Are you adding to your database, or are you capitalizing on it?
In the latest RISMedia ACE webinar, "Capitalizing on Your Most Valuable Asset: Your Database," moderated by Verl Workman, CEO and founder of Workman Success Systems, and sponsored by IXACT Contact, the database was in the spotlight. A contact list? Far from it.
"At the heart of what we do as a brokerage is really focus on staying in touch and being 'in relationship' with our best relationships," said Joe Peoples, a coach with Workman Success Systems and sales manager with Charles Reinhart Company. "You're going to have a lot of different groups—internet leads, leads from open houses, your center of influence, your top 50, etc. The whole idea is everything has got to go into this factory for processing."
A database gives insight into not only who your clients are, but when those clients will next transact with you. Yours should contain enough information to maintain and nurture relationships. Remember:
Focus on your 'Top 50.'
Establish a Top 50—clients who know, like and trust you. Check in with them often.
Related: 10 Tips to Covert More Leads: Build Rapport With 'Know, Like and Trust' Process
"Whether you're just starting in the real estate business or a seasoned agent… get out of judgement and into curiosity," said Julie Toon Timms, broker in charge of Hilton Head Island Real Estate Brokers and a coach with Workman Success Systems. "Nurture these people and touch base with them all the time. We spend our time chasing new people—why don't we just be sure to take care of the people who know and like us already?"
How? In December, call your Top 50 for the holidays and/or make a charitable contribution in their name, Timms suggested. In January, check in with a "Happy New Year!" and an offer for an assessment of their "mortgage fitness." In February, bundle a call to action ("We love referrals! How can we help?") and a discount to a local bakery for Valentine's Day.
Keep the end goal in mind.
All communications should be consistent, whether the recipient is an "A," "B" or "C."
"[Follow-up] is built around the concept of getting face to face or scheduling an appointment," Peoples said. "Without an appointment, you can't have success. The conversations create closings."
"The whole reason behind the database is not so you can say you have a good database—it's so you can get more appointments," said Workman. "We can't forget the 'why' behind it. These activities generate top-of-mind marketing, so that the moment [clients are] thinking of doing something, they think of you first."
Never stop updating.
"Have your CRM open and in front of you when you're asking questions," Workman said. Fill in information right then and there—and freely give referrals based on it.
"Your database is a living, breathing thing, and you get by giving," said Workman. "If you want more out of your database, you have to give more referrals by tracking who [your clients] are and what they do. It gives you the ability to search [your database] and send more business out."
They're people!
Consider clients friends—friends who need guidance in a major milestone.
"People are people, and they have families, they have wants, they have needs, and they really want to find somebody that they can know and trust and just rely on for the largest decision they'll ever make," Timms said.
Learn more from the webinar, including follow-up initiatives, the FORD script and the 'Mackay 66' method, in the recording below:
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