant, Zia, to automate tasks, score leads, and suggest communication improvements.

Close CRM includes built-in generative AI tools for filtering leads and drafting content inside the system. The pattern is clear:

AI is not replacing the CRM. It’s becoming the CRM’s communications coach.

And that’s powerful for builders. Because when AI lives inside your CRM, it doesn’t replace your listening skills. It protects them. Instead of digging through old emails, it can surface past objections or preferences in seconds. Instead of recreating follow-up messages, it can draft structured starting points that you refine with your voice.

That’s not automation for automation’s sake. That’s protection of selling time. And the data supports this shift.

• Salesforce’s State of Sales report shows high-performing sales teams are 2.8x more likely to use AI regularly in their workflows.
• McKinsey research indicates that top-performing sellers are significantly more likely to leverage technology to reduce administrative friction.
• Gartner reports that organizations using AI-assisted sales processes see measurable improvements in pipeline visibility and decision speed.

In FANtastic Selling 3.0, I say:

“Efficiency isn’t about speed. It’s about intention.”

When AI is integrated into your CRM, nurturing becomes easier to sustain at scale. Your MVP shouldn’t be sitting on the sidelines. It should be in the system your team already uses every day.

AI Practice Drill:

By the way, there are 58 ChatGPT New Home Sales Practice Drills in FANtastic Selling 3.0, written exactly for real-world applications.

Conversation to Clarity

1. Take notes from your last buyer appointment.
2. Paste them into your AI assistant and prompt: “Organize these notes into structured CRM-ready insights. Identify budget signals, timeline urgency, lifestyle priorities, and potential objections.”
3. Then ask: “Suggest one thoughtful follow-up question that deepens trust.”
4. Review and refine before saving into your CRM.

This protects nurturing while reducing friction.

FANtastic Selling is now available on Amazon. You can buy your paperback or Kindle version here.

Categorised in: FANtastic Selling Book, Home Builder Marketing & Sales, International Builders' Show