Sphere of Influence, Center of Influence, past clients, people that I could not help and referred to another colleaugue....these are all sources of business that I usually only reach out to when I am am out of other people to contact in my daily business development (lead generation) activities. I had a conversation with a close friend, a banker, and he related this: "Remember how we were talking about the importance of seeing your existing customers and COIs to get more deals? Today I had that coffee with a customer and got a solid new $1.4 mil deal and this afternoon I spent some time with a COI and got two potential deals $500M and $1.5MM. None of this stuff would have happened if I didn't meet up with them (not called/emailed) and sought out the business" The moral of the story is I have to CONTACT people. REAL ESTATE IS A CONTACT SPORT!
At the end of my 1st year in real estate, I was having coffee with a friend, not a close friend, a medium friend. He said, "I just closed on a house in blah blah neighborhood." I am looking at him like he confessed to a crime..he says...."OMG i forgot you are an agent." I had called him when I got my license and then, when he did not jump up and down and seem as excited about my license as I was, I stopped contacting him. This was all my fault for not keeping in better contact with him. Make no mistake....NOW when he thinks about real estate he now think JACK BARRY. I call him, I wish him happy birthday on Twitter. I send $5 starbucks giftcards via FACEBOOK, I email him the monthly foreclosure lists for the city. He gets it now and it was my job to do that.
There are many systems to make the right contacts without seeming like you are constantly "knocking on their door" for business. Remember the 3-7-27 Law of Prospecting says that in order to truly become top of mind for clients it takes THREE contacts for them to recognize your name, SEVEN contacts for them to put your name with your business and TWENTY SEVEN to truly become a brand name. My job is to make people I meet champions of my business. I want them to send me business. CONTACT PEOPLE.
