Contact Ladder
Everybody in your database has a place. Here's the whole ladder.
Everybody Has a Rung
You’ve got a database full of contacts and you meet somebody new every single day. Where do they go? Here’s the whole ladder, top to bottom.
- Sphere of influence. Everybody new starts here. The soccer coach, the neighbor, the jazzercise teacher. It reminds me to reach out every 45 to 60 days, and it buys me time to decide if I even want to work with them.
- 8x8. The second I hear the pain-or-pleasure signal (“we’re pregnant,” “I got a new job”), they drop into an 8x8. Eight touches over eight weeks so they never forget I sell real estate. It worked in the Ninja study; it works for me.
- Client. Buyer, seller, or both. I run the whole deal, or as my dad said, till they buy or die. After they close, they stay in Closed for a year so I keep every touch on the calendar.
- Then they sort themselves by referrals. No referrals that year, they’re Network (I love them, I won’t spend on them). Refer me when asked, they’re a B, a fan. Four-plus referrals, they’re an Advocate, my dream clients, and those are the people I spend money on.
Everybody has a place, and everybody moves up or down based on what they do.
Your assignment this week: Pick five contacts and put them on the ladder. Sphere, 8x8, client, network, fan, advocate. Just start sorting.
Transcript
Where does this contact go? If you've ever asked that question while you're staring at your CRM, this class is for you. What's up? It's Kyle, and this is Tool Time.
For the last few weeks, we've been talking about Maya and how to use it to find a contact, add notes to a contact, or add reminders. And now we're going to zoom way, way out. We're going to talk about the contact ladder. So here's the theory.
You have a bunch of contacts in your database, and you meet somebody new every single day. What do you do with them? Here's what I did with them. Any new contact, my kid's soccer coach, the lady I met down the street, my jazzercise teacher, I'd put them into my sphere of influence.
And that's where they sit. And they sit in my sphere of influence for a little bit for a few reasons. One, because it reminds me to reach out and talk to them every 45 to 60 days. And two, it gives me a chance to decide whether I want to work with this person or not at all.
That's the magic of the sphere of influence. After they've gone through the sphere of influence, and I hear that pain or pleasure signal that, Hey, my wife's pregnant. Hey, I'm getting a new job. Whatever it is.
I immediately drop them into my eight by eight. You remember the eight by eight from Ninja, right? It's where this company reached out to 500 homeowners and said, who would you list with? And got like 470 different answers.
And then they did an eight by eight with an invented agent and an invented company. So over eight weeks, they sent one piece every single week. And then at the end of that eight weeks, they called that same 500 people and said, who would you list with? And around 60% said they list with the agent and the company that didn't exist.
So it worked for them. It's got to work for me. But the whole point is to make sure they don't forget that I'm a real estate agent and I'm working for them. After that, I move them into my client segment, buyer, seller, or buyer and seller, whatever.
And I go through the whole deal, or as my dad used to say, till they buy or die. And then after they close, I leave them there. And I leave them in closed for a year for two reasons. One, so that I can keep track of all the things I want to do with them.
All the touches, all the reach out and say, Hey, how you doing? Hey, time to come and see your house. Here's your closing statement, all that stuff. Now I've been doing this a long time.
I call it a settlement statement anyway, after that year or during that year, excuse me, I'm going to get referrals from this client and either I'm going to get a lot or I'm going to get a little, or I'm going to get none. And that determines where they go next. If I don't get any referrals, I put them in my network. And the reason I put them in my network is because these are people that I love and will do business with me again, but I don't really want to spend money on them.
So I'm not going to send them a bunch of postcards. I'm not gonna take them to dinner or that kind of thing. The second group are my fans, my bees. Now my bees are great.
They're the people who, if they're asked, they'll absolutely refer me every single time, but they're only going to do it if they're asked. So I put them in my bee category. If I get less than three referrals after that year, my four or more referrals, my superstars, my dream clients, the ones that I'm sure you all have a lot of, and I had one of, and it just happened to be my mom. Those are my advocates.
Those are the people I spend money on. I want to love on them constantly and never let them forget my name because they're my most favorite people because they're constantly growing my database. It's my belief that all the people that go into your database or that you count towards your database should be fans or advocates because those are the people who are working to grow your business. So that's the contact ladder.
Everybody has a place and everybody has a step up or step down depending on what they do or depending on what you do with them. So your assignment this week is to pick five contacts and organize them on the contact ladder, ABC or sphere of influence. Hope you have a great week.