Last week we did a show-n-tell webinar in the SWS Virtual Studio about contact management - specifically what to DO with your contacts once they're loaded. Because, as nice as it is to have a place to safely store your precious sphere of influence contact details, having them in storage certainly isn't enough to justify either the effort it took to get them there, or the cost you'll incur to keep them there.
If you'd like to watch the video from the show, you can do that here: www.sellwithsoul.com/cms-contacts. It's a long one - nearly 90 minutes, but there's some good stuff there if I do say so me-self!
If you don't have the patience to sit through a 90-minute tutorial (I know I don't), here's the Cliff's Notes version...
Step One: Print out a report of all your contacts, including their spouse's name, home address, email address, phone number and birthday.
Step Two: Go through the list with a highlighter and identify any missing bits of information. Don't DO anything with the missing bits just yet - just identify them.
Step Three: Go through the list again and identify your Group Ones (the people you'd feel comfortable asking out for coffee; i.e. your social network). Put a "1" next to your Group Ones.
Step Four: If you imported your contacts from an old database, identify anyone on that list that you don't know with an "IDK" (I Don't Know). These might be old web leads or people you met at open houses five years ago, for example.
Step Five: Everyone else on the list, who isn't a Group One or an IDK should be a Group Two (people you know, but who aren't in your social network).
Step Six: Go BACK through the list (yet again) and identify members any sub-groups that you see - for example - family, service providers, dog-lovers, fellow bikers or hikers, little-league parents, members of your church, high school or college friends, etc.
INTERLUDE
All this printing and highlighting and scribbling may sound a little low-tech for today's world, eh? Surely there's a faster, more efficient way to do these things without expending all this manual effort?
Yes, of course there is and most contact management systems will allow you to do most of these steps directly online, without printing and highlighting and scribbling.
BUT
I believe there is something magical about "touching" the names in your database on a regular basis. When you print out the list and go through it, name by name and really think about each person and who they "are" to you, good things happen. First, you'll likely be inspired to reconnect with many of the people on that list, and second (as airy-fairy as this may sound), when you think about someone, I believe you send out a vibe to them, and if you're thinking good thoughts (!), I believe they'll feel it... and might be inspired to reconnect with YOU! I think every real estate agent should go through their database, name by name, at least every six months.
Okay - I'll continue this later this week with what to do NEXT after you've printed out and scribbled up your list... Stay tuned!
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