Tip of the Week: Build Your Sphere of Influence
Start building your "book of business"
Some call it working your "sphere of influence." Becoming a real estate agent is just the very first step in a long (you hope) career of working with buyers, sellers, investors, appraisers, loan officers, mortgage brokers, inspectors, title companies and others. Start out right by finding a good contact management system in which you'll enter all of these contacts and prospects.
Realize that you already have a sphere of influence. You have family, friends, old schoolmates, previous business associates, soccer buddies, and more. These are people that know you, and just because of that, you have some influence on them.
Throughout your career in real estate, you should always have a plan to grow this group and implement it faithfully. This will become a huge source of repeat and referral business over time. Follow these tips from James Kimmons for thebalance.com:
Get Your Current List All in One Place
This is a big task, but it's important and begs planning to avoid duplicate work later. You'll be surprised at how large a list you can come up with when you start pulling in your friends, old classmates, sports team members, business associates, your doctor, lawyer and others.
What is important is to hopefully start with something more than a list on paper. If you use Outlook in your computer, use that contacts database or another like it to get these people into a system for management. Today's technology and CRM, Customer Relationship Management software and online systems make this a much easier and more efficient task.
Make Contact the Way You Usually Do
This has to do with being effective, but also saving some money. There are plenty of advisors out there that will have you develop a really nice letter in envelopes and mail via first class mail. This may be how you do it for some of your list.
However, if you're making a really large contact list, many of them will be people you usually talk to via email, text messaging or phone. It's OK to contact them the way you always have. Just split your list into groups by contact method.
Develop Your Announcement and Send it Out
If you're contacting via several methods, such as some email, some mail and some phone, develop scripts for each, letting them know about your new business. It's as simple as : "Hi XXX, I've started a new career and wanted to let you know about it. I've gotten my license and I'm now a real estate agent with XXXX Brokerage in town. Please give me a boost by thinking of me if you're planning a real estate transaction or recommending me to those you know." Don't forget your contact info.
Whatever you do, if you get a response, you need to reply back to them and thank them. You're beginning a relationship that can lead to money in the bank, so start it out right.
Our Real Estate Virtual Assistants Can Help!
Do you need help managing and organizing all your contacts? Do you want to find the best CRM for your business needs? Give us a call! We can help research through the various CRM options to find the one that suits you best and upload all your contacts for you. We can even help draft your announcement letter! Let us know how we can help. We look forward to hearing from you!