10 Tips To Double Your Business In 2010: Tip 2

Today’s tip is to write out your hot and warm lists, attach commission dollars to them and keep it with you at all times. 

If you haven’t been doing this up until now, you might feel as though you don’t have anyone to put on this list, trust me, you do.  Just for review here are the definitions of a hot and warm list:

~ Hot List is anyone that you are currently working with.  Active Sellers and Buyers, clients currently in escrow and anyone that you know will be coming on line in the next 30 days.
~ Warm List is anyone else that you want to make sure you keep on your radar.  I have my warm list divided into 2 categories.  The first one is people 30 – 120 days out, so people that will definitely be doing something sooner versus later, but just are not ready quite yet.  The second group is everyone else.  These might be people I met at a party that have expressed an interest in buying or selling in the next few months.  Clients that would be good candidates for purchasing an investment property.  Someone I know is working on a job promotion that might take them out of state, etc.

So where do you get the names to go on this list?  The hot list is pretty easy.  For the warm list, take half an hour and go through each name in your database and think about weather they might have any change going on in their lives.  Did they just have a baby / did the kids just graduate high school and move out / are they living above their means, or below their means.  You get the picture.  The first time you do this, put everyone on there that you can possibly think of, don’t spend too much time thinking about weather or not they will actually do something.  Once you get people on your radar, it is amazing what can happen.

Now that you have a list, assign a dollar amount to the volume of transactions they will likely do and the commission dollars you will receive.  This part is usually a huge eye opener for people because you realize there is a tremendous amount of money sitting right there in front of you.  I think the first time that I did this I had close to $500,000 sitting there of potential income.  I keep my hot and warm list in an excel spreadsheet so that I can constantly track and update where I am with my clients and how I am doing with moving people through to a closed transaction.  (This is when I wish I was more of a ‘techie’ because then I could make the funnel word blue so that you could click on it and a sample funnel would show up.   Since that is beyond my skill set at the moment, just send me an email at nicole@theninjamoms.com or post a comment here and I will be more than happy to send you a copy.)

The next step is to review this list every Monday.  It will create your action plan for the week.  Each Monday I review my hot and warm list and ask myself ‘what can I do this week to either deepen the relationship with that client or move them through the process’.  By focusing on each person you will find infinite ways to serve them better at their agent and be sure that you are not letting clients slip through the cracks.  I also carry a print out of this list with me where every I go.  Then if I have some down time between meetings or find myself wondering what to do next with my day, I pull out the list and find someone to call and connect with in order to help move them through the process.

Have some fun with this. You might be pleasantly surprised to find out that you are busier than you think.