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Adding Contacts to Your CRM – Part Two

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Just because your CRM’s contact screen has dozens of fields doesn’t mean you need to fill them all. That said, there are certain fields that you should always strive to complete in order to build a core database with actionable information. Rarely will you be able to get all the information at once, but you need to keep working at it until you do. Following are the fields that should be completed as soon as possible, and what you should put in them.

Without going into great detail, not having a name in every field can cause problems when doing searches, ordering names in a list, and other things you may end up doing. One of the secrets to having a good clean useful database is consistency and planning. What may now seem excessive may later become necessary.

A name in a database without an email address or phone number or address, is probably not worth having unless you know one of them is forthcoming. Always have at least one of them.

First name – Only put the first name of one person in the first name field. Do not put Bob and Karen. Karen goes into another field, which exists specifically for that person. Do not enter Mr. or Mrs. or anything else either. And this might sound obvious but it happens all the time. Always include a first name. If you do not have a first name, use the last name as both first and last until you get the first name.

Middle name – Only use the middle initial, but always use it if you can get it. It helps with duplicate names. It might be nice to have a middle name, but a full middle name can be problematic. More databases than not, do not have room for it. Most only allow for the middle initial. So if you are using a CRM that does have a field for the full middle name, but then you export that data to move to a different CRM that allows for only one letter, then you may have a mess to clean up.

Last name – Always put a name in the Last Name field. If you only have the First Name, put it in both the First Name and the Last Name fields until you get the last name. Another option is to put TBD (To Be Determined) in the Last Name field. Then, on occasion, you can easily look up everyone with TBD in the Last Name field, and work on getting those last names. Where you have to be careful is if you are doing any kind of email or regular mail that is pulling in their last name in a merge field. If that’s the case then you have to set it up such that you are able to easily remove the TBDs from the mailing.

Address – Whenever possible get a postal address regardless of what kind of contact it is. You never know when you might need it. If the City field has an auto fill feature, use it. Auto fill is a feature which allows you to key in the name of the city and it will remember it and retain it in a list. In the future, as you start to key in that city, it will complete it for you after the first few letters. It sounds trivial, but saving a few thousand key strokes over a year’s time adds up.

Company – If the person works for a company, take the time to put the company name in the company field. If it has auto fill, definitely use it. This is more important than the city field. The reason is that it is very easy and common to key in a company name differently from one time to the next. You might key in RE-ACT for one person, and   RE-ACT, LLC for the next person. The problem then becomes that if you do a search for everyone in your database who works at RE-ACT, LLC, the results can be incomplete.

Referral – Always put in the name of the person who referred this contact to you if that was the case. A good CRM can show you a referral tree of who referred whom. A really nice feature of a CRM is when it tracks a commission dollar value to each referee. Then you can see not only who that person referred to you, but how much money they made you by giving you those referrals. The big dollar referrers get more than a holiday card!

Source – If it was not a referral then you need to record the source from which they came, such as Homes and Land ad call. Note that you should not call it just an Ad Call. Be specific, because in a good CRM you can generate a report to show you where your business came from. This is the kind of thing people are talking about when they say that you need to run your business like a business. If you know exactly where your business is coming from, it allows you to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and where to continue to spend money, and where to stop or minimize it. Having a Source that only calls it an Ad Call does not tell you which media has been most successful for you in terms of ROI.

Mail Preference – When you meet someone and get their contact information, you should try to determine with which mode of communication they are most comfortable. When getting their email address, don’t ask them if they check it often or daily etc. That’s putting words in their mouth. Ask “How often do you check your email?”  If their answer is “Oh I check it at least once a month”, then postal mail is probably a better mode for them. If your CRM tracks it, you should note their communication preference. In some CRMs, that setting can automatically determine whether or not they get an email or a printed letter when something is sent to them in their follow-up campaign.

Date of initial communication – most CRMs have a field that displays when the contact record was created. Many also have a Date last modified field as well. Optimally your CRM should allow you to search the contacts based on those fields.

Notes – Whichever CRM you pick, make sure that it both date and time stamps your notes when you key them in. This comes in handy for many things including risk management down the road. Copious and accurate notes frequently stave off hours of wasted time and unnecessary finger pointing and posturing. It is absolutely amazing how quickly someone will defer to you when they become aware that you have an accurate point by point record of date and time stamped phone calls, notes, emails, and letters all at your fingertips. In the future if you have another transaction with them, they will remember. What will happen is that eventually you will get a reputation for being accurate and organized, and other agents will sometimes recommend your offer over others because they are confident that their transaction with you will go smoothly.

Follow-up reminder – If this new contact is a lead of any kind, you should have a reminder either to call or email them at some point in the future, or you should start a drip campaign for them.

This is the bare minimum of information you should have for people in your database. In the next and last part of this series we will discuss categories. This is where most people tend to make a mess, especially if they have been using them for a long time. With some basic rules and ideas, you can do much better.

Adding Contacts to Your CRM – Part 3 of 3

Adding contacts to your CRM – Some suggestions when adding contacts

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If you have everything on paper, start entering them according to the ideas suggested below. If you already have them in an electronic format, you have to import them. A common question is if you should clean them up in the old database first, or clean them up in the new one. By cleaning up, we mean getting rid of contacts when we do not know who they are, or filling in a last name on contacts that have none, etc. One difference that may affect that decision is that if you do it in the new one, you are learning the new one, so maybe that’s the better way to go. If you do it that way, but the existing database is such a mess that it creates problems with the import, then you have your answer. Just delete the trial import and clean it up before you import.

As soon as you get the new database in and cleaned up – BACKUP immediately, twice!

As you are adding your contacts, click around in the menus. Try right clicking everywhere and see if anything happens. Experiment! That is part of getting a new CRM. The more time you spend with it up front, the sooner you will feel comfortable and more efficient with it, and the more you will use it.

Add everyone – If you have to call, e-mail, or write to someone once, put them in your database. You never know when you may need it again. Text takes virtually no space on a computer. Taking up too much space is not a factor. Many people have the concern that they did not want to clutter up their database. Some agents want only the names of the people to whom they want to mail in their database. That thinking is probably a throwback to when we had all our names and addresses on a piece of paper that we used to copy onto a sheet of labels to do our mailings.

People will often say they do not want to have to sort through names they do not need. What sorting? You start keying the name of the person you want in the search box, and it comes up. If you have 50 names or 5,000, it is the exact same procedure and result.

After you use a CRM for a few years, if you put everybody in there, you will be amazed at how often you will not have to look someone up because they are already in there. In many markets there are hundreds of ancillary service companies. Title companies, loan originators, termite inspectors, home inspectors, etc. After a few years and a number of transactions, a great many of them will be in your database. When you add a new transaction, many times, many of the parties to the transaction will already be in there. If you need to call or e-mail someone, you will have his or her contact info already. It gets to be a tremendous time saver.

A little advice about what to put in some of the fields. Much of this may seem very basic, but you might surprised how often it is not done.

First name – Only put the first name of one person in the first name field. Do not put Bob and Karen. Karen goes into another field, which exists specifically for that person. Do not put Mr. or Mrs. or anything else in the first name field either. Always include a first name. If you do not have a first name, use the last name as both first and last until you get the first name. Why? Because sooner or later when you are creating a report or doing some kind of look-up, it will matter. And if you ever create an a template e-mail or letter and decide to use “Dear first_name” as an opening merge field, it will be blank. It’s better to have their last name there than a blank.

Middle name – Only use the middle initial, but always use it if you have it. It helps with duplicate names. It would be great to always have one of course, but a full middle name can be problematic. More databases than not do not have room for a full middle name. Most only allow for the middle initial, and sometimes two or three letters. So if you are using a CRM that does have a field for the full middle name, but then you export that data to move to one that allows for only two letters, then you can have a mess to clean up.

Last name – Always put a name in the last name field. If you only have the first name, put the first name in both the First name and the Last name fields until you get the last name. Another option is to put TBD (to be determined) in the last name field. Then, on occasion, you can easily call up everyone with TBD in the last name field, and work on getting those last names. Without going into great detail, not having a name in every field can cause problems when doing searches, ordering names in a list, and other things you may end up doing.

E-mail address or phone number – A name in a database without an e-mail address or phone number or at the very least an address, is probably not worth having unless you are certain one of them is forthcoming. And if it is, create a task to remind you to make sure you got it. Always have at least one of them.

Address – Whenever possible get a postal address regardless of what kind of contact it is. If the City field has an auto fill feature, use it. Auto fill is where you can key in the name of the city and it will remember it and retain a list. In the future, as you start to key in that city, it will complete it for you after the first few letters. It sounds trivial, but saving a few thousand key strokes over a years time adds up.

Company – If the person works for a company, take the time to put the company name in the company field. If it has auto fill, definitely use it. This is more important the city field. The reason is that it is very easy and common to key in a company name differently from one time to the next. You might key in RE-ACT for one person, and RE-ACT, LLC. for the next person. The problem then becomes that if you do a search for everyone in your database who works for a given company, the results can be wrong.

Category – Always put a contact in a category such as Buyer Prospect, Seller Prospect, Appraiser, etc. and always put some kind of note in there on them if possible. The goal is to always have something in the contact record that will jog your memory about them. You would be surprised at how little it takes to remember someone you have spoken with, even years later, if you have them categorized and have a sentence or two about your conversation with good keywords.

Different CRMs call them different things. Categories, Contact Types, Classifications, or maybe Groups. It is a field that identifies what that person is to you. Buyer-Past, Seller-Active, Gold Partner, Title Rep, Mortgage Processor, etc. For you to truly interact with your database in an expedient and accurate and profitable manner, being able to categorize your contacts is at the core of what you are trying to accomplish. The versatility here is critical. You should require that you at least have the ability to add as many categories as you choose, and that a contact can be included in as many categories as you need. Keep in mind though that you want to have an organized rational approach to adding categories. Think it out first before you start adding them haphazardly. If you are working in a team, there should be one person who is designated the Category Cop. That person is the only one permitted to add or delete categories, either on their own, or by committee review/agreement.

To get started, consider the following core categories:

  • Buyer Past
  • Buyer Active
  • Buyer Pending
  • Buyer Prospect
  • Seller Past
  • Seller Pending
  • Seller Active
  • Seller Prospect
  • Settled 20XX (XX = year /closed/settled).

Referral – Always put in the name of the person who referred this contact to you if that was the case. A good CRM can show you a referral tree of who referred whom. A really nice feature of a CRM is when it tracks a commission dollar value to each referee. Then you can see not only who that person referred to you, but how much money they made you by giving you those referrals.

Source – If it was not a referral then you need to record the source from which they came. Such as Homes and Land ad call (note that you should not just say ad call). Be specific because in a good CRM you can generate a report to show you where your business came from. This is the kind of thing people are talking about when they say that you need to run your business like a business.

If you know exactly where your business is coming from, it allows you to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and where to continue to spend money, and where to stop. Business people have an annual budget. You should generate a report that shows you how many transactions can be directly related to specific types of advertising. Now you can see that you spent $3,000 on Homes Magazine ads last year, but only earned $2,500 on one commission from a lead from it. The argument can be made that the $500 net cost to be in that magazine is a reasonable amount to maintain a presence in that magazine. But the fact is that you are now making that decision based on ROI and tangible information.

Mail Preference – When you meet someone and get their contact information, you should try to determine with which mode of communication they are most comfortable. When getting their e-mail address, do not ask them if they check it often or daily etc. Ask them how often they check it. Their answer will tell you if e-mail or postal mail is better. If your CRM tracks it, you should note their mail preference. In some CRMs, that can automatically determine whether or not they get an e-mail or a printed letter when something is sent to them in their follow-up campaign.

Date of initial communication – Whatever CRM you pick, make sure that it both date and time stamps your notes when you key them in. This comes in handy for many things including risk management down the road. Copious and accurate notes frequently stave off hours of wasted time and unnecessary finger pointing and posturing. It is absolutely amazing how quickly someone will defer to you when they become aware that you have an accurate point by point record of date and time stamped phone calls, notes, e-mails, and letters all at your fingertips. In the future if you have another transaction with them, they will remember. What will happen is that eventually you will get a reputation for being accurate and organized, and other agents will sometimes recommend your offer over others because they are confident that their transaction with you will go smoothly.

Follow-up reminder – If this new contact is a lead of any kind, you should have a reminder either to call or e-mail them at some point in the future. You should also have everyone in your sphere of influence receiving something on at least a monthly basis. There is no doubt that sending something that is clearly valuable information is the best thing to do. That said, if ti is taking too long to come up with that perfect follow-up piece, do something in the interim. If you stay in touch regularly with you SOI, you are one of a small percentage of agents who do, and you reap the rewards.

In summary, every effort should be made to insure every contact has information in the following fields:

  • First name
  • Middle initial
  • Last name
  • Postal address
  • Company
  • E-mail address
  • Phone number
  • Web site address
  • Note about initial conversation or communication with the date of that communication if other than e-mail
  • Category
  • Referral person or source
  • E-mail or postal mail preference
  • Calendar item for next contact – at least one if not a plan

People often ask “What does a CRM do?” This article covers one aspect of the answer to that question. There are many others. If used correctly, eventually your CRM will be the hub of your business, and it will be a much more efficient and organized business.

Remember, not everyone thinks they need a CRM. But if you want to grow your business, while having more of a life, with less stress, with less mistakes, with better service, with less staff, with more compliments, with more referrals, then you do.

CRM Best Practices – The “Name” field

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It may sound trivial but it is absolutely not. You should always, without exception, have both a first name and last name in every contact. When you have it, use a middle initial too, to distinguish between two people with the same name.

If all you have is the first name of John, and you have no last name, you should just put John, or maybe TBD (To Be Determined) in the last name field too.  This enables you to order your contacts by last name, and see for whom you need a last name.

Why? If you do not, you will eventually end up with a long string of contacts in your database with only first names when you order your database by last name. If you ever transfer your database to another one, it ends up being a mess. If you ever do a mailing or e-mailing which requires both the first and the last name it looks very unprofessional and “canned”.

Many people have a company as a contact and only have a first name. Again, put something in the last name field too, even if it is just repeating the first name field. Best practice – First Name = ABC, Last Name = Title Company.