Your real estate database can and should form the core of your business. Using either Top Producer, Prep Prospecting or Online Agent, you can run your business like a business, maximize your income and minimize the time you spend working.

Each of these "Big Three" databases does essentially the same tasks, and each has more features than the typical agent will ever use. There are, however, four elements of each database that, if used religiously, will bring you unparalleled success.

Follow-up Or “Action” Plans

This feature is one of the two main keys to success in real estate. You simply build a day-by-day plan to follow up on certain types of prospects: fsbo's, open house prospects, Web inquiries, etc. You might, for example, enter a task such as sending a postcard on Day #1, calling the prospect to see if he or she received the postcard on Day #4, sending them a thank you note after your call also on Day #4 and so on. Once you have constructed and saved a particular plan, you can instantly attach it to a similar prospect, and each task shows up in your daily calendar on the correct day.

Action plans should form the heart and soul of your prospecting and follow-up efforts. Can you earn a good living without depending on technology for this part of your business? Many do, but they find themselves working far too hard for the money they make, since they have to “reinvent the wheel” each time they work similar prospects or follow-up on listings or transactions. Their follow-up becomes a time-consuming burden as they try to remember each of the multitude of details involved.

Contact Labels

As you enter someone into your database, you can add an unlimited number of "contact labels" to that person’s record: buyer, motivated buyer, transferee, local agent, agent from the RS 206 in Denver, 115 Orange Grove Road open house visitor, family, lawn care company, etc. The use of contact labels allows you to save a tremendous amount of time as you conduct effective target marketing, since you can pull up specific groups by entering a contact label category. It takes two seconds to pull up the group. You can then mail or call the members of that group.

Again, there are certainly agents who don’t use this feature, but they tend to be the agents who work seven days a week, since working without this technology assist results in a lot more work.

Birthdays And Anniversaries

Would you make more money if you remembered the birthdays, wedding anniversaries and home purchase anniversaries of everyone in your Sphere of Influence? Certainly! Based on the surveys I have conducted during my nationwide seminars, however, most agents don’t. Why not? Because they do not have a system for doing so. Your database has a built-in system for this important activity.

If you do nothing else but enter prospects' birthdays and anniversaries into your database (and call or send a card on the appropriate date), your income will increase dramatically. Any date entered pops up automatically in your daily schedule year after year, and you've improved the "high touch" aspect of your business. This is just one example of the “little things” that your database loves to do but which get lost in the shuffle of everyday business if we try to do it based on memory alone.

Letters, Postcards And E-mails

Each database comes with a selection of form letters, postcards and e-mails. Each item can be sent to an individual with only a few clicks of a mouse or can take the form of a personalized mass mailing. Take the time to revise them (in order to make them “you”), save the revisions, then use them to make money and save an enormous amount of time!

As mentioned, a real estate database can form the core of your business. If you are not using any one of the four features mentioned above, take the time to learn the feature and then use it daily. Doing so will result in your making more money in less time…and in your ability to “get a life” through an organized real estate practice.