Commercial Real Estate Brokers – Spring Clean Your Database for Better Results

In commercial real estate brokerage your database can get too large or quite redundant if you do not clean out the old information and time wasting people that do not have any value to you.  The message is that you should ‘flush out’ your database regularly to keep contact information clean and accurate.  A poor quality contact list can waste a lot of your time.

It is better to have a small and accurate database than it is to have a large inaccurate list of people that are unlikely to do business with you (or even remember you).

Quality and not size matters

Don’t waste your efforts on keeping a large inaccurate contact list; bring things up to date and get rid of the redundant information.  When you bring your list up to date, keep it that way and extract the leads and business opportunities from it.

Have you got a stale contact list?

So how do you fix this problem?  You start calling all of the people in the list and you ask questions to see if they have any current or future interest in the property industry.  Every day you make more calls.  From that point you can make your choices about dropping people, keeping them, or upgrading them in your contact processes.

Here are some observations about CRM systems and database management in our industry:

• People change – The contact details for all of the people that you know will shift over time. At a bare minimum you need email details, mobile telephone numbers, and contact addresses.  All of those things should be accurate.  From that point you should be tracking the facts and conversations that you did have the last time you spoke to individuals.  When you can show that you remember the facts, the client or prospect respects you and your efforts in the contact process.
• Property needs shift – How have property needs changed for the people that you interact with? Are they looking at certain property types or locations for their next property need?  Understand the facts so you can help them with the next property sale, purchase or rental.
• Some business segments are more active through the year – When you look at your town or city there will be dominant property segments that are generally more active or are perhaps heading that way. Assess the best segments of property activity that you should focus on within your database.

So the message here is clear.  You can undertake an upgrade of your database so you can help the right people in a timely way.  Isn’t that what commercial real estate brokerage is all about?