Do Your Agents Have Enough Contacts in Their CRM Sphere?

By Maddie Jostol, Marketing Manager

As seen in Mile 62 eMagazine. 

Agents rely on their brokerage for coaching and guidance. Your brokerage tools and resources directly contribute to their success and are what make them feel like their career is supported. As you and your managers coach agents on the importance of a CRM and how they should best utilize such a system, guidance has to be specific. The first step to using any CRM is to get your database of contacts cleaned up and uploaded. So, how many contacts should they have in there?

Simply put, the bigger your sphere of influence, the more people within your sphere who will be buying or selling a home. Growing their sphere of influence is vital for growing a sustainable business. For agents, growing a real estate career means growing your sphere of influence. It’s all about making connections and being known in your area as the trusted, go-to person for real estate. Leads are getting scarce as the competitive market continues to heat up. Agents need a sustainable book of business filled with opportunities for repeat and referral business. So, when it comes to contacts in your CRM, how many is enough?

Historically an agents’ database was a list of contacts kept in their phone. Those days are long gone. While this is a fantastic start, an agent’s book of business requires and deserves more care than that. Those contacts should be synced with a system that enables the agent to truly engage with those people as well as organize and grow their business.

Having contacts organized and loaded into a CRM enables agents to truly nurture those contacts. They can automate touchpoints to stay top of mind, segment their database as necessary, and keep track of conversations they’ve had and the history of their relationship with each person.

So, what’s the magic number? We recommend agents have a bare minimum of 100 contacts in their CRM. Once you hit 100, your sphere likely extends past close friends and family to include contacts you can market to and generate leads from. It’s a large enough pool to ensure growth, with people who are not only part of your closest spheres, but have their own groups of friends and acquaintances to refer you to. You sphere is constantly expanding – as people in your sphere communicate with their own sphere, your reach increases.

We recently looked at user data for our Moxi Engage CRM – focusing on users with at least 100 contacts, three or more sales flow conversions, and three or more contacts in an automated marketing programs. We found that these users typically close 31% more sides than users who aren’t leveraging the system in such a way.

At the heart of the sphere-selling methodology is relationships. Each person in an agent’s database represents a relationship that will contribute to their success. Referrals are the highest quality leads you can get other than repeat business. A strong sphere is the number one way to generate referral leads, as long as that database is well taken care of.