Reposted with permission from Matt Bonelli.

Your contact database is the central nervous system of your business. Keeping it organized is essential for managing how you attract opportunities.

You are in a people-based business, and if you don’t know about your people, how can you expect to provide them with the best possible service?

Watch the video above for full details — but essentially, this is how it breaks down:

First, make sure all of your contacts are maintained in one central location. This could be Google, iCloud or a CRM (customer relationship management) tool.

Once centralized, you will want to maintain three basic categories:

  1. Broad database: People you know and who know you.
  2. Sphere of influence (SOI): People you are comfortable speaking with on a monthly basis.
  3. Raving fans: People who think of you whenever they think of real estate and are always trying to send you referrals.

Next, create two lists; a hot list and a warm list.

  • Hot list – People who have told you they are looking to buy and/or sell real estate. No matter what their time frame, they need your services, and you should be keeping them top-of-mind.
  • Warm list – People who you think will have a need to buy and/or sell real estate within the near future. Go through your database, and ask yourself, “who is experiencing a life change?” Put those people on the list.

Print these lists out to carry with you, or have it easily accessible on your mobile device. Look at them and think about these people daily, and update the lists once a week. Remember, most people move to a new home based on life changes.

You can certainly add more groups and filters from here. Good examples would be clients whom you have done business with and location filters. Location-based lists will help make localized marketing campaigns much easier to implement and ultimately less expensive.

So as you crank up your business in 2017 remember to keep your central nervous system healthy with good and simple organization!

Matt Bonelli is a manager and broker associate for Turpin Realtors’ Chatham office in Chatham, New Jersey. You can follow him on Twitter or learn more about him on LinkedIn.

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