Lofty CRM Training: The Complete Guide to Learning Lofty the Right Way (2026)

What is Lofty CRM training, exactly?

Lofty CRM training is structured teaching that shows you how to set up and run Lofty, the real estate CRM formerly called Chime, so it produces follow up, appointments, and closings instead of just storing contacts. That sounds obvious, but most agents never get it. They get a login, a feature tour, and a good luck.

Here is the difference nobody explains. A feature tour shows you where the buttons are. Training builds you a system. Buttons do not follow up with your internet leads at 9 PM. A built Smart Plan does. Buttons do not route a Zillow lead to the right agent on your team. A routing rule you set up on purpose does. I teach the system, in plain English, the way I run it in my own business every day.

What you will learn

This is the sequence I teach inside Apex Elite AI, and it is the order that works. Skip around and you build automations on top of a messy foundation, and then you get to build them twice.

1. Setup and foundations. Your account, your pipelines, your lead sources, your tags, all set up clean before anything gets automated. Most Lofty accounts I audit are fighting their own setup.

2. Smart Plans and follow up automation. The heart of the whole thing. Smart Plans that follow up with new leads, long term nurture for the ones who are not ready, and reactivation for the database you already own. The money is made in the follow up, and automation is key to getting your time back. This module is where that stops being a quote and starts being your Tuesday.

3. Lead routing and team systems. Who gets the lead, how fast, what happens when they do not touch it, and how you see all of it as the team leader without micromanaging anybody.

4. Your Lofty website and IDX. Your site is not a business card, it is a lead capture machine. Featured areas, search pages, and the fixes that keep it converting, like the new Featured Areas setup and what to do when your domain will not connect.

5. AI inside Lofty. Lofty's AI writes follow up drafts, scores your buyers, and now runs deeper agentic features. I will show you what to turn on, what to leave alone, and the guardrails that keep an AI from ever saying the wrong thing to your client. Client personal information stays out of the AI, period. If you read my breakdown of the FTC coming after OpenAI and Anthropic, you already know why that line matters.

6. Reporting and accountability. If you cannot see it, you cannot fix it. The dashboards and numbers that tell you whether your system is working or just busy.

Start free: the videos Google already puts at the top

Go search Lofty CRM training on Google right now and look at the videos that come up. That is my channel. There is a reason for that, and it is not an ad. Start with these, in this order, and you will be ahead of most agents running Lofty:

▶ Lofty CRM Setup Guide 2026: From Zero to Launch: the full setup, start to finish.
▶ Lofty CRM Just Changed Everything: The Full 2026 Guide: what the platform does now and what changed.
▶ The Ultimate Lofty CRM Overview: the big picture before you touch a setting.
▶ Getting Started With Lofty: the playlist for your first week.

All of them live on my YouTube channel, Adam Gillespie - AI & CRM Training for Realtors. Watch them, build along with them, and when you hit the wall that videos cannot get you past, that is what the next section is for.

Is Lofty hard to learn?

No. Lofty is not hard to learn. Learning it alone, in random order, from seventeen different videos, between showings, with nobody to ask when a setting does not do what the video said it would do, that is what makes it feel hard. The tool is not the problem. The sequence is. Agents who learn it in order, foundations first and automations second, are usually dangerous inside of a couple of weeks. Agents who random-click for six months still say Lofty does not work. Same CRM. Different approach.

Your Lofty training options, compared honestly

Lofty's own webinars and help center. Free, and genuinely good for feature updates and narrow how-do-I-do-this-X questions. What they will not do is build your system with you or tell you when your setup is wrong.

YouTube self-study. Free, and mine will take you a long way. The limit is real though. A video cannot look at your account, and it cannot answer the question that is specific to your team, your leads, and your market.

Done-for-you setup services. Fast, and for some agents the right call. Just go in clear-eyed. Somebody else builds it, it works, and the day something breaks or needs changing, you are paying again because you never learned the system yourself.

Guided training with a community. This is Apex Elite AI, so yes, I am biased, and I will tell you exactly what the bias buys you. A sequence instead of random videos. Live calls every week where your actual account gets looked at. A community of agents building the same systems. And me, a practicing agent who won the inaugural Inman AI Award in 2024 and holds Lofty Certified Partner status, teaching the CRM I run my own business on. If that is the kind of help you want, the door is at the bottom of this page.

Who this is for, and who it is not for

This training is for solo agents who know their follow up is costing them deals, and for team leaders who need Lofty to run the same way for five agents as it does for one. It is not for anybody looking for a magic button. Lofty is powerful, and powerful tools reward people who build them properly. If that is you, we will get along great.

Questions agents ask about Lofty training

How much does Lofty CRM cost?

Lofty does not publish one flat price, because it depends on your plan, how many seats your team needs, and which add-ons you choose, which is exactly why so many agents get surprised after they sign. Get your quote, know your real number, and then build your training around the plan you actually bought. A full pricing breakdown is coming to this site soon.

Is Lofty the same as Chime?

Yes. Lofty is the platform formerly known as Chime, rebranded in 2023. Same CRM, new name, a lot more AI. If you are searching for Chime training, everything on this page is what you are looking for.

How long does it take to learn Lofty?

The foundations, a focused weekend. A full working system with your Smart Plans, routing, and website built out, about 90 days of guided implementation, which is exactly how Apex is structured. You will be better than most agents on Lofty within your first two weeks if you follow the sequence.

My brokerage gives me Lofty. Do I still need training?

Your brokerage gave you the tool. They did not give you the system, the follow up plans, or the accountability to build it. That gap is where most agents live, paying for a CRM they use like an address book. Training is what closes it.

The money is made in the follow up, and automation is key to getting your time back. Let's go get it.

Adam Gillespie, Apex Elite AI