9 Points To Maximize Your Real Estate Database

Welcome to another edition of Mike Ferry TV. My name is Tony Smith.

We are the week of August 28th. Can you believe how fast this year of 2023 is just cruising along for all of us? Boy, it sure goes fast. Question, What’s more valuable time or money? Everybody always says time. Are you taking strong control of your time? I sure hope so. Well, we’ve still got a lot of time left to do some phenomenal things this year, and I hope you’re in the mode of real momentum for yourself and your business. I hope you’re in that pathway. I want to talk to you about something really important today. And this is a little reminder for some of you, but it’s the time of year when we should really address some thoughts on maximizing your database.

“the majority of our best producers often get 30% … 50% of their business comes from their database”

Okay. Now, what we know in The Mike Ferry Organization is the majority of our best producers often get 30%, 35%, 40%, 45%, and 50% of their business comes from their database. So if you really consider that, your lifetime earnings in Real Estate will probably from a majority standpoint, a big portion of your lifetime earnings will come from the successful operation of your database, right? And we have to constantly be pressing ourselves on this. If we’re not in the mode of growing, maturing, operating, improving and perfecting the use of our database, we’re leaving a lot of money on the table. And I’m pretty sure you don’t want to do that.

Point 1: Understand and adopt the 10% Rule to boost your conversions

So here I want to have some little thoughts. The first thing I wrote down for you is to understand and adopt the 10% rule. Now, we’ve all heard this from Mike. Those of you who’ve been around us a lot have heard it. Some of you maybe haven’t. But we have a hard and fast rule in MFO that if you really want to maximize a database, understand the 10% rule. And here’s our ultimate goal. Basically, our mission in life when it comes to the database. Somehow, someway, get together a thousand people who know you as a Real Estate agent, my Real Estate agent, that somebody who knows who you are has a connection, not random names from a list, not throwing people that came from an open house, not collecting email addresses. Your job is to collect a thousand people who know you as their Real Estate agent. Now that’s a workout. I understand it.

1a. Stop throwing people in and out of your real estate client database

Have you made some mistakes in this in the past? Have you made the mistake of having to throw people in and then purge them out and then throw people in and purge them out? Let’s do it right the first time. Okay. But if we get a thousand people who really understand us as their Real Estate agent, then we look at the 10% rule. We believe that you can get 10% of that database to either do business with you or provide you with a referral every year. So 1000 times 10% equals 100 transactions. And for those 100 transactions, let’s say your average commission is $10,000. Ultimately, we want to see you get your database to a thousand people, 10% rule, 100 deals a year, making $1 million in revenue from your database alone. Now, doesn’t that sound great?

1b. Real Estate agents will ask … What if I don’t have 1000 people in my Database?

Now the question is, where are you on each of those numbers? We say get it to a thousand. How many do you have now? Let’s say you only have 300. Okay. What are some action steps, a couple of action steps that you’d like to apply to get it from 300 to 400 to 500 to 600? Right. What is your percentage? Let’s say you have 300 people and you’re only getting 2% of them to return business to you. What are some action steps to get it to 3%, 4%, 5% and 6%? Could you start providing more value, and communicate with them? Could you be a little more specific in the mail and email programs that you send out? Right.

1c. Are you following the 10% rule?

And then how much money are you making right now from your database? It’s clear to understand that for yourself. Are you right now, at this moment in your career, actively on the path to creating and producing the 10% rule from a database? I believe every agent can do this over a period of time. Is the 10% rule working for you?

Point 2: Communicate with them the way you’re supposed to (4x a year)

The second thing I made a note on communicate with them the way you’re supposed to. Communicate with them the way you’re supposed to. Our rules are pretty simple. You speak to everybody in the database four times a year. Well, here we are at the end of August, almost the first part of September. How many people in your database have not spoken to you or you haven’t spoken to them this year so far? How many of them have like right now, we should have called them one quarter to quarter. Three quarters. We should really be well into speaking to them three times so far this year. Have you spoken to them Three times? What hang-ups do you have about speaking to these people on a regular basis? Okay. We ask that you mail a simple postcard to them four times a year. Be honest. Are you effectively sending a simple postcard every quarter, quarter after quarter after quarter, or not? Okay. We ask maybe a simple email program. Maybe you’re emailing them every month. Once a month. Right. So are you following the background rules and then are you communicating with them just in the volume that you’re supposed to do? It’s pretty hard to get the 10% rule if you’re not talking to them.

Point 3: Bring value to every call

I made a note to bring value to every call. Now, this is a challenge for a lot of people. If the only message you have to bring to your database is the market’s hot. Who do you know that wants to buy or sell? The market’s hot. Who do you know that hears the market? Who do you know that’s not valued after a while? Right. You’ve got to understand that we’ve got to bring a lot more to the table than that. If we want to get the 10% return on this group.

Point 4: How to bring value to every call

I wrote down things like, Are you talking about their family trust? Is their estate set up? Are you talking about their insurance? Do they have the proper insurance coverage that they should have today? Are you talking to them about all of the vendors you have, that you have painters and handymen and roofers and termite and septic and lenders? Are you talking about all the service providers you have? Do you talk to them about the relocation? Do they know that you have a relocation network? If you do, you can find an agent for them anywhere in the country. Are you talking to them? Okay, Of course about the market conditions once in a while. Right. But if you really put your mind to it a little bit, you can come up with a lot of reasons and a lot of value that you can bring to this group. Are you taking any time to consider it at all or are you just grabbing the phone and starting the same old conversation? If we don’t bring value to the call, more and more of the calls, just go to email, go to database, go to voicemail. They just don’t convert. So are you bringing value?

Point 5: Learn to build a bridge from a present client to a past client 

I wrote this. You have to learn to build a strong bridge from a present client to a past client. One of the things we know is a lot of agents, they get a past client that they believe should go into their database and they just throw them into the database. And then three months later they call from the blue random. Hey, how are you? There was no bridge. So when you have somebody listed, you have this golden opportunity to build a strong bridge with this client. So they go into your database successfully. I recommend that you ask for referrals really strongly. At the point of listing, I recommend that you introduce referrals and have a strong conversation with them.

At the point that you put the transaction together, I recommend that you have a really strong conversation with them at the point that all the contingencies have been met, and then I recommend you have a strong conversation with them at the close of escrow. We always talk about contact at the day of close, three days after the close, one week after the close, one month after the close, and then every 90 days for the rest of their life. Do you ever send them a little letter and welcome them into the group? You might want to send them a little welcome package that says, Congratulations, you’re part of my past clients or my best customers list. We got to take a strong bridge and and successfully introduce them to the database. Are you doing that now?

5a. Energy and Enthusiasm

How about this note? Energy. Enthusiasm. I got to tell you, you know the right content, the right value, the right script, the right bringing the right tools to the call with no energy and enthusiasm just diminishes and reduces the call. I don’t know about you, but people don’t want to hear a lengthy, boring insurance seminar. Are you bringing the right energy and enthusiasm to the call?

5b. Are you mentioning their name on the call?

I made this note. Are you mentioning their name on the call? It’s very valuable. Everybody wants to hear their name. Are you saying thank you? Everybody wants to be appreciated. So are you thanking them for the loyalty, thanking them for the business that they refer to you? Right. If you don’t bring energy and enthusiasm, mention their name a lot and thank them. You’re missing a little piece there. Okay. Very important in the calls.

Point 6: Work to become their resource

I wrote, that you need to work to become their resource. Do these people think about if they have a problem with their house? Do they know that if something breaks in their house, the sprinkler is leaking, the window gets broken? Do they think call you or do they think go to the internet and look up somebody? If they want to know something about value, are they going to the online services, the places where you can find value, or are they calling you right? Do they see you as a resource? If they don’t see you as a resource, they’re going to go somewhere else. And if they go somewhere else, they’re going to get picked apart by your competitors, aren’t they? We’ve got to train them to do that.

Point 7: Let them know all the services you offer

I wrote down the number seven. Let them know of all the services you have to offer. You know, people don’t know you sold them a $500,000 house. They don’t know that you might represent $2 million properties that you represent land sales. They don’t know if you do represent commercial or properties. They don’t know these things. They probably don’t know that you have a good resource of agents around the country and the Mike Ferry Sales System to refer them to. They may not know that you have a vendor list. They may not know that you do free market analysis. Maybe they don’t know that you have a notary at the office. Do they know all the services you have to offer? If we want to really get the 10% rule, we should make sure that we’re introducing them to all the services. Does Mike Ferry do a good job of introducing you to all the services we have to offer? Of course, because you’re part of our database. Makes sense.

Point 8: Create mini-plans for database growth

How about this? Create mini-plans for growth. If we don’t create little mini-plans for growing our database, then there are times that we’ll recognize that it’ll just be stagnant for several months. Or we realize we add a lot of people and so we have to purge those people out because we’re not calling them. And then it went from 600 down to 400 and it stayed at 400 for two years. Well, it has to get to 1000. So if your goal is to get it to 1000, maybe you need to create some little mini-plans of how to get it there. Mike has said for years that there should be 100, 150 or your neighbors around your personal home that you should really work to establish a relationship. Do those people see you as their agent? You could work and create that.

You should always be working to expand the vendor list. We need plumbers. We need painters, we need architects. We need lenders. We need title and escrow. Are you spending some time expanding that database on purpose? Naturally, we need to have you working to expand the agent part of the database. Are you getting to our events? Are you communicating? Are you speaking to agents from markets that might feed your market? Little mini-plans to grow it. If we don’t create those, it might just stay stagnant for a few months at a time. It takes forever to grow it if you do that.

Point 9: Maximize your growth from your vendors

And then the last little note I made down today is a little thought for maximizing. You have to maximize the potential growth from your vendors. Okay. I have to tell you personally, this is a secret ingredient Right now. You have painters, plumbers, and architects who you pay money to. You have a relationship with them business-wise already. You pay them money. You hire them for their services. If you don’t maximize that you won’t be actively referring your clients to your plumber. And then when you refer clients to your plumber, if you don’t follow up with that plumber and say, “Hey, I just referred Becky to you about a plumbing problem, did she call you?” You have to maximize the vendor use. I believe that if you have 20 or 30 vendors, you could honestly get one referral each from those vendors every year if you maximize the exposure to them if you maximize the opportunity.

Okay, so these are some quick thoughts. Here we are in a spot, we’ve got a lot of time left this year. Wouldn’t it be great if you made a good, solid move on your database really improved it between now and the end of this year? I hope you do it. Thanks for your time.