I asked him what system he was using for contact management; Top Producer, Outlook or some other system? He pulls a stack of 3” x 5” index cards from his shirt pocket and his answer: “this one”. As I looked at the cards I saw paper clips, rubber bands and most were rather tattered. I needed to know his system, wanted to know how this gentleman was doing his contact management, I asked. He said, “These cards are divided up by current transactions, prospects, past clients and people I need to be a REALTOR®, like home inspectors, lenders and title companies.” Each section was held together by a rubber band and I asked him to explain how he used the prospects and past clients stack. He showed me the card, it had all the information needed about the person, family, dates, interest and so on. He explained when he contacted one of these people he took notes and moved the card to the back of the bundle after noting the date and anything new. I noticed some had paper clips holding more than one card, I had to ask and he said he talked to those people a lot. He told me as he had free time during the day and evening he’d just pulled the stack out, read the top card and called them.
With great respect, I asked if he was available to teach the class I was about to present! He did stick around but he left me with one giant lesson: It’s not the system, it’s not about the amount of money you spend, it’s the person and part of my theme was taking a lead or prospect to a higher, better relationship! Maybe 3 x 5 cards are the answer for some of you!
I will be discussing more on what to do with these contacts in future articles!