The way you stay in touch with your database decides whether people feel served or sold, and the difference is simpler than most agents think.
Every agent knows the hesitation before dialing a number in their database. Am I adding value here, or just reminding this person I exist? It’s a fair worry, because people are busier than ever and nobody wants to be the call that gets screened.
But staying in touch with your sphere of influence doesn’t have to feel like an imposition. Done right, it’s the opposite, and the difference comes down to who the conversation is really about.
Lead with value, not visibility. When someone picks up, the worst thing you can do is call just to be seen. We always open with a real question: what kind of real estate questions do you have right now? If they don’t have any, we point them to something useful, like our radio show, which we’ve been doing for over 13 years. The point isn’t the pitch; it’s that every touch leaves them with something. And value doesn’t have to mean real estate at all. The best agents act like advisors, reminding people they have a whole network of resources to share, plenty of it, with nothing to do with a house.
Make it about them, not your agenda. People don’t get annoyed by frequency nearly as much as by irrelevance. There’s a tactful way to stay in communication, and it starts by steering the conversation toward what matters to them. When people feel seen and heard, the frequency takes care of itself. It’s a big reason we lean on client events, too, because whether or not someone can make it, something lands just by being invited.
Use the channel they prefer, not the one that’s easy for you. The easiest channel for you is rarely the right one. For many people, the preferred format is video, because given the choice between a quick clip, reading something, or a text, most of us click the video every time. It cuts the other way too, since not everyone is tech-savvy. We sat down with two clients recently, both 80 and up, and their top three were talk radio, a direct phone call, and their absolute favorite, a personal visit where we just listen to their stories.
The best follow-up has no agenda. It’s just a genuine I was thinking about you.
The best follow-up doesn’t feel like follow-up. Ask us what natural, non-pushy outreach looks like, and the answer is almost boring: a check-in with no agenda. Just a genuine “I was thinking about you.” If you see on social media that a friend or client had a big life event, reach out and congratulate them, by call or text, for no reason other than that you noticed. You want to get the pushy out of your conversation. We’ll say it again, because it matters: get the pushy out. Call them and don’t talk about real estate. Just talk about them.
Sometimes a visit teaches you something you never expected. We recently spent a couple of hours with George, one of our favorite clients in Kailua, and came away having learned that he races pigeons. Not the scruffy ones downtown with a missing toe, but gorgeous, soft, aerodynamic birds, with a whole world of racing clubs across the country that neither of us knew existed. That’s what happens when you show up for your people and actually listen. They feel the difference between an agent working an angle and a person who genuinely cares.
This is bigger than real estate, and that’s the point. More and more people feel lonely these days. At a convention once, an agent told us he built his whole business calling people to wish them a happy birthday, and clients would sometimes say he was the only one who called that day, that even their own family hadn’t.
As a Realtor who checks in, you might be the bit of sunshine in someone’s day, over something that has nothing to do with a transaction. Stay in touch like that, and the business takes care of itself.
If you’d like to talk through how we build these relationships, reach out anytime. Call or text us at 808-799-9596, email us at [email protected], or visit teamlally.com. We’d love to connect.