This past year I was introduced to the book Millionaire Real Estate Agent put together by the Keller Williams University. Now, I’m not in real estate, but my business coach h
One of the areas that surprised me, yet made a lot of sense, was how they teach agents to work their database. We all have a stack of business cards collecting dust on our desk. And, many of us continue to ask ourselves what to do with them. We hate to throw out the business card. After all, that person we met last week could need our services in the future. Or better yet, that person may know someone that needs our services today. The key lies in having a system and using the system consistently.
For more information on the KW system, read Keller Williams publication MREA: Systematizing Lead Generation.
I particularly like their database system for people that they’ve met (as opposed to names on a list that they’ve not met). The emphasis is on building a relationship as quickly as possible with someone after meeting them. KW refers to this as the 8 x 8 system. It basically means that you will have 8 points of contact with the person within 8 weeks on meeting them.
These 8 points could be a phone call, follow-up email, drop-by, hand written note, article or white paper of interest, or any other point of contact that creates value. You are not trying to “sell” here. You want to become someone they consider valuable in knowing.
After the contact passes through the 8 x 8 system, they are added to the 33 Touch system, which refers to 33 points of contact per year. Now, this is the area that surprised me. I thought they were crazy to suggest that I contact someone 33 times a year. Who has time to contact each person in their database 33 times a year?
Here’s where the system needs to come in. When you start to break down the 33 points of contact, you realize it’s very doable. As an example, you may send a monthly email newsletter (12), drop off something of value at their office (2), call them to check-in (2), invite them to connect on LinkedIn (1), send a thank you or thinking of you card (7), send a birthday or holiday greeting (4), invite them to an open house (1), meet for coffee (2), send them a lead or referral (2). Before you know it, you’ve contacted them 33 times throughout the year.
After all of this, you are most certainly remaining “top of mind” for your contacts and if you’ve truly given them value (and not pushed the sale) they will continue to be valuable connections for you. They will bless you with business, repeat business, and referral business for years to come.
If you like the idea of this system, but don’t know where to begin, schedule a free consultation call with us. We will work with you to build a database and lead generation system that works for you and your business.
I’d enjoy hearing of some of the unique ways you “touch” your contacts throughout the year. Please share your ideas and tips.
This is a really interesting concept that can be used online and offline to build relationships, and we all know how important relationships are for business!
Hi Cathy,
This is precious information. Having been in the real estate business for nearly 20 years, this comes as something new to me because I was in property management and had no need to do networking to build business.
But this is tremendously useful information to me as a speaker and author and I really appreciate how simple and precise you were able to break it down into bite-sized bits.
Thank you for this great information. It will really help to automate my networking efforts in the future.
What an amazing system Cathy. Thanks for sharing it with us. I was surprised by the number 33 as well, but when broken down as you showed, it really did make sense. How has this system helped out in your business success? Cheers.
Edward, we’ve just started implementing it here in the last 3 months. However, even in that short amount of time we can track that our sales are up as a result of reaching out to our contacts to say “hello”. Referral business has been incredible. When doing any sort of marketing, you need to remember that the power is not really in who you know, but in who your contact know.
I was just talking with my husband about this today. He is in the financial industry and currently implementing a follow up system to better keep in touch with clients. They have recently had some previous or inactive clients contact them about new products available and I suggested they use their database including inactive people to add to their follow up program. I also am working on a better follow up program as I have lacked in this area.
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