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What’s the foundation of a successful real estate career? Is it networking, people skills, or marketing yourself to the point you are well-recognised and synonymous with your local market?
Yes, all of the above shape your career and help you establish yourself as the go-to expert in your local area.
However, if there’s one single foundation of long-term career success, it is quite simply your database.
All of the above activities feed into this essential cornerstone of career momentum. It is the point that you should organise your activities around and the base that you build your career upon.
Without a systematic, diligent and organised approach to your database, the networking, marketing and people skills you employ pack less of a punch.
They offer you a smaller return on your energy investment, and result in lost opportunities that mount up over time.
But how do you ensure that foundation is rock-solid? What do you need to do to establish it, maintain it and build upon that database for best effect?
Build it and they will come
It doesn’t matter what software or system you use, your database is the seminal tool that allows you to add contacts, track your interaction with them, and triggers you to communicate with these people when the time is right.
It should be simple to use and easy to refer to, allowing you to generate lists of people that you need to reach out to in your pursuit of being ‘font of mind’.
But creating a solid foundation database isn’t just about the system you employ, it’s how you then use and add to it that matters the most.
Does it excite you?
Sure, it’s easy to get excited when you secure your next listing, but are you equally excited about adding someone to your database?
Because you should be. Every time you add a name to that list, you are potentially embarking on a long-term relationship with someone who might well become your next seller or buyer.
That’s how you should see it. Someone has given you their name, their number and an insight into their needs. Adding them to your database is the opportunity to take that relationship to the next level.
Clean and pristine
While most agents understand having a database is critical, one of the most common mistakes they then make is failing to maintain it properly.
Like any tool, a database should be maintained and looked after. Its efficacy depends on how well it is looked after and how up-to-date it is.
Key to this maintenance is detailed notes and correct contact details for each person who is listed in it.
Worked and utilised
On that note, it’s important to remember, as a tool, your database needs to be used at the right time, in the right way.
Is each contact within it on a nurturing program where you reach out to them and communicate with them at the right time?
Examples include weekly or bi-monthly email communication, anniversary calls, SMS appraisal offers, monthly or quarterly market updates, phone calls when a nearby property has sold and so much more.
Nurtured and valued
Finally, do you know the value of your database, and do you nurture it accordingly?
What is the return of investment on this tool? As in, how many contacts do you have and of those approximately how many sell each year?
Most importantly, do you appreciate that each of those numbers represents a person?
Sometimes we can get so lost in the metrics of real estate, including the volume of contacts we create and the number of entries we add to our database, that we overlook the fact there is an individual behind that data.
Your database is a list of people with whom you have useful expertise to share.
Each contact is someone you can help and serve with information in the short-term, and then potentially assist in the future at one of the most important financial and emotional junctures of their life.
Building on a solid foundation
If your database is the foundation of a solid real estate career, what activities do you do, especially around new listings (yours and competitors) to meet future potential sellers and build on this foundation?
If your answer to this question is ‘ad-hoc’, then you really need to get serious about your database.
What if you, like many, haven’t given the attention to your database that this career foundation deserves? What do you do then?
The answer is best articulated by the Chinese proverb: “The best time to have planted a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is today.”
Building a database and adding to your sphere of influence is essential to remain relevant and have longevity in this industry.
And it’s never too late to start.
Manos Findikakis is the CEO of Agents’Agency.
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