Do you keep your contact lists religiously up-to-date?
- Do you have every prospect in their proper place?
- Do you add every new contact?
- Do you move people from “prospects” to “past clients” when their transactions close?
If you keep your contact lists up to date, give yourself a gold star!
If you haven’t been keeping them up to date, then right now, when your activities outside of the house are limited, is a good time to get caught up.
It really is important. Your past clients, especially, can be your own personal gold mine of opportunity if you stay in contact with them. They’ll give you repeat business, and they’ll send both family and friends to you. On the other hand, if you forget about them – they’ll forget about you.
Be careful to move people from a prospects list to your past clients list once they close a transaction. I don’t know 
about you, but it annoys me when I’ve made a substantial purchase from a company and they keep writing, urging me to buy what I already bought. It makes me feel like they’re sloppy and then I doubt the quality of whatever I purchased.
Think how a listing client will feel if they’ve sold their home with you and you keep writing, urging them to list. Not good.
When looking at past client and sphere of influence lists, take care to change the postal address name and the “Dear ___” greeting if you know that someone has passed away. I mention it because I failed to do that once, and a lady called to yell at me about it. She instructed me in no uncertain terms that I should stop mailing to her deceased husband. And darn – this is a small town. I should have known that.
When you’re mailing to prospects, you also need separate lists, because it’s important to mail the correct information to the correct people. You really don’t, for example, want to send first time buyer information to a person who is downsizing – or upgrading to a dream home.
Once your contact lists are up to date – use them!
Reconnect with your past clients and your sphere. If it’s been a while, write a “time flies but I haven’t forgotten you” letter. Then let them know how the current crisis is affecting both your work and the local market. Tell them what you’re doing to adjust.
After that – start mailing or emailing regularly. Once a month should be the minimum for contacting people who can become both repeat clients and a rich source of referrals. If you don’t know what to say, use my Event-themed letters to remind them who you are without hitting them with a heavy sales message.
What about your prospects?
It’s safe to assume that at least some of your prospects aren’t interested in buying or selling right now – simply because of the personal contact involved. And of course, we don’t know from day to day if you’ll be allowed to go on listing or showing appointments. In some communities that’s already a “No.”
For the listing prospects, you can use my “COVID-19 – This too shall pass” letters or my Postcard-sized COVID letters.
For the buyer prospects you can offer to get them additional information on homes that interest them, let them know about new listings, and inform them of price reductions. If you have virtual tours, you can send them links.
Meanwhile, you can urge them to contact a lender and get pre-approved for a mortgage loan, so they’ll be ready to act when the time is right. Since this situation may drag on for a while, keep sending good advice. If you don’t know what to say, check my Nurturing Buyer Leads letter set.
OR – you can use the same event-themed letters to stay top-of-mind with them, so they’ll call you when it’s time to get moving.
Should you continue prospecting for new listings?
That all depends upon the situation in your community. If you can still show homes, then yes. Use my “This too shall end letters” along with your other prospecting letters – or write your own. You can also use your normal prospecting letters, but with a P.S. that explains how you can show homes right now, whether you’re using virtual tours, etc.
Remember that there will be a pent-up demand when the crisis is over.
It’s in your best interests to be the agent people think of when that day comes. So keep prospecting by mail and email. And since you have some extra time, call those prospects who have given you their phone numbers.
Back to your contact lists…
If you get all this done and still have some time on your hands, there’s something else you can do to impress people with your thoughtfulness.
Get on line or on the phone and discover people’s birth dates. Then set your system to alert you a few days before the birthday of each person on your contact lists.
As I see it, we all have a choice right now.
We can sit and feel sorry for ourselves, or we can keep working to make sure our businesses will thrive when the pandemic plays itself out.
Time to work image courtesy of stuart miles @ freedigitalphotos.net
Thinking of a house Image courtesy of iosphere at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
