Primary Residential Mortgage

Chris Farrar is a highly driven and accomplished Senior Product Manager specializing in MarTech at Primary Residential Mortgage. With a strong background in marketing technology, team leadership, and CRM management, he ensures the sales and marketing tech stack's efficiency, adoption, and integration. Chris is dedicated to optimizing platform effectiveness, reducing functional overlap, and enhancing system performance while providing training and support to the sales organization. Known for his collaborative approach, he is key in driving revenue-generating marketing initiatives and transforming strategic plans into successful outcomes.

Through this article, Farrar highlights how PRMI transformed CRM selection by shifting from subjective decision-making to a data-driven, collaborative evaluation framework that engaged vendors and prioritized real-world user needs.

In an industry where technology decisions can make or break customer relationships, choosing the right Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform is crucial. Yet, these decisions are often based on subjective opinions rather than comprehensive, datadriven analysis. This is how Primary Residential Mortgage, Inc. (PRMI) found a perfect fit for leadership, sales, marketing and business technology departments.

In June 2024, PRMI’s business technology team embarked on an ambitious project to evaluate CRM platforms for their mortgage loan originators. The traditional approach to technology selection often relies heavily on gut feelings and individual preferences. PRMI wanted to change that by creating an objective, measurable framework to serve the organization and the mortgage industry.

"The mortgage industry needed a more scientific approach to evaluating technology," explains the project lead, Chris Farrar, a Senior Product Manager with 15 years of experience managing sales and marketing technology. "We wanted to move beyond opinion-based decisions to create a framework that could objectively measure the quality of CRM solutions."

Over five months, they conducted in-depth interviews with 21 CRM providers, often engaging in multiple conversations to ensure an accurate understanding and fair evaluation. “Establishing rapport, creating a friendly atmosphere, then asking direct questions that get the solution provider to explain why they are different in the marketplace, produces remarkable engagement and research results,” Chris remarks.

"The mortgage industry needed a more scientific approach to evaluating technology. We wanted to move beyond opinion-based decisions to create a framework that could objectively measure the quality of CRM solutions."

What set this process apart was the collaborative nature of the process – vendors weren't simply being evaluated; they were active participants in refining the evaluation process itself. They had a chance to offer suggestions about what to measure, which often made it into the final analysis.

To manage this complex evaluation, the team leveraged Olive. This specialized RFP platform allowed them to create weighted requirements and incorporate end-user feedback directly into the decision-making process. This innovative approach meant that the final evaluation wasn't just about technical capabilities – it reflected real-world user needs and preferences.

The result was transformative: a dynamic, interactive library of CRM capabilities and performance metrics that could be customized based on specific use cases and requirements. This resource became invaluable for the organization's executive leadership in making their final vendor selection and for anyone in the mortgage industry looking to make informed MarTech decisions.

What made this project particularly successful was its commitment to transparency and collaboration. CRM vendors praised the evaluation process for its comprehensiveness and friendly approach – a rare achievement in an industry where vendor assessments often feel arbitrary or opaque. The solution providers appreciated having their voices heard and their needs prioritized in the selection process. Once finalized, interviews were set up with the top performers, and those who did not win the RFP were still included in a warm invitation to stay in touch for future opportunities, creating potential alliances among buyers and sellers.

The success of this project offers valuable lessons for other marketers and technology leaders. First, taking the time to develop a comprehensive evaluation framework ensures you make the right decision and can support that decision for years ahead. Second, collaborating with vendors opens doors and leads to future opportunities, should you need them.

For organizations considering their own MarTech evaluation, this project demonstrates that with the right approach, it's possible to move beyond subjective opinions to data-driven decisions that serve organizational needs and user preferences. The key lies in creating a process that is collaborative, transparent, and grounded in measurable criteria.