Michael Hellickson was asked by Top Producer Systems to create a 6-part series of the most important aspects of real estate. In this, part 4 of 6, Coach Michael explains referrals, and how YOU can implement the systems needed in your business to virtually compel past clients and people in your sphere of influence to search for and send you the contact information of everyone they can find with even a moderate interest in buying or selling a home.

All of these actions are great ways to get referrals, but you need to be consistent in your efforts, or they won’t work as well as they should.

If you are doing a monthly newsletter (if you haven’t done so already, check out our blog Perfect Real Estate Client Newsletter), you want to have a published edition every single month, otherwise your clients will notice that you have stopped! In some cases, they may even think you stopped sending it to them on purpose.

Building relationships over a long period of time, will naturally make your referral business grow.

Client Events

Client events are a fantastic way to spend your time, effort, energy and money! Check out our blog on Client Appreciation Event Marketing.

Client events are great for showing past clients that you remember them and you appreciate them. After you have an event, people start to tell their friends and family about you and your event and eventually (especially when combined with the other strategies discussed in this blog) that turns in to referrals.

When planning your client event, use our checklist with 14 Points of Contact. (Check out the download on this page for the full checklist!) When you follow this checklist, you are very likely to have great success come out of your client event.

Each of these referral systems, is a system INSIDE of a system.

Even writing a personal note has a system for success! You’ll want a broad-tipped blue ink pen, write between 3-5 lines with a unique close. DON’T FORGET to date the card with the time and location of where you were when you wrote it.

When someone sends me a referral…

CALL THEM! When someone sends you a referral (check out our blog, 10 Things to do When You Receive a Referral for a full step-by-step breakdown), call them and personally thank them.

You should also be sending a handwritten personal note with a gift card or gift to reward the act of sending a referral. (It’s their job to send you the referral and YOUR job to get the referral to do business with you!)

Grab the download on this page for a full list of Club Wealth VETTED companies we’ve used for gifts for our clients!

You will also want to make sure you add the person who was referred to you to your newsletter. Add their name to the “Friends Referring Friends” section. Give credit to both the person doing the referring and the person being referred.

How to keep track of your referrals

The best way to keep track of your referrals, and your clients in general, is by utilizing the right CRM (Client Relationship Management) system. You’ll need to know who is in your database, so you can build, sort and qualify that database.

Every single day (5 days a week) you should be adding at least 5 new people from all different referral avenues. Sort by buyers, sellers, how soon they’ll be buying or selling (30, 60, 90 + days).

Now you can sort your clients in to categories.

A+ Client – Done multiple transactions or referrals or a combination of both

A Client – Done business with you or sent you a referral

B Client – Probably would do business with you or send a referral, if you taught them how and reminded them

C Client – Everyone that comes in to your database

D Client – Knuckleheads / Someone you don’t want to do business with again

With your sorted database, you will want to take a more aggressive approach towards following up with your A+ and A clients, as well as your B clients. Spend the most money, time, effort, and energy where you get the highest return.

A great database that works well for this is, Top Producer. Real Estate Coach Michael Hellickson used Top Producer for over 15 years, and he grew from the “Lone Ranger”, to a world class team with over 44 people listing and selling over 100 homes per month!!

Stay tuned for the next edition in our Top Producer Success Series where we will be discussing the Perfect Daily Schedule!

As our way of saying thank you for taking the time to read this blog, we invite you to a FREE 55 minute NO PITCH one on one coaching call with a Club Wealth coach! Request Strategy Session!