Most people think of real estate education as licensing prep. Rules, regulations, legal frameworks. The mechanics of a transaction.
That's not what I teach.
When I stepped into the classroom at Baruch College as an adjunct professor, I brought the same thing I bring to every coaching engagement, every pitch meeting, and every team training: the actual curriculum of what it takes to survive — and thrive — in a relationship-driven business. Not theory. Real-world methodology. Tested under real pressure, in real markets, with real money on the line.
The course is Customer Relationship Management. The subject is relationships. The outcome, for the students who do the work, is a permanent shift in how they think about connecting with other human beings in a professional context.
Why I Chose CRM as My Subject
Before I had a team, before I had a CRM software platform, before I had a list of 300 names, I had index cards. A fist of them. Paul Italia — one of the most important mentors of my career — handed me a stack of index cards, a landlord directory, and told me to start calling. Every card tracked a property address, a landlord name, a call history, and notes. I called hundreds of people a day. The cards became a living database. The database became my competitive advantage.
That was my first CRM. It was analog, it was messy, and it was the foundation of everything I built after it.
CRM — as a strategy, as a process, and as technology — is not just a tool for real estate. It is the operating system for any relationship-based business. And in a world where AI is replacing job after job, the person who understands how to build, manage, and nurture relationships at scale is the person who becomes irreplaceable.
That's why I teach it.
The Course Structure: Three Definitions of CRM
My course is built around one central idea: CRM is not software. CRM is a philosophy. It shows up in three distinct forms, and you have to understand all three to use any one of them effectively.
CRM as a Strategy
Strategy is the first layer. Why does relationship management matter? What is the lifetime value of a client relationship in any business? How do you think about your contacts not as a list of names but as a network of trust relationships — each one representing potential business, referrals, and compounding value over time?
The textbook for this portion of the course is Sell It Like Serhant by Ryan Serhant. I chose it not because it's a sales book — though it is — but because it captures the mindset that every serious relationship manager needs: that your job is never done at the close. The close is the beginning of the next relationship.
CRM as a Process
Process is the second layer. How do you manage relationships through the entire lifecycle of a customer — from first contact to long-term loyalty? What does your follow-up system look like? When does the conversation start, how often does it continue, and what keeps it alive when there's no transaction on the table?
This is where most people fail. They collect contacts and let them go cold. I teach students that a contact without a follow-up system is just a name in a database. The process — the cadence of outreach, the content of the check-in, the reason to re-engage — is what converts a contact into a relationship.
CRM as Technology
Technology is the third layer — and the one most people jump to first, which is why they use it ineffectively. We work with HubSpot throughout the semester, building live CRM infrastructures and learning how to actually use the tool to implement the strategy and process we've built.
The practical work is real: how to import contacts, how to set up deal pipelines, how to write email sequences, how to log activity, how to track conversations. By the end of the semester, every student has a functioning CRM with real contacts organized in real pipelines.
The Assignments That Changed How Students Think
The 300-Name List
One of the first assignments is simple and terrifying: write down the name and phone number of every person you have ever known. Push for 300. Enter them all into HubSpot. Tag them by category — personal, professional, school, family. Then call ten of them this week. Not email. Call.
Most students have never done this. The ones who do it — who actually pick up the phone and call people they haven't spoken to in years — come back to the next class changed. They discover that the relationships they thought were dormant are often perfectly preserved. People are happy to hear from them. And most of them, when asked if they know anyone who might need the student's help, offer a name.
That exercise is the beginning of a referral machine. I've seen students get their first professional opportunity — a job interview, a freelance contract, a first client — from calls made as part of that homework assignment.
The Buyer Persona (Customer Avatar)
Before you can manage a customer relationship, you have to understand who your customer is. Not in general — specifically. I have students build a detailed customer avatar: age, income range, life stage, professional background, buying motivation, emotional state, and the question they're searching for an answer to when they find you.
This exercise changes how students think about communication. Instead of sending messages to 'everyone,' they start writing to someone specific. Their language gets more precise. Their outreach gets more relevant. And their conversion rate — even in practice exercises — goes up.
The Final Presentation: Your CRM in Action
The final project is a live demonstration of the student's CRM system. They present their contact database, their pipeline structure, their follow-up sequences, and their outreach strategy. They have to explain — in front of the class — how their system works, who their ideal client is, and what happens when a contact enters their pipeline from first touch to long-term relationship.
By the time they're standing up to present, most students realize they've built something real. Not a school project. A system they could actually use in a job, a freelance practice, or a business of their own.
What I Learned From My Students
I always say this at the start of every class: I love teaching because I learn so much from my students. And I mean it.
The students who came through my Baruch CRM course were coming from everywhere — finance, marketing, hospitality, real estate, entrepreneurship. They were different ages, different backgrounds, different reasons for being in the room. And every semester, without fail, someone would ask a question or make an observation that challenged how I thought about something I'd been doing for years.
One student asked me: 'You talk about following up with contacts regularly — but how do you make it feel genuine instead of transactional?' That question led to one of the best class discussions I've ever been part of, and it changed how I thought about the content of my own outreach.
Another student — a recent immigrant who was building a freelance marketing practice — asked how to build a CRM when you're starting from zero contacts in a new country. The answer we worked through together is now a module in my coaching platform.
Why This Matters Beyond the Classroom
The skills taught in that Baruch CRM course are not just classroom exercises. They are survival skills in any field where relationships drive outcomes.
In real estate: your CRM is your business. The agent with the best relationships and the most organized system for maintaining them will consistently outperform the agent with more talent but less discipline.
In sales: the person who follows up, who remembers the details, who shows up with relevant information at the right moment — that person closes more business than the person who relies on charm alone.
In any professional context: the ability to build and maintain authentic relationships at scale — using technology as the infrastructure, not the substitute — is one of the rarest and most valuable skills in business.
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I earned a BA in English and Hispanic Studies at Trinity College and built my real estate career on a foundation of cold calls and index cards. When I walked into Baruch as a professor, I wasn't there to teach students what real estate looks like in a textbook. I was there to teach them what it looks like when the phone is in your hand, the contact is in front of you, and the relationship you build in the next three minutes determines whether that person trusts you with the most important financial transaction of their life. |
That's what I taught. And that's what I keep teaching — in every coaching session, every team training, and every Lundgren365 module.
The classroom just happened to have a grade attached.
About Nile Lundgren
Nile Lundgren is the founder of The Lundgren Team at SERHANT., with over $500 million in career sales across New York City and South Florida. A cast member on Netflix's Owning Manhattan, Fox News contributor, adjunct professor at Baruch College, and nationally recognized speaker. He is the creator of the Jump Cycle framework and the founder of Lundgren365, a coaching platform built for agents who are ready to stop surviving and start scaling.
Ready to build your real estate career? Connect with Nile at Lundgren365.
