Your real estate business collects a ton of data over a long period of time. The problem is that so many business owners don’t have control over their databases. That means they’re not making the most effective use of the data they have. The end result? Missed opportunities to engage potential clients, which means you’re making fewer sales. I’m going to look at a few ways for you to take back control of your database. But first, let’s look at some of the reasons why you need to do it in the first place.

 

It’s all about creating discipline and control within your business.

When you clean up your database, you’re taking control of your cash flow. That means you’re mitigating the impact that the market can have on your business. That means you’re able to predict the future of your business and create the frameworks needed to get to that future. But beyond that, taking control of your database means you can build the business that you’ve always wanted. More control also means you’re protected when a team member leaves. You’re able to just pipe somebody else into the role because you know that you have a clean database. That’s because it’s much easier to train a new team member when you’re not grappling with inaccurate data.

Finally, there’s the monetary side of things.

A while back, I did a little exercise with one of my mentoring clients. We spread that exercise out over the course of six months and discovered some amazing facts. Lack of control over the database had cost the business $1.5 million in that six-month period in lost opportunities. They had all of the data. They knew where their customers lived and how to get in touch with them. However, they weren’t leveraging that data to maintain contact with these customers. As a result, they never knew when the customer wanted to sell, which meant they missed out on potential transactions.

Maybe you’re in the same position. That means it’s time to take back control of your database. These are the steps you need to take.

 

I love reading Sir Alex Ferguson’s books. He’s one of the greatest soccer coaches in history. I’ve found that he was such an effective coach because he could sell his ideas to his team. His players believed in what he said and he was an expert at communicating why his ideas would work. You need to become the Alex Ferguson of your business when it comes to taking control of your database. That means you need to be able to help your people understand why this is so important. That means they’ll feel motivated enough to go along with the changes when you implement them.

With your team onside, it’s time to set up the reports you’ll use to leverage your data. Your weekly report is the first of these. This report tracks all of the clean data in your business that you can actually leverage to make sales. You’re also going to track your 90-day call rates. If someone in your business talks to somebody in your database, you need to track it with this report. Do it every Monday and make it a consistent part of your business.

Your appraisal to list ratio tells a large story about your business and not what you have been working on all these years. Now, most real estate business owners think that they want to see a high number here. However, you want to see a number of somewhere between 10% and 15%. That tells you that the office has a core focus on building relationships with the people in the database. When the rate starts getting into the 50%+ range, that tells me that there’s no focus on data. This rate suggests that you’re only looking at what you can list today. You are not paying enough attention to your database or nurturing the relationships you have with your clients.

Remember that your goal is to stop working in the business so that you can spend more time working on it. The first five steps are all about creating the processes needed to control your database. However, you don’t want to be the person who’s responsible for creating reports on an ongoing basis. It’s your responsibility to look at those reports and decide on a course of action. That means you’ve got to assign somebody to do all of this for you once you have it set up. Train them, explain why the reports are so important, and then use what they produce to make key decisions.

There are so many real estate business owners out there who don’t control their data. They may have a lot of it. But they don’t really understand what it’s telling them. And that means that they can’t take the actions that allow them to scale their businesses. Instead, they’re losing money because they’re missing opportunities, just like the client who lost  $1.5 million. Use this framework to take control of your business today.