Mistake: I don’t have/use a database
I get it…you get your real estate license and every trainer, broker and real estate instructor tells you to build a database. This is not the “sexy” you thought about when you thought about your new real estate business.
I would like to explain and hopefully convince you that not only is a database important but why it is the hub of your business and I’ll give you a few tips to help you get started too.
When you think of any industry where professional services are provided you can count on a robust database at the center of any prospering business. We don’t always think about it this way, but when attorney’s and doctors talk about their “practice” they aren’t talking about their office space, they are talking about the list of people that they have relationships with and market to for consistent business and growth through referrals. This should not be any different than your real estate business.
You will hear a lot of people talk to you about lead generation as you continue through your career. Purchasing internet leads, working
Generating leads is crucial to your business…and the way you should think about those leads is that they are feeding my DATABASE! So if you are a lead generating machine and taking all the people you meet and putting them into your database so you can market to them, it would make sense that you could start your database with the people you already know…not sure why, but people often miss this step.
If you are creating your first database or going back to it after a couple years let me give you some tips.
- Make a list of everyone you know! Not everyone who knows you well..everyone you know! Got a barber, dog groomer, favorite butcher at the meat counter?
- Put this list into an excel spread sheet. Make sure to put their first name in one column and last name in a second column. Crucial information will be phone number and email address and physical address if you can get it. The reason for the excel spreadsheet is most CRM’s/Database software will allow you to upload your contacts via CSV file which is a file extension type you can make from excel.
- Research your options. My brokerage gives a free CRM solution to our agents and it works great for scheduled emails, drip campaigns, action plans and reminders. There are a lot of options out there and some can get quite expensive. Make sure that it’s not so robust that you will be overwhelmed but not so simplified that it won’t do at least the above mentioned things.
- Group your contacts appropriately based on who they are. Past clients, just met’s, people who have referred you business. If you’re stuck on this, I’ll be writing more about it in a future post.
Once you’ve started creating your list and have chosen your CRM, consistently market it to it…consistently is the key word here. You need to stay in front of people, be a resource to them and make sure they know to call you for all of their real estate needs. We will be discussing a marketing plan for your database in a future post as well. So start building your list of people you know and by the way, your Facebook friends are a great place to start!